Action: A Book About Sex (25 page)

Here’s how to go about talking openly about this, even if you’re skittish: Don’t feel any pressure to make this particular conversation SULTRILY SIMMER with passionate Don Juan–style suaveness. If it ends up turning you both on, that’s very fortunate, and you should get thee atop of the other person with haste, but trying to engineer that outcome is unfair to both of you: Setting this talk up as a sensuous tête-à-tête puts pressure on both
of you to live up to what the other person wants when you’re trying to figure out what that is in the first place. But it’s not quite a staid State of the Union, either; talking about sex with someone in super-dry terminology can make me feel like I am being strangled by a pair of sensible khakis. What you’re hoping for is a tone that lands somewhere between the two, which it most likely will if you like and are willing to be upfront with each other.

Some factors to assess before you start chattering away about your junk: Do you have guaranteed privacy for at least an hour? Rather than being mad stressed out about the Stevenson account or an upcoming deadline or what have you, is your person’s face relaxed in an unburdened configuration of calmness (that you are about to fuck up)? Have you, moments ago, been told that now is not a good time to have sex, and you’re seeking justice and retribution by springing a conversation about how to bone properly on them? (I have been this guy and regret it a lot—don’t do this.)

If you have checked off boxes reading Y, Y, and DUDE, N, to the preceding questions about your experience today, say, “Hey—I’ve been thinking lately—do you mind if we talk? I know that sounds mad serious, but I promise everything’s okay with us on my end,” or whatever non-automated version of that template sounds normal coming out of your mouth. If the answer is N, WHAT’S UP?, say, “I know this is going to seem like it’s coming from out of nowhere, but I want to make sure you’re happy with the sex we’ve been having lately. Is there anything else I could be doing for you?” Keep eye contact, and don’t affect a funereal tone of voice—treat this like
no big deal, just assessing the current of our shared sexual wellness, who even cares, anything good come in the mail today?
I find that partners like to try to out-calm each other if someone sets that precedent. It’s like a reverse yelling match: “YOU WANT RESPECTFUL, OPEN COURTESY?
[whispers]
I’ll give you respectful, open courtesy!!!”
[sits and listens patiently before reacting]
.

If your person demurs, say, “You know you can always talk
to me about it if there is something, right?” and keep your mouth closed in an encouraging smile directed at them for a few beats. If they choose to follow this up with something significant: Follow the model of our inverted scream-a-thon just above, and don’t take ANY of it as a pointed critique of your inherent sexual worthiness, even if your partner says, “This is a pointed critique of your inherent sexual worthiness.” In that case, dump the jerk. Otherwise, you might be surprised by what your partner tells you they’ve been liking/disliking about wanting more/less of, or secretly hoping to introduce to your sexual co-membership’s repertoire.
Toe parties?!? You thought you knew them so well!
You did, and now you know them even better!—and that you might want to invest in a pedicure (and men: you know it’s totally normal for you to get these, too, right?).

Ask questions. Is your partner stoked on your current ratio of sexual congress per day/week/month/half hour/eon/whatever seems most appropriate to your situation? Is there anything they’re hoping to try, but
didn’t maybe sorta feel that the right time to bring it up had yet happened
? (Aw, whatta waffler. That time is now!!) What sex acts do they like most, and when do they feel best? HOLD EYE CONTACT. THINK ABOUT THE MAIL. YOU ARE DOING THE MATURE AND KIND THING HERE.

Once they’ve expelled all they’ve been keeping, get the point across that you’re grateful about that. Then continue, “I wanted to talk to you about how I’m feeling, too.” Let them know how you feel about all of the aforementioned, and what potential adjustments you two might want to make. Once you’ve finished, ask what they think without interrupting their answers. I am willing to wager the other person will not be SHOCKED and APPALLED about a sexual lull they can not only already tell you’re bored by, but agree is an issue of their own volition.

If this still seems like A LOT to discuss with your person because you two haven’t adroitly broached the topic of sex until now, imagine how they’re feeling. Remember that they didn’t
have the stability of advance warning and agency in this conversation, as you did. If they seem freaked out, don’t forsake your respectful, open courtesy by rising to meet the pitch of their emotional tenor, because that gets everybody exactly NOWHERE besides possibly primed to hurt each other. How you do this: Be sure of this conversation as a worthy and loving endeavor, because it is.
Dilige et quod vis fac
= especially significant when you’re trying to handle the person that you love most with care.

GROUP SEX ETIQUETTE

Threesomes are one of life’s greatest pleasures, ranking alongside glacially cold seltzer, seeing a baby skunk in the wild, and the poetry of Guillaume Apollinaire.
That
good.

There are many groupings, roles, and shapes in which you can enjoy them: I have been the special guest star as well as part of the host couple plenty of times, in differently gendered lineups, and left each bizarre love triangle with a song in my heart and exhausted mouth-muscles. Group sex is like reading an Apollinaire poem about a baby skunk WHILE guzzling a crispy Schweppes. That good.

A threesome with three breathing beings, two of whom are involved for longer than just that night, usually has to be artfully assembled. Group sex, when it involves a long-term couple, can veer into gruesomeness if you’re dealing with delicate personalities—which is to say, “personalities.” The biggest challenge of ménage-à-triangles for those in relationships is the fact that you have to account for and manage not only your and one other partner’s happiness, which is strenuous enough on its own, but that of another person forming all-new angles in this shape. Each person involved is CAUTION—FRAGILE, because threesomes can feel like ego wrecking balls even if they’re handled with the softest of kid gloves.

