Bi Focus
News, views, and a little bit of dish! Tune in each month as Michael
Szymanski looks at what's going on in the big bi world.
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Everyone thinks that the ideal relationship for a bisexual is a
perfect triad: you, a man, and a woman. The reality is that it's
practically impossible.
I recently had three close friends give it a try. Two bisexual guys who
were in a
long-term, committed relationship decided to let a bi
girlfriend move in with them. They slept in the same bed, spent all
their free time together, ate, shopped, and played together. It was a
disaster from the outset.
I've heard the explanations from all sides, and thankfully all three
remain quite close friends. But although they're all very expressive
people,
and all are well-liked and well-known activists in the bi community,
they
weren't very good at communicating among themselves. In fact, they all
seem
to have their own ideas about what went wrong.
The trouble is, when a third party enters an already existing
relationship, that person is literally the odd man out. In this case,
the woman really didn't have a chance to make herself an equal leg of
this
tripod because the guys had a six-year history between them. If she
wanted to spend more time with them, or one of them, the guys
naturally saw this as an intrusion. And it's not as if they could send
her home.
The other big problem, in this particular case, was exactly how their
relationship would be defined once she moved in. One of the guys thought
it
would be simply a "fuck-buddy" relationship; the other guy was taking a
wait-and-see attitude. But she was hoping to have an equal footing in
the triad.
Now, as hip, cool, and even masculine as this woman is, I don't think
she
was ready to be just a fuck buddy. And maybe this sounds sexist, but I
don't
think women in general are good at being fuck buddies, or understand
what it
truly means.
Partly, it's the nature of the way women have sex. They need to be
nurtured, cajoled, and pampered. That's why women don't go off to
bathhouses or seek anonymous sex as often as men do. (Of course, there
are
exceptions.)
So I don't think any independent bisexual woman is ready to have a
relationship that consists of sitting in her room like a concubine,
waiting to be summoned when the guys are in the mood.
My own foray into a triad didn't involve a previously existing
relationship. I was dating a guy, and
I was also dating a girl. She started showing interest in the guy, too,
and
they began dating.
At first that bothered me, but part of me started to fantasize about the
idea of a threesome. She defined herself as hetero, but had had a
relationship with a woman. He defined himself as gay, but had had sex
with women. I'm
bisexual, leaning toward gay.
We worked out a system. She and I went out on Fridays. The two of them
went
out on Saturdays. He and I hit the gay bars on Sundays. The rest of the
week
we shared.
We went to movies together; we camped together; we took trips together;
we even worked together. It was doomed from the start.
There was one moment when we were all rather tipsy after a party. We
were rolling around on a bed together and it looked like something more
might happen.
"I just realized I know what both of your dicks look like," she said.
He and I looked at each other, and I laughed. "Oh really? Who's bigger?"
We launched into a very candid description about what we knew each liked
in bed. She squeaks during orgasms. He sticks his cold feet in crotches.
I
squeeze my arms too tight around torsos during sex. It seemed like a
natural
lead-in to a three-way.
In fact, that talk led to our break-up. Neither of them could ever see
the three of us together, even for a single sexual romp. She didn't want
to
know that she gives bad blow jobs. He didn't want to see her get fucked
by
me. And I just dreamed of being in the middle of them both. My
insistence, my
urging, my pushing for that, ended up pushing them both toward each
other,
and I found myself pushed out of the trio.
They didn't last, of course. She got married; he's gay. I found a bi
boyfriend. We're not looking for a woman, though. Part of me thinks that
would be a disaster, even if the situation presents itself.
All that said, there are examples of very successful triads.
Well-known bi activist Ron Owen has lived in Arizona with a male and
female
partner for a good part of two decades. They even have children, and
they're
unsure which one is the father. Owen says it shouldn't matter. They're
all equal when it comes to parenting, sex, and love.
That's not to say they haven't had their share of troubles and
jealousies. But it's the kind of relationship we might all aspire to,
whether it's in odd or even numbers.
Ron's story is a column in itself, perhaps even a book. But he
summarizes
the relationship's success with one simple word: Communication. "Talk
things out; get your feelings out; communicate," Ron says. It seems like
simple advice, but it takes practice. And if you can't do
it with one partner, how can you possibly do it with two?
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