A wonderful friend told me that she and her husband are interested in looking for a person to have a threesome with. After saying “It won’t be me” she laughed and said, “I just want advice.”
I can do advice! And while I sit here in Texas with my second drink of the day I’m feeling very full of stuff I want to share. Hiccup.
Group sex is complicated. More brilliant people than me have written about it. When you have group sex you have three people all of whom have very different pictures in their heads of what “group sex” looks like. My personal experiences involve every gender combination of up to seven people. Because my life has been awesome.
First thing first: having a threesome as a couple adding a third person is the *worst* way to do it. Unfortunately if you are part of a couple your partner would probably object to being ditched while you go find two other single people for such an experience. When you have a couple adding a third person you have all those messy couple issues on top of the simple sex issues.
The reason I say this is the worst is that almost every threesome horror story I have ever heard started from that configuration. Almost every successful story I have heard involves three single people getting together for one night.
When you are in a couple you have to stop and think, “How will I react if my partner spends more time paying attention to the other person? How am I going to feel if it starts feeling like those two are having sex and I am the audience?” That can be a sucky feeling. Figuring out how to turn a seeming-new-dyad into something that includes a third person is fun but hard.
In my opinion threesomes (or moresomes) work out best if someone is specifically designated as running the fuck. You need to have someone who is consciously paying attention to who is playing with whom and for how long. You need to suggest activities if someone looks left out. “Oh Sue over there isn’t touching anyone! What should we do to her?” Then drag the group focus onto the wallflower. Some people like being a wallflower and if that is your dynamic–negotiate that in advance.
Threesomes have the potential to have mixed signals in terms of barrier protection. A long term married couple doesn’t want to use a condom together even though they MUST use barriers with an extra partner. So in my opinion the polite way to handle this is to default to the strictest set of rules for everyone. Otherwise it feels kind of awkward and weird.
And that hot guy you brought home may not want to deal with a cock covered in cunt juice. Maybe he isn’t into that part of girls very much. It happens.
My experience of the best threesomes have been all female or two male/one female. I am an insecure nitwit and I really struggled with two girl/one guy. I really completely bombed when I was part of the couple adding a girl. I couldn’t get over my insecurities. With two (mostly) heterosexual guys and me there can be many hours of fun though. Ha.
I hunted very successfully on www.okcupid.com and Craigslist. Yes, it takes patience and time to find the right people. There are a lot of people in the world. If you want casual sex you will have to get up the courage to ask a lot. You have to be completely ok with dozens or hundreds of people telling you no. If you can’t handle no then you just don’t get to have group sex this lifetime and get over it.
It really doesn’t matter if you are fat, ugly, or generally low in social status. What I have seen teaches me that pretty much anyone can find someone to say yes if they ask a lot.
If you are looking for a threesome, or really any casual sex you need to get over the idea that you will be a special snowflake in the life of everyone you fuck. Just accept it. Be prepared for awkward waves on public transit sometimes. It’s ok. It truly is.
If what you want is an experience rather than a relationship then you have a few responsibilities. First and foremost: do not treat the person who is kind enough to share this experience with you badly. If you do then you are a piece of shit who deserves to be spit on. Someone who consents to having sex with you always deserves your kindness and respect.
ALWAYS BE RESPECTFUL OF THE PEOPLE YOU HAVE HAD SEX WITH. REGARDLESS OF BAD BREAKUPS.
I try not to yell, but I’ll yell that. If you say bad things about people who have had sex with you then you say way more bad about you than them. Keep that in mind.
No one is a life support for a cock/pussy/tits for you to admire. That’s a real god damn person right there. They have wants, needs, aspirations. You need to treat them like someone awesome who is sharing a wonderful part of themself. Even your casual bar hookups. People matter. How you treat them *matters*.
I like casual sex and I am totally cool with people wanting it. But be nice. We are all humans. We all want to feel like we are respected. Start with that point of view and you will do ok with almost everyone you could ever want to have sex with.
