June 11, 2008
I'm a bisexual woman, age 20, and I am
threesome-ing it with my best friend and her boyfriend during a stay abroad. I
knew the girl (who's mostly straight) beforehand. The girl thinks it's hot when
I participate—i.e., when it's all three of us in bed—but she gets
jealous when her boyfriend and I do anything without her. This seems
unnecessary, because I don't get jealous when she is alone with her boyfriend,
and he doesn't get jealous when she and I do things alone.
She doesn't want to be possessive, but she's
got alarms going off. Which is odd, because in two months, I'll be gone, and
they'll both be staying in Europe. It feels like she's suddenly setting a lot
of limits on us. We have a blast when we're all together, but we have no real
ground rules. I want this to work!
Bi Girl Interrupted
Gee, BGI, I'm shocked things aren't going
well—I mean, you have "no real ground rules," and as everyone knows,
neglecting to establish ground rules is the secret to threesome-ing success.
Wait, did I say the secret to threesome-ing success? I'm sorry, BGI, I meant failure. To ensure the failure of a
threesome—whether you're threesome-ing your way through an evening or a
summer abroad—it's crucial that you refrain from establishing ground
rules. Don't talk about your expectations, just make assumptions; don't make
sure everyone's on the same page, just stomp around the minefield of love and
lust until the whole fucking thing blows up in your faces.
I hope you're detecting the sarcasm here, BGI.
Here's what I suspect the problem is: You're
operating under the assumption that you're an equal partner in this threesome,
BGI, and that this is a sort of quasi-poly arrangement you're enjoying with
your best friend and her boyfriend. Share and share alike, right? But your best
friend, for her part, views you as a side attraction. She sees you as
something—pardon me, someone—that she and the boyfriend brought into their relationship to enhance
it, not someone who they've brought into the relationship itself.
In other words: They're the couple—they were
a couple before you came along, and they're planning to be a couple after
you're gone. If you're unclear on that concept, BGI, it's because the three of
you failed to establish clear ground rules and expectations, and now you're
confused, she's jealous, and he's either taking advantage or feeling caught in
the middle.
Luckily, it's not too late for the three of you to
sit down and establish some ground rules. It may be that your friend, while
comfortable with the idea of you and her messing around without the boyfriend,
isn't comfortable with the idea of you and the boyfriend messing around without
her. You may regard that limitation as unfair and irrational; the boyfriend may
regard it as unfair and irrational; I may regard it as unfair and irrational.
But if you want this to work, BGI, then you'll make allowances for your best
friend's comfort levels and security and honor her limitations.
And if you don't wanna honor 'em, you're free to
go.
I'm a 29-year-old single gay man with some
major kinks: I'm into bondage (preferably inescapable), I'm into diapers, and I
have a very subby fantasy life. I'm wondering how someone with my kinks should
approach dating. Should I look for a partner in the usual ways and hope that I
find someone open-minded? Or should I look mainly in kinky contexts?
I know that you've described diapers as "A
Fetish Too Far." I'd be happy to find someone who's willing to get involved in
some fairly serious bondage games and who isn't freaked out by my wearing
diapers when he's not around. I doubt that an open relationship is the
solution. Even if I had permission to play with others, I can't imagine being
in a really serious relationship without being able to share at least some of
my fantasy life with my boyfriend.
Kinkster Needs Open-minded Type
You are so lucky that you're gay, KNOT.
There are websites where you can
advertise—recon.com is a good place to start—and kinky spaces
(leather bars, gay BDSM groups, pansexual kink community events, etc.) where
you can hang out. But your odds of meeting a kinky or kink-tolerant partner
even "in the usual ways" are much better than the average kinky straight guy's
odds. So put yourself out there in both arenas—the kink ones and the
usual ones—and date and disclose, date and disclose, and then date and
disclose some more. Diapers may be AFTF for some, but they won't be
deal-breakers for other diaper guys (they're out there) or for a guy who loves
you to bits and is willing to do anything for you (he's out there, too).
I wonder if you have any familiarity with my
particular twist. I'm female, early 40s, and I really like to watch. Seems
pretty straightforward, but I'm not the classic voyeur. Everything I've read on
voyeurism really emphasizes the eroticism of secretly watching others having sex,
with the possibility of being discovered as part of the thrill. I'm not turned
on by any of that. It sounds stressful to me. I want to watch, but I want the
person I'm watching (always male in my fantasies) to know I'm watching. I want
him to be looking right at me. I want to look into his eyes while he's getting
banged into next week, or masturbating like a fiend, all undone and out of
control, and have him know I'm sitting there witnessing him fall apart into
orgasm. Mmmmm. (I suspect this may be some expression of a power issue. Just
maybe.)
But looking for someone to play along with me
has been fruitless thus far. The one boyfriend I did bring it up with sat there
and stared at me for so long that I dried right up and never mentioned it
again. I ran an ad in the local online personals (M, M-F, M-M), outlining what
I was interested in, thinking that with all the exhibitionists out there,
surely someone would bite. Nothing. I did get a response, but it was from
another woman. She wanted to know if I'd had any replies, and to ask if she
could sit in if anyone took me up on my offer. Any ideas, Dan?
Opera Glasses
You told one boyfriend, you placed one ad. And
then you gave up. Gee, here's an idea: The human race would quickly die out if
people into "normal" sex asked one person, took out one ad, and then, if they
didn't get a positive response, stopped asking and stopped advertising.
Look, OG, you told one person, he reacted badly,
and… the conclusion you seem to have drawn from this experience is that you
should never, ever risk telling anyone about your kink ever again. May I
suggest an alternate conclusion? You told the wrong person. When you told him about
your kink—your charming, harmless, intriguing kink—and he sat there
like a stone, the correct response was not to wither under his gaze. The
correct response was to flip him off and walk out.
Readers respond to my advice for Shitty Boyfriend
In The Midwest at avclub.com/content/node/81108.
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