Savage Love

My husband broke the rules of our threesome and I’m heartbroken. Am I wrong to feel this way?

By Dan Savage

I had a threesome with my husband and another woman because I am GGG and that’s always been a fantasy of his. I laid out my ground rules, and they were violated. (I said I was uncomfortable with his P in her V, and I ended up watching them fuck.) I didn’t stop it at the time because I didn’t want to ruin it for him. It’s been some time, and my heart is still broken. I was completely down with every other aspect of the threesome, but I feel like a line was crossed. Am I wrong to feel hurt?

— Heartbroken

Please hand this column to your husband. My response is for him.

You are one stupid motherfucker.

Here’s how you’re a motherfucker: your wife agreed to have a threesome on one condition — no penis-in-vagina intercourse with the other woman. That’s a fairly common ground rule for first-time threesomes, and you agreed to honor that ground rule. But you went ahead and stuck your penis in the other woman’s vagina anyway.

Maybe you felt your wife’s no-penis-in-our-third’s-vagina ground rule was arbitrary. Maybe it seemed like a distinction without a difference — you were already sucking and fondling and kissing and rolling around, why should fucking be against the rules? — but it mattered to your GGG wife. And your wife consented to that threesome only after you agreed not to stick your penis in the other woman’s vagina. And when you went ahead and stuck your penis in the other woman’s vagina anyway, you stupid motherfucker, that threesome suddenly became a nonconsensual sexual experience for your wife. And now she feels violated.

Because you violated her.

Adding to her feelings of violation, she felt obligated to play along and pretend she was fine with your penis in the other woman’s vagina because she didn’t want to ruin the experience for you, for starters, and she probably didn’t want to make your third feel uncomfortable — a third who either didn’t know about the no-penis-in-her-vagina ground rule or knew about it and didn’t give a shit (which makes her a malicious motherfucker) — and as a result, your wife may feel complicit in her own violation. Talk about mind-fucks!

That’s how you’re a motherfucker. Here’s how you’re stupid: if you had demonstrated to your wife during your very first threesome that you could be trusted, if you had cheerfully observed the ground rules, this threesome would very likely have been the first in a whole series of sexual adventures. If you had kept your penis out of the other woman’s vagina, you stupid motherfucker, your wife might have trusted you with more and allowed you to do more during a future threesome. You might have gotten to penis-in-vagina intercourse with another woman with your wife’s enthusiastic consent!

To others out there with partners who have agreed to have a threesome: sometimes, a nervous wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend sets ground rules for an inaugural threesome that seem arbitrary, because they are arbitrary. (Don’t use tongue when you kiss the other person, don’t use my favorite tit clamps on the other person, you can put your penis in the hole in the other person’s face but not in the hole[s] in the other person’s swimsuit area.) When your partner declares a particular kiss/toy/orifice out of bounds, he or she isn’t just holding something back because it’s special. They are also measuring your ability to respect their boundaries. 

Respecting your partner’s boundaries — honoring those ground rules — sends a message: “I may be messing around with someone else with your okay, but I love you, and your emotional and sexual needs still come first.”

And once a nervous wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend sees with their own eyes that their ground rules are going to be respected — once they see that their partners can mess around with someone else without forgetting who matters to them most — those ground rules tend to become less restrictive.

But that’s not gonna happen for you now, you stupid motherfucker, because you couldn’t honor your wife’s ground rules during your first — and most likely last — threesome. You violated her, you violated her trust, and you screwed yourself out of future sexual adventures. If you ever hope to have another threesome, or to realize some other sexual fantasy, or if your wife has a sexual fantasy that she would like to realize (one that you might enjoy helping her realize), you’re going to need to offer her a plausible explanation and an abject apology.

I’m in love. But my boyfriend of more than a year is REALLY into the fantasy of an MFF threesome. I’m as GGG as girls get, but I’m one of those rare types who was sexually abused by an adult woman when I was a young girl. He knows this. And though I was a bit slow telling him, just because it’s so fucking hard to talk about, he knows that ever since I realized that I was attracted to other women, I’ve felt like a guilty pervert. Thanks to copious amounts of alcohol, I’ve gotten about as far with another girl as a stereotypical college student, but the abuse still haunts me. (And, yes, I go to therapy when I can afford it.)

My question is this: if I may never be capable of fulfilling his fantasy by bringing another chick into our bed, am I an asshole for wanting to remain in an LTR with this guy? He knows I’m into women and that I would like to explore that somehow, eventually, but I don’t know if he gets how hard that could actually be for me. I have no idea how to even broach this subject with him, as I’ve described it to you. Should I even try? Should I set him free?

— Whatever Your Intern Can Come Up With

First, WYICCUW, I’m so sorry about the sexual abuse you suffered. But I would urge you to prioritize therapy over, say, a third and fourth round of drinks. Fewer copious-amounts-of-alcohol-enabled bisexual experiences in the short run, with less money going to booze and more going to therapy, may lead to more — and happier, and easier-to-recall — bisexual experiences in the long run.

As for the boyfriend, just tell him that, due to your history, an MFF threesome is not something you would be able to do for or with him anytime soon. If going without MFF threesomes for the foreseeable future is a price of admission that he’s willing to pay to be with you, WYICCUW, do him the honor of letting him pay it.

I’m a straight woman who enjoys gay porn and writes slash fiction. Seeing my husband make love to another man is my biggest fantasy of all, but he insists that it will never happen. He did agree to an MMF threesome, but only if he didn’t have to do anything with the other man. I found a guy in a city we are visiting in three weeks. My husband doesn’t know this guy is bisexual and into him. (He has seen pictures of my husband.) I’m hoping that my husband will feel “inspired” once “things” are under way. What’s the best strategy for getting my husband — 

— She Lusts After Sexy Homos

Sorry to cut you off there, SLASH, but I don’t need to read the rest of your letter. DO NOT spring a bisexual-and-into-him third on your husband. DO NOT violate your husband’s ground rules. DO NOT be a stupid motherfucker.

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