This post continues the sex oldies series, begun about two posts down. This is another one of my favorites. It speaks to one of peoples’ hottest and most persistent fantasies: three-way sex. It’s from a series I did for the Seattle-based website Sexuality.org, which is connected with something called the Sex Positive Community Center or SPCC, also called The Wet Spot. This is sort of the local YMCA of sex, in downtown Seattle; there are some cool things in that somewhat odd city: another tale.
Looking to today’s astrology, we see a picture of this theme in a triple grouping of planets, Venus, Chiron and Neptune, in Aquarius. Venus brings the desire/beauty element, Chiron brings the healing/awareness element, Neptune brings the fantasy element and Aquarius brings the group element.
The conjunction we’ve lived through the past three days is over — Sun conjunct Nessus. That was the big question mark hanging over so much. Venus-Chiron-Neptune is more of a big yes, including yes to the places our desire has been hurt and where we seek to heal and be real. When we talk about this concept of ‘sexual healing’, the notion is ambiguous to many; and it has a different meaning to everyone. Yet we all share a common thread of light, which is seeking the freedom to desire what we want, free of guilt. This is an attribute of self-acceptance, since desire is a core attribute of self.
As for three-way sex. Most of us want it at some time. Mixed Emotions talks about the transition from the fantasy to the reality. The context in this article is male-female sex, with the introduction of a third element. For lesbian, gay and/or trans couples, it will not be that different than what I am describing below; perhaps simpler, in some ways, since the element of homophobia has been addressed — but there is always heterophobia to experiment with!
The thing to remember is that there is a difference between what you imagine and what will happen: and you need to mind the gap, and give the experience a few chances before you decide it is or is not for you. In fantasy one has total control. In reality, you have the vibrations of three different people influencing one another, including desires various shades of desire and fear. The other thing to remember is that people getting together and exploring sex in some form of group is as natural as the squirrels running around my backyard. It’s lodged deep in human nature.
I am sure I would say some things differently were I to rewrite this article; I have more experience and learning than I did 10 years ago. But I will sum it up this way. If you are an individual and you want this experience, harmonize with couples and look/feel around for ones that are open to the idea — and who seem driven by their curiosity and mutual desire to give one another this gift.
If you’re a couple and you want to have this experience, decide whether you’re more interested in a male or female participant and look/feel around for someone.
If you are a participant in a couple and want to try this with your partner, express the desire and play with the fantasy when you’re exploring sex together. Some of your partners will be open to it; some will not, some will grow into it if you have an open mind and it really turns you on.
I could say more about the bisexual polarities involved, but the thing to beware of, and work with, is the element of homophobia. If you’re a guy, note that your female partner may prefer either a second man or a woman to join you; most men involved with women want a second woman, but a second guy is one of the friendliest ways to experiment with male bisexuality.
There are a lot of possibilities. For example, you don’t need to actually have penetrative sex. For the first couple of experiences you can hang out and masturbate together, and test the waters and see how you feel. There is just one common element: open hearts all the way around. Basically, you need everyone to be honest on every level; and then it usually works. That’s from the ancient Tantric teachings, passed along by my mentor Joe.
Anyway, here is my missive on three-way sex, called Mixed Emotions, from the Organic Love series at Sexuality.org.
PH I hear ya. I wrote about fear in another response but you describe another way of looking at it as just being in a different place, needing something else…
I would venture to suggest that we might all be, at different times in our lives, poly or mono, bi or gay or straight, and that a straight monogamous situation can follow an experience of a group marriage without being a renunciation of what came before.
“Having an open heart is a way of being loving in the moment. It is about being in love, but right then. It does not need to last forever.”
I’m so excited at the above statement. There is a great difference between ‘loving sex’ and ‘physical sex’ and I am sure all have experienced both. When fantasizing about group sexual encounters I had always pictured it as merely physical, enjoying the sensations and pleasure from multiple people, but when it actually happened all of us were open hearted and truly in love with each other for the entire encounter. One participant even said to me, “I love you, you know what I mean. It could be for an hour, a week, or a lifetime.” This was so important to how the night played out. Instead of feeling jealousy, guilt or shame, the emotional and physical love we all shared enhanced the pleasure immeasurably. It was the most beautiful event I have ever participated in and still makes my heart sing when I think about it.
Thank you Eric for giving us all room to learn, share and grow!
Love Rachel
I find myself genuinely struggling to express that which is circling around my Neptunian intuitive in-tray….probably because Venus and Chiron are adding that frisson of “oh it really is alright….its a healing…” and Marvin Gaye keeps grinning at me..!
