By The Libertine

In an early episode of The L Word, Alice creates a chart showing how in any given community we are all connected in one way or another through sex. The focal point is promiscuous Shane, with lines connecting her circled name to names of women she had bedded. Lines connect those women to names of girls they slept with, and the chart expands beyond Alice’s computer screen, with inevitable intersections, creating a sexual web so dense that it is barely readable. 

I could completely relate to Alice’s chart, and was inspired to create my own version with myself in the middle. My chart is on a much smaller scale, but no less a spidery depiction of incest (for lack of a better word) among friends and acquaintances. The phenomenon is understandable and even expected in the LGBT community or small insular towns where fewer options create more possibilities of cross-sexual activity. But it’s surprising that so many straight, urban people get caught in the web, especially in New York City. Why, in a city of millions, does this happen? I mean, why get entrenched in the drama of sleeping with somebody who slept with your lover or ex or friend when you can sleep with a stranger who has no connection to your circle? 

I met Mike five years ago and we’ve been dating on and off since. Last summer, we broke up for the 17th time and this time was the most traumatic—and seemingly final. So when my friend Evan invited me to a sex party a month later, I accepted with unbridled enthusiasm. The fact that I had met Evan through Mike, and that they had known each other since college did not seem like a reason to resist an orgy, especially since Mike was seeing a mysterious woman he happened to meet through Trae, another mutual friend. 

Five months later, Mike and I are back together. Trae invited me to a sexy party and Mike was not thrilled about the prospect of me going. During our discussion about whether or not I should go, my affair with Evan was revealed. Mike was livid. “There are millions of people in New York. Why did you have to sleep with him?” I replied, “I didn’t feel like meeting new people. It’s a drag, starting from scratch. So I just went for people I already knew.”

The Convenience Factor

Sleeping with people in your posse, coterie, band or book club is convenient. You already know them. You trust them (at least you’d like to trust them). Trust is key to having a positive sexual experience. When you’re broken-hearted, waking up next to a familiar face is a dose of comfort. Sleeping with a stranger can exacerbate loneliness especially if you’ve gone out looking for some action with the desperate intention to fill a void.

I admit there was a touch of spite tingling through my orgiastic experiences with Evan. So, in the case of post-break-up incestuous-friend sex, revenge may be just as much a factor as an emotional connection. There is also the taboo factor, the thrill of possible discovery. Maury and Montel would lose 80 percent of their topics if

people weren’t turned on by the danger of sleeping with their best friend’s ex-girlfriend. The same mentality may explain why women prefer the cock of their chosen flock, and why a guy can’t seem to stop fantasizing about scoring his football buddy’s girlfriend or the possibility of his two bisexual female roommates getting it on.  

A fantasy, however, can go on for months without ever becoming reality, and usually does. The reality is that when inter-friend sex happens, it is usually unexpected, like the time I had a threesome with my roommate Zoie and her lover Matthew because she happened to invite him over for dinner and when I came home they offered me a taste of their steamed mussels. It also just so happens that I met Zoie through Mike, and Matthew happens to be friends with Trae. Zoie met Trae during a sexual encounter involving another woman, who is now a mutual friend… 

See what I mean? When these relations and encounters just, well, happen to happen, they seem to occur more often in New York than anywhere else. New Yorkers tend to be more ambitiously career-oriented—hence busier, and less pleasure driven. Matthew, who fits the description like a well-lubed condom, says, “It’s not that New Yorkers are too lazy to go out on dates: We like to have our cake and eat it too. Friends can provide that instant gratification.” 

Instant Gratification

Isn’t that what America’s all about? Dating takes time, planning and research. If you’re looking for a relationship, that’s one thing, but if you’re single and horny, a like-minded friend is just a few subway stops away. Hiring a prostitute or responding to Craigslist personals are options, but everyone knows these anonymous roads to pleasure are risky. Everyone who provided input for this article agrees that safety, both physical and emotional, is a major incentive for choosing to sleep with friends and acquaintances. 

Andrea Lavinthal, co-author of The Hookup Handbook, says, “NYC is so big it feels safer and more comfortable to stick to hooking up with people in your own circle. That eliminates the ‘scary random’ factor and makes it less risky.” Wayne Parillo, co-director of the NY indie film What Men Talk About, which examines why guys can still be friends after a liaison, has a slightly different take. “Moving outside your small clique is super scary because you might find that others don’t find you nearly as interesting as your friends do.” 

Evan sums it up as, “You know your friends don’t have AIDS, or aren’t nutcases, stalkers or slashers.”

Even if safety weren’t an issue, I bet people would still sleep with their friends. It’s biological. Bonobos, the primate species now considered to be more similar to humans than chimpanzees, frequently engage in non-reproductive sex in every partner combination with several members of a group. They have been observed to use sex in competitive situations, to diffuse tension and resolve conflict, although in human society, competition is more of motivation for sex than a means to egalitarianism. 

Zoie compares the drive for sexual conquest to how people behave in a high school clique or a corporation. Our instinct is to fight our way to the top of the group rather than go out into the unknown. In terms of sex, she also sees staying within one’s clique as “replacement for one-on-one intimacy.”

Yes, it’s easy to feel isolated in a diverse metropolis. And so we form cliques to establish a sense of belonging. But if urban tribalism is a reason to sleep with your friends, why is it so much more apparent in New York than, let’s say, Houston? 

“We’re just bolder - acting out what secretly most, say, conservative monogamists, would like to do,” says Matthew. “And the pool is more varied and experimental. I think it’s one of the unsaid reasons people move to this town.” Matthew told me he has had sex with nearly every one of his single female friends and he has maintained strong friendships with all of them. 

But I have a feeling he is glossing over the conflicts and jealousies that inevitably ensue from friend fucking. He and his friends may have been able to put the drama behind them, but many people may not be so forgiving. No matter how open and honest and communicative you are, there is always the risk of sex killing the friendship. And it doesn’t take a chart or a Manhattan address to realize that.