It’s the question asked ‘round the world, by men and women everywhere, how can I talk to my partner about…(fill in the blank with some sort of open marriage revolving thing.) It’s no wonder, with the near universal yearning for variety, and that often bubbling below the surface desire to see your partner with another man/woman, that this question is so popular.

Those of us who are actually swingers, and have experienced the fun and excitement of threesomes, foursomes, and moresomes are treated as though we may have found the Holy Grail, and are inundated with variants on the above. What follows will be an attempt to give you a “get the ball rolling” sort of path to jump on. A lot here depends on you, and your partner, and you should be ever so cautious here at the beginning, ‘cuz it can easily feel as though you’ve wandered off the map, and thar be monstars in the unknown. Haven’t scared you off, have I?

No? Good. ‘Cuz you want to know a secret? Threesomes and swinging are really awesome.

Communicating With Your Partner About A Threesome

I feel they’re just about the most fun you can have without breaking anything but obscure old blue laws. Before we get to the “getting your partner to do” anything, we need to talk about fundamentally the most important part of this process. Communication. Period. If fantasy isn’t something you’re able to talk to your partner about, you probably need to hold off on the graduate level sexuality and focus on some remedial stuff first. Because the place you want to start with the threesome/swinger talk is with fantasy. Why? Well, if you’ve got a good solid relationship that can share fantasies and new ideas, you’ll probably be able to have the all important “sharing is caring” conversation. You also ought to be somewhat experimental in order to pull this one off. And not just you, the BOTH of you. If it’s missionary with the lights off every night, this might not be the time. (Not that there’s anything wrong with missionary with the lights off, in fact, missionary is one of my favorite positions. I love being able to look my lovers in the eyes.) So, if you feel you have good communication, and you may be more advanced than vanilla folk (you know, maybe vanilla bean, or vanilla with sprinkles) then it’s time to start playing with the fantasy.

Getting The Ball Rolling

Start non-specific, when my wife and I began the discussion, it was as simple as hot sexy talk, during the act, which of our friends would you bave sex with, who do you find hot, what’s your type, etc. These things are rarely discussed in a marriage, or a long term relationship, especially the “what’s your type” conversation, because married people like to assume they’re their partner’s type. (Not always the case, exceptions are often made for the spousal type.) Work this into your sex play, your discussions. Notice reactions when you do so. If your wife blanches at the idea of having another imaginary woman in bed, it’s doubtful she’d be up for having a flesh and blood real live girl lying next to her as well. It’s also important not to take fantasy acceptance as a green light. Really, it’s best to look at these stages as red and yellow lights. When you encounter a red light, you need to step back a bit, and run at it again. If you continually encounter red lights, and swinging or threesomes is extremely important to you, well, you have to decide if it’s a deal breaker or not. Now, if you’re getting yellow lights the whole way down, you’re likely to be sitting pretty before long.

Once the fantasy is out there, it’s likely to come up again. After a particularly hot lovemaking session where you’ve brought your best friend imaginarily into the bedroom to play the old fingercuffs game with your wife, there’s a good chance she’ll come up to you later, (sometimes as soon as in the shower immediately afterwards) and ask “wow, that was hot, where the hell did that come from?” A lot can be judged in the tone of this question. And tone can be the difference between yellow light and red light. If your partner doesn’t ask about it, or bring it up at all, or try to insert it into your NEXT lovemaking session, you shouldn’t read that as stop, just that they may be shy, or conflicted about their feelings on it. In any case, this is where that communication thing comes into play.

Why Communication Is So Important

Remember how EVERYBODY EVER has said that communication is the secret to a good relationship. Well, it’s also the secret to getting anywhere with the swinging conversation. If you can’t ask for something, you can’t do it. If your spouse doesn’t bring up that unique new fantasy or roleplay you guys did, well the onus is on you to do so. So suck it up and talk about it. It’s in this conversation where you need to have “the talk.”

Not the “when a man and a woman love each other very much” talk. The “it would be possible for me to be sexually attracted to another person” talk. And this is often the hardest conversation for people to have these days. Our entire society seems to scream that your relationship is bad if you have any attraction or wanderlust toward anyone other than your spouse for your entire life. (Well, except for all the cheaters, and divorcees, and…well, everybody who just won’t admit it.) So, take your deep breath and jump into the cold water. If you’re gonna be asking the question “do you ever think about being with another person?” know that your partner may think it’s a trap, so be ready with your “cuz I do sometimes, but I think it’d be super hot to do it with you.” (Don’t feel the need to use phrases like that which sound like they come straight from the pages of Dynamite Magazine for teens.)

This is the money point here. Especially with a threesome, it’s REALLY easy for it to appear that you’re just a guy who wants to have sex with two girls. Sorry for the crudity there, but it’s the truth. It’s why I never asked for a threesome. Because I failed to see what might be in it for her. This was before I knew that my wife harbored secret bisexual fantasies (see, lack of communication!) so I wasn’t able to suggest how hot it’d be for me to see her with another girl without risking triggering her defense mechanisms.

What To Talk About And When To Talk About It

In a healthy sexual relationship, we all have the desire to fulfill our partners fantasies, or to at least take them as close to the edge as we’re willing to go. So when your partner comes to you and says “darling, I’d love to see you fuck another person, it’d make me sooo hot!” well you at least consider whether or not you might be able to make that fantasy come true. The key point here is that threesomes and swinging shouldn’t be a “let’s try something new this weekend for my birthday, for our anniversary, for Arbor Day” conversation. It should be an ongoing discussion, with at least a few days between start and finish, but preferably, a couple weeks to allow the idea to really sink in. Especially with all the tertiary issues that can crop up, chief among them being jealousy, but also STI and pregnancy risk, the lunacy that can come from adding another person to a relationship, and so many more things that can broadside you because you hadn’t even considered them.

Now, if you’ve had these conversations and fantasies, and talked about what you’re interested in, well then, that sounds like a green light and permission to launch. Next stop, open relationship town. But that’s a whole other discussion, and that’s for next time.