So lets start at the very beginning…….
I guess I first got laid around the age of 15…..normal fumbling “ooh aagh…what happened…and why is it over?.. I want to live here forever…” sort of stuff…and at 16 went camping in the South of France with a buddy for a month in August 1967. The wicked month in France… everybody goes south to the Mediterranean…Les Vacances… Holidays…..so we did!
Marise was 21 from Besancon…..and had basically decided to seduce me before we had even hit the beach….her friend and my buddy…made it a perfect 30 days. 12 Euros train fare from London to Toulon and 20 Euros to spend….doesn’t seem possible now…does it? We did everything that I could ever have imagined possible…. and when we left and she …expecting me to relocate to Besancon with her….found out that I was a 16 year old schoolboy….Kerpow…!!! The bittersweet poignancy of it all is with me still….over 40 years later.
From then on I enjoyed sexual encounters as often as possible…..usually 2 of us…. but if we were at a party…this was 1969…and 15 or 16 people were naked and enjoying each other…. this was never a problem. I have to confess that to this day I have never been personally pleasured by another man….simply personal taste….. but once one has shared a partner or two or three….it is no longer a matter of guilty secrets…or regret or parental archetypes looming large….. it is simply that ones passion has over ridden any logical or rational process.
But having been introduced to erotica…and practiced often…one is then in a position to reflect on the quality of the experience….and the follow through.
By this I mean that human beings are not like the squirrels…in the old backyard. This is up for debate…but for me…a sexual encounter connects me to the other/others on a soul level. I have lived ….in my early twenties… in communities where possibly 70/80% of the people were sexually connected. It becomes a great burden to be on-line to that many people….all at once….with no respite. In fact I would humbly suggest that FaceBook….Twitter…and all of these other chat rooms that people slope off to are actually a substitute for the unreachable experience that they so secretly desire. In other words as long as it is a taboo or you cant have it….it is desirable…..but once you are connected to 30 or 40 other people intimately……. there is nowhere left to go…the self discipline needed to maintain that position certainly interfered with my ability to work in musical groups….
Rule one… never fuck the lead singer…male or female….
And while we are on the subject…I would have to disagree with the premise that
“Just because our one legitimate model of relationship, handed to us by government and religion, sanctions only monogamous heterosexual relationships between two people to the exclusion of all others, human interaction takes many shapes, and some of those involve relating to more than one person in an erotic experience.”
Sir Mick Jagger his very self….enobled by us Brits…..aristocratic bedmate of 1000s….is the visible proof that we all admire a legendary libido….wherever it is expressed….. it is the models we use that need updating…….
I think that polyamory …as a movement is as acceptable as the Mormons …. polygamy…. or simply lovers co-habiting. In Africa where I live sometime with my wife…a man can legitimately have 4 wives…each has a parlour and a bedroom…. and the man spends 2 nights with each on rotation. Its a symbol of a mans wealth…how many wives he has…… but they do say that if you have more than 2…you will have a bad back. Here again I return to the practical implications …post group erotica….of mainting the social order.
One needs a strategy for living at the best of times….I think that there are many reasons why everybody should read Eric’s obsession……develop their own sense of what is really erotic for them…and perhaps try and unleash that power and creative juice…as we did.
Island…by Aldous Huxely was required reading for us as 13 year olds……
My concern is that just as the 1960s moved into the deadening thud of a crashingly difficult 1970s…… if you dont have a strategy for working in your community before you move on to group erotica….your lives will be 10 times more difficult after this experience…. you will be called upon to be responsible for your group connections. If you can handle that….go for it….it is not a moral issue….it is logistical…can your emotions handle an exponential increase in the traffic on your chakras…?
I gave up on revolving door sexual encounters in 1977….. enjoyed one more 2 year affair…then became a celibataire…a French concept of spiritually questing…….this led me to a 15 year period of cathartic growth….every soul who had ever communed with me sexually….slowly left my arena….leaving an empty space…and as nature abhors a vaccuum….my beautiful wife walked….!!
Let me repeat that I have no problem with the debate…or the choices on the table….. and I will not use scaremongering of the Charlie Manson type…..because there are many valid communities in the world making polyamory work….but what we really need is a caring Aquarian community based plan for living that may embrace ALL sexual preferences.
The whole time writing …I have been looking for the right musical metaphor…….
Every body does indeed hurt sometime…are you really strong enough to carry such a Herculaen burden..
You would be in a situation where your vulnerability to all of your partners pains…traumas….and nightmare scenarios is on-line 24/7…
Try it…..with love and caring….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDFv-SjirwU
PH