When three's a crowd.

Last week, I met a gay couple who have been together for 15 years. Midway through their relationship, a third person had come into the picture. But instead of having to keep that affair a secret, all 3 of them started a household and began living together. So what do I call them now, a triple? How is a domestic arrangement like that remotely possible?

Though I am not one to encourage breathing down your partner's neck 24/7, how do you divide your time equally between two lovers and not find yourself being split into 2, eventhough all 3 of you are living together in the same house? Where do you find time to be alone? What about the jealousy and possessiveness that are always present in a relationship, no matter how little or how well hidden? And what about the sex?

I was asked if I could handle having a third person join me in bed with my partner, a purely sexual ménage à trois. I said a firm no. When I'm having sex, I want to be totally involved and I want my lover's full attention. I cannot imagine having to watch my lover pleasure someone else while I wait. I want my lover's eyes and [insert other body parts] on me and nowhere else, thank you very much. My life is not a porn video.

Writer and pornographic actress Nina Hartley, while writing for Sexuality and Culture Magazine, said that many people within society fail to realize the benefits of being involved sexually and emotionally with two different people at the same time. She goes further to say that historically, the strongest individual in a Ménage à trois relationship is usually a woman, sharing two men, or one man and one woman. She indicates that, in her opinion, women can more easily control a situation of that sort, and that a woman can equally distribute herself sexually to more than one person, while at the same time having legitimate feelings for both. She goes on to indicate that relationships of this sort are very often more successful than traditional one-on-one relationships, and she points out the large divorce rate among traditional marriages that are often due to infidelity.

Well, fuck me.