Savage Love

What are the chances our threesome partner got me pregnant?

By Dan Savage

My sexy GGG husband and I fuck a “good friend” semiregularly. He’s hot, young, and game to fuck about every other week. We started out wearing condoms, but we’ve had the safe-sex conversation and our good friend isn’t banging anyone else, so we’ve moved to condom-free sex. A month ago, we had a hot threesome. Our good friend fucked me, but came on my tits. My husband fucked me, too — that night, the day before, the day after. Now I find out that I’m pregnant. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that it’s my husband’s, but a tiny part of me worries it could be our good friend’s child. What are the chances that it’s my sexy friend’s child and not my husband’s? Without our good friend coming inside me? And with all the semen left in me by my husband? Could our “other” sex partner’s pre-come get me pregnant? Please tell me it’s probably my husband’s! I’m freaking out!

— Pregnant In Threesome

It’s probably your husband’s, PIT, but…

Pre-come can contain “live, viable, pregnancy-inducing sperm,” says Dr. Joel Maurer, assistant professor in OB/GYN and dean of admissions for the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. “Most [studies have found] that it contains very little, if any, sperm,” says Dr. Maurer, but the possible presence of those live, viable, pregnancy-inducing sperm cells means it could be your good friend’s child, not your husband’s.

It’s also why many — including Dr. Maurer — regard “pulling out” as an ineffective birth-control method.

“For every 100 women who use withdrawal correctly, four will become pregnant every year — this number jumps to twenty-seven if not used correctly,” says Dr. Maurer. (For every 100 women who use condoms correctly, two will become pregnant, eighteen if they’re using condoms incorrectly, which is why some argue that withdrawal is nearly as effective as condoms.)

Backing up: pre-come is produced by the Cowper’s gland and some other gland whose name I can never remember, PIT, while sperm cells are produced in the nuts. Sperm doesn’t get mixed up in the seminal fluid — produced by the prostate and a couple of other glands whose names escape me — until the guy starts to ejaculate. So if your good friend didn’t have an orgasm shortly before he fucked you and he didn’t come inside you and there were no stray swimmers in his pre-come for some other reason, odds are slim that the baby is his. It’s possible, PIT, but nowhere near probable.

“A paternity test after delivery of the child is the safest advice I can give should it remain an important issue to her and her husband,” says Dr. Maurer. “An amniocentesis can make this ‘diagnosis’ before delivery, but the procedure comes with a small risk of pregnancy loss. As such, most doctors would consider it unethical to perform amniocentesis for the sole purpose of paternity testing without a coexisting medical reason.”

To all the other nonmonogamous straight couples out there: not using condoms with your other is fucking stupid. Using condoms with others is important not just to prevent disease but, if your other is a dude, to prevent paternity scares like the one PIT is having. And you should be using condoms with your other, male or female, regardless of safe-sex conversations or assurances that your other isn’t banging anyone else. Unless your other lives in a cage in your basement — very hot, not very practical — you have no way of knowing for sure that your other doesn’t have other others.

After an impromptu sex session that left me feeling sleepy and sappy, my partner, who typically feels sleepy and sappy herself after sex, texted someone! The fury that arose within me could not be contained! Neither the text message itself nor its recipient were the issue (it was to a coworker about a work matter), the issue was that she couldn’t wait a few minutes to hug and kiss and say “that was hot” before sending a text?!? She thinks I’m overreacting and blames it on me being premenstrual. She has not apologized. How does she not get it? Isn’t post-sex texting tacky?

 — Wasn’t That Fucked?

Post-sex texting is tacky, WTF, and it’s thoughtless. I can understand why you were annoyed. I can also understand why your girlfriend has refused to apologize. If one ill-timed text sent your panties so far up your crack that it unleashed a “fury that could not be contained” — if you raged at your girlfriend for being uncharacteristically inconsiderate (it sounds like she usually makes with the postcoital hugs, kisses, compliments, etc.) — then yours was the greater offense.

Don’t get me wrong: your girlfriend owes you an apology. But you owe her a bigger one, WTF, and yours should come first.

I’m a submissive gay man. All anal sex guides stress that when done right, anal sex should cause no pain. But what if I want pain? Over three years, my boyfriend and I have proceeded from having lots of anal foreplay to lube-it-up-and-stick-it-in. I love it, and once it stops hurting, as it always does after a while, I have amazing orgasms. So does he. There’s a definite line between the arousing kind of pain and too much pain. But that line has moved closer to more intense pain, and I’m worried about injury. Then again, we’re not sticking progressively bigger objects up my ass, just the same object with less foreplay. Is this risky?

— Boy Used To Taking

It depends, BUTT.

You can enjoy lube-it-up-and-stick-it-in anal without incurring too great a risk of injury so long as your boyfriend isn’t shoving his entire dick up your ass in one thrust. If he’s pushing his dick in you gradually but firmly, giving your poor butt a chance to relax and adjust as he “forces” his way in, then you’ll probably be okay. (Probably is the word of the day.)

That said, BUTT, while it’s a fine thing to enjoy a little pain during sex — or “sensation play,” as the kinksters have taken to calling it — making your asshole the focus of erotic pain isn’t a sensational idea. Anal fissures and tears take forever to heal and even a small one can put your ass out of commission for months. A big one can put your ass out of commission for years.

There are plenty of ways your boyfriend can make you hurt during anal without brutalizing your hole. He can slap your ass, yank on a pair of tit clamps, pull your hair, crank up the juice on an e-stim unit. You’ve got Hooksexup endings all over your body, not just in and around your hole. If your boyfriend can walk and chew gum at the same time, BUTT, he can work some of those other Hooksexups while he works your hole.

I’m a gay man in my twenties. While I love reading your advice for red-state kinksters, straight married folks, and lesbians with hymens, I’m wondering where the gay has gone. Can we get a column or two with an assortment of questions addressing the problems facing gay men in their twenties? Something for gay boys at that stage of life that falls between “it gets better” and “it gets domestic”?

— Feeling Left Out

Happy to — hit me with some Qs, gay boys, and I’ll dedicate a couple of columns to your issues and tissues.

Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.

[email protected]

@fakedansavage on Twitter