Tripod

Recently I commented on Twitter that the chance of an all-amateur threesome being awful is approximately 100%, and that if you want a good threesome you really need to hire a professional (or even two).  Naturally, I got some blowback from this, because amateurs – especially a certain subset of female amateurs – are very intimidated by the fact (yes, I said “fact”) that professionals are better at sex than they are.  As I wrote in “Don’t Try This At Home“, “ Part of the reason is that we get a lot more practice, and part is necessity…we have to be better at it because our livelihoods depend on it.”  How many different partners does the average amateur have vs the average pro?  How many times does the average amateur practice per week, and in how many different ways?  How many different skills does the average amateur take time to learn, and how much practice does she get in setting boundaries, resolving conflicts, etc?  But the most important question of all is,  Why is this so controversial?  In every other field of human endeavor, the idea that professionals are generally better at whatever-it-is than amateurs is a given; it’s why the term “amateur” can be used in a pejorative manner.  Except when the subject is sex, “You should probably hire a pro to do that” is usually considered good and wholly uncontroversial advice for any compex task that requires greater skill and experience than the average amateur is likely to have.  And believe me, threesomes are complicated; even some professionals don’t like to do them because of the possibility of couple drama:

The first thing I always establish…[is] that the wife [is] in control…since she might become jealous by seeing another woman touching her husband, she [has] the right to speak up if…something…[makes] her uncomfortable.  Sitting close to both of them, I…point out that they…called me to help them experience something novel and exciting, but that it wasn’t for everyone so if the wife [feels] overwhelmed or freaked out she need[s] to say something immediately…

You think even experienced amateurs (except, perhaps, experienced kinksters) go to that trouble?  It is to laugh.  They just dive in without any discussion of what the session should even look like, and then are surprised when all the various disasters one reads about in amateurs’ silly articles happen.  The Daily Beast declared “Threesomes are Actually a Terrible Idea“; the Daily Mail presented “10 Reasons Why Having a Threesome is a Bad Idea” (SCIENCE!), and the anti-sex-despite-its-name Vice helpfully shared “People Explain Why Threesomes Are Boring and Evil“.  As you might expect, all of these are deeply stupid and woefully ignorant, and only the Beast article even mentions the word “professional” (and even there, it’s bizarrely referring to the male as being the one in need of professional skills).  Even when jealousy isn’t a factor (and believe me, it can sometimes pop up even in situations that at first seem safe), motivation and direction are.  Amateurs aren’t getting paid, so they want to have “fun” and get sulky when they feel left out or lose steam before the others do.  And if all three are equally incompetent, who’s going to manage things?  Because, dear reader, somebody has to.  See, the title of this essay is ironic; a threesome isn’t evenly-balanced like a tripod, though that’s what amateurs believe and expect; it’s more like a parent taking two overexcited kids to the zoo for the first time.  Or, in the case of a duo, two parents taking one kid.  That’s why most pros generally prefer to work with a specific duo partner (for me it’s Lorelei Rivers); it’s much easier to provide a good experience with a partner one knows well than to try to wing it with someone who can’t read one’s non-verbal cues as reliably.  And as any parent can tell you, things always go more smoothly when the people running the show are on the same page.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)