My boyfriend announced he wants to have a threesome…with a guy. We’ve talked about threesomes before when talking dirty, but I always assumed he meant with another girl. Should I be worried?
Routh Chadwick, Licensed Master Social Worker
Are you worried that he might be gay? Should he be worried that you might be gay for being open to another woman? Why does two men raise flags but two women doesn’t? Our culture holds male sexuality to a different standard than female sexuality, so while heterosexual women are "allowed" to experiment along the spectrum, different assumptions are unfairly applied to straight men who do the same. Alfred Kinsey actually devised a scale to address this: It ranges from incidentally homosexual to exclusively so, and if we apply the same motivations to both you and your partner, it could be that he’s not gay, just greedy!
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Often, people think that sexual compulsions are rooted in perversion or some sexual malfunction — but if you've ever watched Animal Planet, you know that horniness is rarely that complicated. I see so much shame around normal sexual activity that I've often been temped to write a sequel to Everybody Poops called Everybody Screws!
That said, although anything is possible, I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. It sounds like you and your boyfriend currently have an active and engaged chemistry — so in reality, he is probably comfortable enough in his sexuality to want to express it in different ways. And, it’s a major plus that he feels close enough to you to be open and honest. Where there are secrets, there are lies — so trust me that you’d rather hear about this from him than from someone else. It is unfortunate that in American culture, rigid sexual norms keep all us neurotically confined to straight or gay, vanilla or kinky. In truth, sexuality is as diverse as humanity itself, and healthy sexual expression can involve experimentation of many different kinds.
I’d recommend talking to your partner about what he had in mind. There are many different types of play that involve two men that aren't "gay" at all — for example, with cuckolding (where a man watches his female partner be taken by another man) or certain types of S&M play (where a man might be slapped with a dildo), the acts are less about the other penis involved and more about the humiliation and submission the man experiences. Weird can be wonderful, so if you’re open to expanding your boundaries and you feel safe with your partner, ask him more and more questions and see what turns you on.
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