Should a woman feel insufficient if her male partner voices his desire to bring another woman into the bedroom? When my boyfriend voiced such a desire to me, quite honestly, I was intrigued and seriously considered doing it. However, when I discussed the issue with my friends, they told me I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. More or less, they said this meant my boyfriend thought I alone wasn’t good enough and that there must be underlying problems with our relationship. They also told me that even though it might sound good in the abstract, when I saw him with another woman, I would inevitably be so overcome with jealousy that it would cause me to resent him thereafter.
Well, despite my girlfriends’ warnings, one night after a few too many shots of Wild Turkey, my boyfriend and I went to bed with a good female friend of ours. Throughout the entire experience, I didn’t feel anything but pleased. I never felt neglected or jealous. In the morning, the three of us ate breakfast and comfortably joked with each other about the previous night’s goings on. After our friend left, my boyfriend showered me with affection.
“What happened last night was so fun and exciting,” he said. “And, if anything, it just reinforced how much I love you.”
The feeling was mutual.
What was wrong with us? What kind of freaks were we that we could seamlessly pull off something like that, and afterward have it bring us closer together?
I was convinced that a couple’s desire for a threesome had to be more complex than simply meaning either partner was dissatisfied with the relationship. So, I sought the professional opinion of Dr. Robert Sher, a therapist in the Albuquerque area whose many specialties include sex therapy. I was shocked by what he had to say.
Sher said that recently, women are becoming the likelier partners to desire a threesome.
“Nowadays, it’s often the women in the relationship who are initiating it, not the men,” he said. “Men can often be intimidated by the idea of a threesome.”
Sher said there would be less of a potential for problems if all partners sat down beforehand and laid out what they wanted out of the experience. He said threesomes are becoming more common as relationships are becoming healthier. He also confirmed that a threesome can in fact often bring couples closer together.
“People are so healthy and have so much more ego strength,” he said. “It’s about becoming closer to each other. I’m not sure why that is. It all depends on the personalities. Some personalities are somewhat insatiable; they need something outside the traditional relationship.”
It looks like my boyfriend and I aren’t so freakish after all.
My best advice — if you’re in a relationship and have ever had the desire to have a threesome, talk to your partner. And if your partner has ever asked you to have a threesome, make sure you approach the situation with an open mind. Don’t look at it in terms of how you think you’re supposed to feel. While Sher said threesome experiences are bound to vary greatly from couple to couple, I think there are plenty of couples out there who, after bringing someone else into the bedroom, will be pleasantly surprised.