When they aren’t? You know how it’s rude to insert sidebars
into conversations with three or more people that you know only you and one other person in the group will get? Imagine that same ill-mannered behavior, except naked. Nobody likes to feel neglected, or extrapolate that into butchered self-esteem. I am happy to say I’ve never experienced that, but that is, in large part, because I would never become involved in a threesome that I foresaw was an emotional demolition derby disguised as the kind of agreeable fuckfest that I wondered about from pornography.

Asking the person to whom you are committed to have a threesome with you might feel daunting if you’re monogamous with them. This doesn’t mean it is impossible, or that they’ll shoot you down out of hand. If you’re uncertain whether your person will respond favorably to a three-part harmony, do some detective work. Just maybe don’t do it by saying, “Hey! You know your friend Dan from the radio show with the graceful hands and shag-carpet chest hair? I want to lobotomize him via fucking his brains out. Wanna join in, person I love?” This approach is obviously a bad one, but let’s dissect just how it would result in watching your their-place toothbrush get snapped over your partner’s knee:

1. It suggests a specific person. In addition to the above principles regarding who gets to pick, and why, in terms of the two of you: How do you know Dan would be down? If it’s because you asked him firsthand, you likely extracted that information via a proposition that your person would hate. You either dangled the prospect of a threesome without their permission, or you said, “Hey, DAN. DANIEL. HEY. Over here, behind the turntables. Real quick secret: I desperately want you to bend me over. No, Matt doesn’t know, but he could watch if he wanted, I guess?” or you didn’t even mention Matt at ALL, until now, when you confirmed to him that you and his colleague are making flimsy passes at each other behind his back. That’s insulting. Don’t do it. If you DON’T know Dan would be down, then you’re confounding this whole situation for a prospect that is unlikely to go down with the exact cast of characters you were hoping in reality, since finding
willing and enthusiastic threesome partners is… complex. More on that later. First, I’m going to keep berating you for not saying something that I myself wrote!
How could you???

2. It introduces aspects of what you’re attracted to in others, which your partner’s brain may translate as, “What I’m not giving you.” The qualities you admire in Dan and so callously brought up, like a jerk, I would never think like that—lithe hands, Travolta-level fur-pecs—are a fun path for your person to follow straight to spiraltown:
Oh, God, is she saying she thinks my hands look so stumpy they’re practically feet and also that male-pattern baldness, chest edition, is now a thing I’m nervous about re: my body??? How come I never knew how hideous I was?
In actuality, you would never be this wrongheaded in your thinking, but specifying any characteristic of someone you might like to give a tour of your shared bedroom should be vague, outside of—and maybe even including—their gender.

3. It frames what you’re proposing as something you (and Dan) will be doing ALONE. It’s important to specify that it’s about the two of you, rather than an exclusionary party zone you and Matt get to share as a part of your affection for each other. Though threesomes… wait for this mind-blowing revelation… involve someone outside your relationship, they’re (mostly) all about the two of you in the long-term. Matt is agreeing to try something you’ve expressed will make you happy, and you’re rewarding Matt by showing him why that was a good idea, via incredibly hot sex, rather than a grave misjudgment. “I want to get fucked by another person” makes no mention of the fact that your partner is in the picture.

The two predominant fears when it comes to group sex are jealousy and exclusion. Once you’ve worked out that each party is willing, take care of the following and you’ve got very little to be afraid of:

•
In couples, the suggester lets the suggestee pick the third—and, without a couple’s encouragement, a third probably shouldn’t ask at all.
If you’re asking for a threesome, your main collaborator gets to pick the featured guest. This is the rule even if your girlfriend is giving you one “for your birthday,” which is kind of a harsh toke from the outset—does she
want
to do it, or is she feeling pressured into making you happy “this one time” by wincing through something she’s uncomfortable with? It could easily be the opposite: She wants to do it, but is self-conscious about that fact, so she’s got to wrap it in a bow—much like when I get loved ones expensive caramels as gifts because I know they’ll open and eat them WITH me.

Pointing out an object of your affections can get someone’s guard up because it invites instantaneous self-comparison, which is something you want to AVOID as much as possible, for your sake and your triangle’s. It’s going to be difficult enough when you’re sizing up a person’s naked flesh as measured against your own, or when your person is, so don’t invite that beauty contest as you broach the idea to begin with. Suggesting a third could also lead your person to believe you’ve been harboring a sexual or romantic YEARNING for your intended, which is… not that cool to think about, if you’ve been actively boning and/or adoring someone who, the whole time, has been wanting to bone/adore someone other than you. Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to fuck/love two or more people at once! There isn’t. But don’t bring your main person into it unless they want that, don’t fuck/love around on them if you’re monogamous, and if you find yourself YEARNING instead of being present in your current relationship, open or not: Consider ending it.

•
Do not assume a person wants to have a threesome with you because they’ve done so with others.
It’s of the highest importance that you make sure every member of a threesome
knows
what’s up beforehand. Picture it: You’re headed over to your couple-friends’ house for a cassoulet and some Hpnotiq. (Excuse me; I am just constructing the dream life that I hope with all of me that you actually enjoy in reality.)
Everything is normal!
you think—or don’t, because you never think that thought when life actually is.
Instead, you settle in for some light gin rummy and heavy drinking of same, plus whatever bioluminescent liqueur you brought.

All of a sudden, you feel a hand trailing across your ankle, which is crossed elegantly above your knee with only the slightest ring of skin showing above your loafer. You’re so startled that your shoe’s pristinely shined penny pinwheels across the linoleum—you’ve jerked your leg back hard enough to dislodge it.

“What the fuck?” you demand, eyes ponging back and forth between the two possible offenders.