Girl Gone Wild: Menage a what?

By Loki Ferris

If I hear another man tell me he wants a ménage a trois, I fear my eyeballs will roll into the back of my skull and stay there for the remainder of the conversation--especially when the stipulations exclude another male. "More than one penis is just too many" or "That kind of makes it gay," they say. In all fairness, if I wanted to make love to two men at once, it should be acceptable by today's standards, right? Nope. "You'd be a freak and no man would take you seriously after knowing that," they tell me.

I'll never do it for the same reason I don't do drugs: I don't feel a need for it. My life is hectic enough; I don't need to amplify my relationship(s) or my zest for life with sex with more than one person at the same time. Never have I heard of such an arrangement bearing any longevity. It changes so many things in the relationship.

I've been picked up by couples before, and it's flattering that they want to recruit me, but I decline. If I'm giving off the vibe by being too friendly, then I turn up the bitchiness. At a recent party, my friends decided to go to the restroom all at once. Within seconds, a couple started dancing with me. I went with the flow, then excused myself when my friends returned. They followed, but this time it was clear that the girl wasn't as interested as her guy was. He kept nudging her along to dance with me even though I was in my circle of friends. Finally, I leaned in and asked her, "Is he your boyfriend?"

She nodded.

"You don't have to do what he says--it's obvious you aren't comfortable." I told her, but her guy was insistent. She faded into the background as he grew larger--and more of a nuisance, for now he was in my face carrying on the macking load of two people. He was trying so hard to fulfill his fantasy that I couldn't take anymore.

"If you keep forcing your girlfriend into situations she doesn't want to be in, you'll eventually lose her," I said. It didn't register. He whisked his girl away, looking for his next prey.

My friends Alfred and Karla had a long-term relationship that involved having three kids together. Alfred's fantasy of having another girl come into the mix gave rise only when Karla finally agreed because she thought it would make him happy. They brought another girl into the mix and, in a way, it was the best thing that ever happened to her.

The experience kicked her level of introspection up a few notches and she began to think about the motivation behind most of her decision-making. After 13 years of being with the same man that she lived to please, she decided she'd had enough.

I had always wondered why, after three children and being monogamous for so long, they'd never bother to marry.

"I'm not good enough to marry. He likes the idea that he's a free man," Karla revealed. I couldn't believe it. Together since high school, three kids with everything else legally recognizing them as married, I was at a loss for words. Karla raised the kids, had a full-time job, put up with Al's constant flirting and degradations (always disguised as a joke), and he was telling her she wasn't good enough? There were so many times I wanted to reach out, but I knew she wasn't ready.

I didn't ask about the details of the tryst, but it's obvious she learned a great deal about herself and what she wanted out of life regardless of the looming presence of her former common law husband. Her only regret is that it took something she didn't want to do or enjoy doing to realize she'd been repeating this pattern just to feel loved by the man who made her feel like she wasn't good enough to have him.

I'm happy for Karla now. She's emotionally more stable, with a man who respects her. I bet he has fantasies too, just like the rest of them, but that is all they are...fantasies. And Alfred's idea of being a free man is a glaring, self-fulfilled prophecy I repeat to my guy friends as an example of "fantasies never meant to be fulfilled."

E-mail your comments and questions to loki@lasvegasmercury.com.