I'm 40 and my husband of ten years has recently suggested that we try
a threesome with another woman. He says he thinks that one of his colleagues
from work would be keen. I'm not sure about this - is it a bad idea?
It is not an offer that I would have ever accepted — or made. My immediate
reaction is that it is a bad idea and the more I think about it the more
unwise it seems. It wouldn’t add anything to your relationship but we can
guarantee that it would complicate your husband’s office life. The least of
your embarrassments would be the office summer party.
One of the national hobbies, which is almost as time-consuming as talking
about football teams, is office gossip. Your threesome, should you accept,
will make an even better story than Liverpool winning the European Cup. Nor
should you rely on this proposed adventure “putting new life into your
relationship”. I have heard this tired excuse a hundred times in the
genito-urinary clinic at the Royal London Hospital. As with many
off-the-shelf psychological remedies it is repeated like an incantation, but
I can’t remember any patient telling me that a threesome, or any kind of
group sex, has revitalised a wilting relationship. At best it may act as a
substitute for a steady but lacklustre union.
The one certainty you can rely on is that a threesome that included two
members of the same office would be hot office gossip within a week or two.
By then the whole office, including probably your husband’s boss (their PA
will tell them), will know every salacious detail, probably embroidered.
Your and your husband’s performance will have been discussed meticulously.
The colleague that your husband has in mind for your little threesome (you
haven’t told us if she is aware of this treat in store) won’t be able to
resist telling her very best friend all about it. A patient of mine tried a
similar sexual adventure once. He told me what a fool he felt because,
having collected his harem together, he couldn’t get an erection. Having
finally set up the fantasy, which he had imagined for years , all he could
achieve on the night was a communal shower.
Most threesomes are two women and one man. Often the women who agree have a
greater degree of bisexuality than most. If not, one of the women is going
to be left rather disappointed as a man’s ability to satisfy two women will
be curtailed by his refractory phase, the period after an orgasm during
which he can’t maintain an erection and has lost interest in sex.
When there are two men and one woman the element of homosexuality is usually
much stronger. Whenever you sleep with a new partner you are not only
sharing the organisms he carries in his genital tract and mouth but are also
sampling a representative culture of organisms from all recent partners and
partners’ partners.
In any threesome, it is a good bet that one of the team is going to be left
out; it might be you. You have to decide what your reaction is going to be
if, having tried this threesome, he decides that he prefers his office
friend.
He is likely to be seeing a lot more of her when awake than he is of you so if
they do hit it off they have plenty of time to consolidate the affair. It
will have the added advantage of being built on a sound foundation of shared
interests.
Take some consolation that he has asked you to join in with the fantasy and
give your husband due credit for this. No cross words, no moral
recriminations, just a polite refusal saying that it is not for you.
Remember he could have so easily had an affair with his office co-worker
without mentioning it to you. Even if he had wanted a third member to join
in he could have arranged it without including you in this particular
frolic. Be thankful for small mercies and smile bravely.
It’s not a bad idea — it’s a terrible idea. I don’t want to rain on your candy
floss, sweetie, but this is the real world not The Waltons. Let me
explain something to you. Your husband of ten years doesn’t just “think”
that one of his colleagues from work “might” be keen. It’s odds-on that he
knows it for a fact because he has been shagging her for months.
Threesomes are not the kind of thing that male and female office colleagues
discuss around the water-cooler. They whisper these fantasies to each other
when they are postcoital, à deux — or possibly à trois,
if Sharon from reception got really drunk with them the night before.
Females who get off on threesomes do exist, though there are not many of them
and they don’t generally work in offices. There’s Abi Titmuss, of course,
but I think it’s fair to say that most heterosexual women prefer to have
one-on-one sex with their man.
Males are different. They start fantasising about threesomes when they emerge
from the womb and see a nurse and a midwife gazing fondly at them. For a
man, a threesome is the ultimate ego trip. Two women pleasuring him. Two
women pleasuring each other to pleasure him. Him pleasuring two women. It is
the stuff that dreams are made of — well, male dreams anyway — but most men
are content to leave it at that. When a married man single-handedly sets up
a threesome, without consulting his wife, he is disrespecting her.
Some men argue that it is a positive way of reviving a flagging sex life
because it involves both partners, but that’s rubbish.
In the majority of cases a dominant partner forces the issue, knowing that the
subservient partner will go along with it because she, or he, is
intimidated, or absolutely terrified of losing the relationship.
Only last week I was discussing this issue with a relationship counsellor who
has a great deal of experience in this area. She has counselled numerous
women who reluctantly involved themselves in threesomes, swinging or dogging
situations to make their partner happy.
Needless to say, it never worked. The initial relationships invariably split
up and the women who then paired up with partners that they met through
swinging condemned themselves to a life where swinging was not only accepted
but expected.
No disrespect but, to be honest, most women with an intact bull**** detector
know all this stuff intuitively. If their husband raises the idea of a
threesome, they smell a rat immediately. If he then goes on to suggest that
he has already recruited a willing third party from his office, they smell a
whole damn sewer.
Though I have no idea how you will choose to handle this situation, you could
consider the following. Suggest that you are up for a threesome but want to
experience the delights of two men rather than two women and see how he
reacts.
Alternatively, sit him down at the kitchen table and ask him to explain, in as
much detail as possible, what it is about the colleague who will be joining
in that appeals to him. Ask him to describe her, whether she is sexy, how he
knows that she will agree to it, whether he has already had sex with her and
what he wants you to do with her.
Then, when you feel that you have all the relevant information, you need, turn
off the video camera that you have hidden behind the plant pot on the
fridge. Take the tape and get it transferred to DVD (£25 at Snappy Snaps),
and send copies of it to one, or all, of the following people: a) the “keen”
colleague; b) his mum; c) your lawyer.
OVER TO YOU
Do you have a sexual dilemma for Suzi Godson and Dr Thomas Stuttaford? Send
your e-mails to body&soul@thetimes.co.uk or write to Body&Soul, The
Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT. The authors regret that,
although your letters are much appreciated, they cannot respond personally.
