Heard lots about threesome sexual hookups, but not much about long-term relationships between three partners. Does it happen? What are the dynamics? Is there anything particularly enticing or beneficial about this situation outside of the sex?
Either same sex or mixed in some combination.
-Tcat
A friend of mine, many years ago, got caught up in a very strange 3way relationship with a husband and wife. Pornography had just been legalised in South Africa and he started hanging out at this porn store that had a strip club in its basement. The bartender at said club picked him up one night and took him home for a threesome with her and her husband. I think it lasted a couple of weeks until he got very weirded out by her husband rolling joints from bible pages and he kind of started pulling out of it. I don’t know too many more details than this. They seemed like quite a nice couple, I met them a couple of times and was quite attracted to her, but she didn’t do girls (I was in my experimental phase). We did have a foursome once, but I just had sex with my friend and she and hubby had sex on the same bed. That’s the only time I’ve ever had a foursome and it didn’t really count so I was quite disappointed LOL.
I know of a long-term male threesome. Not close friends, but I met them a few times and went to a cookout at their house once. They were three regular middle-aged Joes, and as far as I could tell their rapport was that of any couple who have been together a long time (10+ years in this case) and get along well. I inferred that there was nothing out of the ordinary about them.
Tried it, started a trainwreck of a thread on it when it was finishing… made a lot of mistakes, wasn’t ready for it, etc, etc, etc…
Personally, I also found one on one sex to be, ultimately, more fulfilling. There was, at least for me, an easier and more powerful emotional connection when focusing on one person at a time.
As for benefits outside of sex, it’s always nice to have more than one peson to interact with. Not every quality you want in a person is found in one human, and not everything you like to do will be enjoyed by the same person. It’s also a very interesting experience to feel love and warmth from more than one person at once, and express it for more than one at once… I’ve heard it called a ‘puppy pile’ with everybody just cuddled up with everybody else. From my hetero-male perspective, it was also pretty neat to do things like go out dancing or sit in movie theatres with two beautiful women on my arms. The dynamic… it is/can be nice, and (at least for me) very very tricky to get right. In general, trust, emotional security, honesty, etc… have to be there for it to work smoothly. Obviously possesiveness is poison in such a situation.
Maybe someone else will have a better answer, that’s all I’ve got.
I’ve never been in a longterm poly relationship, but if you ask me, the benefit is that you’re in love with more that one person at a time, and you get to actually be with the people you love, all the people you love, rather than having to choose just one and “dump” the others.
The dynamics of it are that it’s bloody hard to do, as FinnAgain says. It has to be all about communication, communication, communication, to an unnatural degree. If anybody’s having ookey feelings about anything at all, and they share it right away, if you’re communicating well, you have a chance of working through it. If someone starts feeling ookey and hides it, then ookiness evolves rapidly into anger and resentment, and it blows up. And even if someone comes forward with their ookey feelings early, and it turns out that the ookiness can’t be worked through, then the relationship is going have to dissolve anyway.
Think about how hard it is for you to find that one special person and have a successful, long-lasting relationship. Then imagine how hard it would be to find a second person who not only feels the same about you, but also is willing to be part of a poly relationship. (Hint: the small size of the poly community is not really compensated by the fact that we’re willing to date more than one person at a time.) Now, you have two relationships with two people to maintain, and there’s the relationship between those two people. So take the difficulty and hard work that goes into maintaining one good, respectful, loving relationship and raise it to the third power.
When it works, it’s amazingly great. But it’s also extremely fragile. The good thing is that people tend to arrive as friends first and lovers second, which allow them to part and remain friends as often as not–but every once in a while there’s an exception that becomes the Stuff of Legends. shudder
My gf and I have been in a MFM 3some relationship going on just under 3 years now. We don’t live together. In fact none of us live in the same town. She and I see each other about 2 weeks out of every month and our M friend gets to come stay with us a couple of times a month on average. We have gone on mini vacations together and he also comes to stay with her sometimes when I can’t be there. It’s been a fantastic relationship and we are all very, very close with no jealousy issues whatsoever. In fact the longer we’re together and the more we all get to know each other the better the sex gets. We all 3 play together, we take turns with her and sometimes I even stay in the guest bedroom and let them play all night alone after we’ve played together. It’s so sexy hearing them fucking in the other room. Listening to her moaning and enjoying herself with him is a huge turn on for me!
We have a few other guys that we play with on a much lessor frequency and that has been going on for a little under 3 years as well. Two of the guys I’ve known for about 10 years, but the regular I met after my gf and I got together.