|
Threesomes: A User’s Guide
How to (really) manage a ménage a trois.
by Ky Henderson
Regardless, you should then be able to speak frankly about the realities of the situation. Make it clear that you find your partner attractive and that your desire isn’t a result of deficiencies in your relationship. Then be honest with yourself and with him about your capacity to not just endure, but to enjoy sharing each other with someone else.
“It is important for couples to talk about the fantasy, because each person may have a completely different picture of what the reality would look like,” says Dossie Easton, a San Francisco therapist and coauthor of The Ethical Slut. “By talking about it, you’ll find out if either of you have specific concerns about the idea.” Do the two of you desire a man or a woman? Will there be full-on sex with the other person? Does everyone have full access to everyone else’s … areas?
The answer for Janet* and her boyfriend Jack* was an emphatic no. “Neither of us wanted to be with another guy, and the idea of him watching me and another woman was hot—but the idea of me watching him and another woman was repulsive,” says Janet, a 25-year-old historian. “So the rules were that he could watch us, direct us, and do anything he wanted to me. He was quite happy with that.”
Making rules about what’s going to happen may seem like a spontaneity killer—but that’s better than turning the experience into a relationship killer. Besides, there’ll be space for spontaneity within the boundaries you set with both your partner and the third person, which should also include the measures you’ll take to protect everyone from STDs. (For instance, two women means two different condoms.)
“There’s no such thing as too much decision making beforehand,” says Jen Sincero, author of The Straight Girl’s Guide to Sleeping with Chicks. “You also need to make sure that both partners feel comfortable pulling the plug in the middle if things start feeling weird.”
   (3 votes, average: 2.33 out of 5) Loading ... |
Email to a Friend
Share on Facebook
Digg It
Delicious
Newsvine
Stumble
Reddit
1 Agile Cyborg // Jul 31, 2008 at 7:08 pm
‘“Neither of us wanted to be with another guy, and the idea of him watching me and another woman was hot—but the idea of me watching him and another woman was repulsive,” says Janet, a 25-year-old historian. “So the rules were that he could watch us, direct us, and do anything he wanted to me. He was quite happy with that.”‘
The 25-year-old repulsed historian has a skeletal grasp on turd man’s tool bag. Only a turd would be happy with this kind of crass inequity in a relationship.
This boyfriend appears to be a waif in training. Perhaps he needs to investigate what the term ‘reciprocity’ means because the trade here screams ‘total con’.
2 Johnson // Dec 31, 2007 at 2:30 pm
“Hollywood rarely depicts sex accurately”
Tell me about it. The article is about managing a threesome, but the photograph shows four people.
Phhhhhhhhht.
3 Anne // Feb 25, 2007 at 8:16 pm
For the most part, I liked this article and I found it to be quite openminded. But I was bothered by the suggestion that someone looking for a purely-sexual, (most likely) one-time-only hook-up should seek this within the polyamory community. There most certainly are poly folk who are interested in casual sex, but as a whole, this is not what polyamory is about. Polyamory is about having multiple romantic relationships, not just multiple sexual partners. A couple seeking a stranger for a threesome would do better to check out a local swingers group or even Craigslist.