What's Love Got To Do With It Analysis

Friends with benefits are relationships where there is a sexual aspect, but the people involved still hold platonic feelings for the other. It is often the case that college students are the ones engaging with friends with benefits because when students leave their homes as well as move into dorms they are free to explore themselves. Through Williams O. Stephens piece, “What’s Love Got to Do with It: Epicureans and Friends with Benefits”, the author explains why college students should not engage in friends with benefits relationships. The author has been through college so he knows that this is a time of liberation for students, but he also acknowledges the freedom to make risky decisions during our college years. Specifically the friends …show more content…
Stephens argument is effective in persuading students to avoid friends with benefits relationships. The article is informative in the way it uses the Epicurean lifestyle to compare it to what students desire to achieve. This is important to read because we are not having conversations with our parents or guardians about whether we should participate in friends with benefits relationships. The author knows this so he provides us with his reasons for avoiding friends with benefits. His premises include the effects of sex on achieving Ataraxia, friends with benefits losing the friendship aspect of their relationship, and that friendship is what is actually necessary to live a life closer to Ataraxia. However, his premise talking about sex was too broad to be as effective as he hoped. The premise 3 creates an ultimatum that once you are with a friend with benefits you are guaranteed the consequences when the consequences exist regardless of label. This premise could have been better by explaining how students should not have excessive desires for sex. Overall the argument is productive to open the conversation about friends with benefits and provides a solution such as the Epicurean model in an effort to help