Fridae

Editor's note: We remind all our readers to practice safer sex - especially with your fuck buddy (or buddies).

Unless you've been described by your kind best friend as "massively unattractive" even on your best day, chances are there will be a point (or many points) in your life that you would have had the pleasure of having a fuck buddy (or many fuck buddies).

In gay parlance, fuck buddies are your basic steady lays - with no strings attached. The genesis of all fuck buddy arrangements begins and ends with mutual physical attraction. In other words, you don't want to date your fuck buddy and you definitely don't want to marry them - but you don't want to have sex with them just once either.

Unfortunately, due to the slanderous tales let slip by cuckolded boyfriends who discover their partners' sexual infidelity, fuck buddies are about as popular as gay Jehovah Witnesses and Homo-Wreckers.

As much-maligned individuals (the poor dears!), fuck buddies have been accused of being emotionally stunted and insecure, of needing to use sex as a crutch to cultivate self-respect, of being too self-centered to care about relationships and so on.

What utter rubbish!

Fuck buddies are to gay men as mistresses and prostitutes are to heterosexual men - except that they do not demand payment and are nowhere as demanding - unless your fuck buddy is a gold-digging bossy bottom but I digress.

As someone who used to keep a harem of fuck buddies (the operative word here is "used to" - just in case my dear boyfriend is reading this), I would say that fuck buddies promise - and usually deliver - loads of fun!

(Note to readers: If your fuck buddies don't deliver, they're not fuck buddies, they're EX-fuck buddies - but enough of how I deal with non-performing fuck buddies).

Having a fuck buddy is the perfect solution for gay men who are commitment phobes. It allows them to enjoy sex as and when they want it (afterall sex is just a convenient phone call away) without the histrionics characteristic of most homo-to-homo relationships.

For the gay man who is already attached, a working fuck buddy arrangement provides an outlet for him to do things in the bedroom he normally wouldn't do with his boyfriend - especially if the latter does not share the former's penchant for public sex or craving for smelly sole sniffing.

Unfortunately, some gay men just fail to understand the dynamics of the fuck buddy relationship which, by nature, are seldom meant to last. Eventually, somebody either falls in love or loses interest and the fuck buddy arrangement will come to its inevitable end.

However, before the expiry date for your fuck buddy rears its head, here are some tips on how to cultivate and prolong your existing fuck buddy relationship and make it work:

Rule No. 1: Silence Is Golden
There's an old saying amongst streetwalkers that the secret to attaining the holy grail of mind-blowing and thigh-spreading sex is to be a whore in bed and be a mute outside it. This wise adage applies to fuck buddies as well - especially if one of them happens to be attached.

Fuck buddies should enter into a mutual agreement to play hide the salami in secret and observe the beauty of silence. If the fuck buddy relationship is not a secret - it won't last. Or to put it in another way: any gay man with loose lips will never a good fuck buddy make.

Rule No. 2: Familiarity Breeds Contempt
It's true what they say about how absence makes the cock grows harder. As a general rule, fuck buddies should not get together too often. A fuck buddy should never be the staple of any gay man's sexual diet - that role should be reserved for the unsuspecting boyfriend. Instead, the fuck buddy should be regarded more as a sexual treat.

Having said that, while it's true that gay men adore fuck buddy sex, once their sex schedules become more routine and regular, tedium sets in and any fuck buddy arrangement will find itself withering faster than a tulip in hell. And that, dear readers, is why there is no such thing as long-term fuck buddy arrangements.

Rule No. 3: Strictly Sex Please
Finally, repeat after me: "There is no life outside the bedroom (or car or public toilet or wherever it is you and fuck buddy meet to have your tryst)". You do not invest time and effort into cultivating fuck buddy relationships the way you do for romantic relationships. It just complicates matters and interferes with fucking (pardon my language).

Just remember, fuck buddies should not see or want to see each other for any reason other than sex. If your fuck buddy and you want to have dinner, then it's no longer a fuck buddy relationship - it's dating. And if your fuck buddy and you want to do platonic things together, then it's goodbye fuck buddy and hello friend!

Personally, when it comes to fuck buddies, I always insist that they leave - effective immediately - as soon as both of us have ejaculated. Leave the post-coital chats to annoying one-night stands with sleeping disorders and leave the after-sex cuddling and hugging to lovey-dovey lesbians.

Otherwise, once you and your fuck buddy have the dreaded "relationship talk," you will find your former fuck buddy relegated to someone you say "hi" and "bye" to faster than you can clap your hands and chant: "Begone! You have no power here!"

Do you have a fuck buddy (or more)? Click to poll.