Bah. Okay, I have to object to your “first things first” for my own personal experience.
My group sex experience isn’t that vast. (Several extra-girl threesomes with my boyfriend, and one long-term girlfriend again with the same boy.) (And a couple of foursomes. And some swingers parties. Mostly still that same guy.) (Okay, yeah it is kinda vast. Bless my slutty heart, right? :)) There were no horror stories with me and my guy, most were very cool, there were a few anxieties but no different than regular sex anxieties.
So in my humble opinion and experience, it can totally work out, IF people discuss and have the same expectations and there are no surprises, and nobody covered up their feelings for the sake of keeping others happy.
Worth noting: I am no longer with that guy, but the extra-partner part was never the reason for that.
Three person singles seems much more difficult to me. Mainly because I’m already uptight with a new partner, and TWO new partners just seems fraught with more anxiety. (Though, two old single partners sound GREAT.)
YMMV.
Okay, I can go back to reading the rest of it now.
Agree: Group sex is complicated. It isn’t for everyone, and it doesn’t have to be.
In my experience, it’s better if everyone is interested in everyone else. It’s not cool if anyone is only interested in One other person because then they can get left out easier. 🙁 Usually everyone was paying attention to both other people at the same time, or very happy to take care of themselves during critical junctions. In general we were always physically touching the other two.
Nobody ran the fucks but it helped that my guy and I were on the same page. When we played as a couple, we were both into the threesome, and we both made it our mission to make the third feel included. So far I’ve only had the experience with an extra woman, and my boyfriend did a pretty great job of always including me, like he’d make sure that he had hands or lips on me even if ah, other parts were occupied. So I never felt left out. (And as the point in the V, he was in heaven the whole time, so I didn’t bother worrying about him.)
Totally agree with everything Krissy is saying about protection. And patience. And Respect! omg yes.
Anyway, I just want to share my one person’s experience. It’s quite possible I am just lucky. All of Krissy’s cautions are valid. For a few extra opinions… as a rabidly loyal follower of Dan Savage, my own Very STRONG recommendation is to go to Savage Love sex advice column and put “threesome” in the search box. And read at least the first two pages of posts that come up.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Search?q=threesome&s=Search
Because there are several fuck-ups where someone was unhappy or pissed, and it’s worth knowing where some of the landmines are so you can discuss in advance.
Okay. Thanks for letting me butt in!! My long distance FB may or may not have promised me my first MFM threesome soon.
No matter what I say, someone will have a contradictory view. I was asked for my opinion and experience. I am not even going to try and write about all the experiences other people have had.
I just know that 3/4 of the couples I have joined as a unicorn have split up. Not because of me… I’m not that vain… but because my experience is that couples who chase unicorns don’t last that long. So I discourage it. *shrug*
I for one think your advice is so spot-on that I am totally going to plagiarize it when someone asks me for the same advice. No one talks much about “couples privilege,” but it’s important to maintain awareness of when bringing a single other into a night of fun. We generally only look for other couples or moresomes, and only have a single person over for a threesome if the idea originates from them.
On the other hand, a 25% non-split-up rate is pretty good. I personally don’t enjoy that much relationship success in my own life, and frankly wouldn’t really want it. One should be careful about equating split-ups with failure.
I don’t think that a break up of a relationship is necessarily a failure. But if you are in a relationship you want to have last the rest of your life you should actively take steps to preserve it. If you are in a relationship that is great for right now, do what is best for right now.
That’s a good point! I was going to add the same thing (most people I know from 10 years ago in regular, non poly life, are no longer with their SO), but lots of them weren’t married or with committed life partners. So I have nearly zero experience with positive married non-monogamy.
The only one I can think of was from the swingers’ club who later invited us to a similar party. They were old but oh-so-rocking (babies were grown and out of the nest). Everyone else was post first-marriage (‘partnered’ and/or second spouses.)