I went in thinking I wanted a threesome.
Image by Graphic by Chris Ritter for BuzzFeed
Last year, at the age of 31, I found myself single for the first time in many years. A few months later, though I was still mourning the loss of my young marriage, I decided to try dating again. In particular, having somehow lost the wilder sexual self of my younger years when I became a wife, I planned to have nothing short of a sexual renaissance. I was curious about all sorts of things: Tantra, BDSM, those sleek new vibrators that look like modern art. World of sex, I thought, here I come.
But first, I resolved, I was going to have a threesome.
Back in college I had threesomes with two different couples. There was the handsome writer and his dimpled girlfriend who frequented the Irish pub where I waitressed. Then senior year I slept with a gorgeous doctor and her fiancé a few times. It all felt thrillingly wild and experimental. Above all, it was secretive. Afraid my friends would judge me, I didn't tell anyone about my exploits. Although I loved being with these women, I never seriously considered myself bisexual. I assumed I was turned on by the societal taboo of a threesome, not the girls themselves.
Even though I hadn't dated in years, I had enough single friends to know exactly where to head to fulfill my group sex fantasies: OkCupid, the free online dating service with a reputation that hovers somewhere between soulmate market and place to find a glorified booty call.
I didn't blatantly advertise my interest in group sex. I didn't have to. Turns out all I needed to do online was acknowledge liking both men and women, and plenty of folks assumed I was interested in liking both at the same time. It felt distinctly insincere to identify myself as "bisexual" when I set up my profile. All the "real" bi girls had disclaimers reminding anyone who perused their pages that they were absolutely, really "NOT INTERESTED IN COUPLES!" Meanwhile, here I was, stealthily stalking their turf.
During my first few weeks on the site, a handful of couples messaged me. One was in their sixties — far too old. A few messages were sent by men advocating their threesome causes with such desperate and/or pornographic excitement that it gave me the creeps. One note featured such poor grammar that my inner English major simply wouldn't let me respond.
No dates with a couple had materialized after a month online when I got a message from Jenna, who was listed as single and bi. She commented on my naming Jo Ann Beard as a favorite author and asked if I'd ever read Lauren Slater. Four literary banter–filled messages later, she asked me out for drinks. The flutter in my stomach was all the incentive I needed to say yes.
Jenna worked for a nonprofit, spoke fluent Russian, and volunteered at a hospital two evenings a week. She had shoulder-length brown hair and small blue eyes. When she laughed, she tipped her head forward a little instead of back, like most people do. Like me, she was newly exploring her interest in women after primarily dating men.
After a long night of flirting and drinking followed by some serious making out on the sidewalk, I asked her to come home with me.
"I would never say yes to a man who asked that," she confided. "But yes."
Image by Graphic by Chris Ritter for BuzzFeed
We held hands all the way home. Like little girls, I remember thinking, my instinctive point of reference for the intimate act. But of course this was not like little girls at all, despite our giggly giddiness.
I considered sleeping with Jenna a lark, something to mark off my sexual "to do" list now that I was single. But it was not a lark at all when we got into the bedroom. I was totally mesmerized by her naked body: her freckled skin and small breasts, the way she reflected and refracted me. Jenna and I texted a few times after our night together, but another date never happened.
So when a pretty girl with a boyfriend contacted me a few weeks later for a potential threesome, I agreed to meet her for drinks alone to see if we clicked. I tried to go back to thinking about sex with women the way I always had — as part of experiences defined by men, requiring men. But seconds after meeting Jodi, a lawyer with a wicked sense of humor and the most beautiful neck I'd ever seen, all thoughts of her partner fled the scene. I wanted her. Just her.
I was flummoxed by this realization. My attraction to women felt safe within the context of threesomes. There, it had an easily accessible Girls Gone Wild-esque context, complete with male gaze and male appendage. To like women on their own meant trading in my performed sexuality for a trickier, more authentic one. And I didn't know how. Did I have to come out? Should I re-envision my potential future family? What part would I play in an LGBT community, if any?
Before grappling with my place in the real world, I decided first to address my presence in the online one. Now that I was no longer interested in securing threesomes, I found myself sympathizing with all those all-caps disclaimers on bi girls' profiles. Now that I was no longer on the hunt for group sex, I found the flood of couple inquiries more than a little annoying.
Still, those could be relatively easily ignored. More troublesome were the single men I seemed to attract based solely on my "bi" status. I deleted some messages right away, like those proclaiming how "hot it is u r into girls." But at least those guys were clear with their intentions. One guy I went on a date with had said he was in an open relationship, but when I asked about his girlfriend, he admitted she didn't know he was out with me. "She was at work when I left," he shrugged. Then he began talking about how he was looking for someone "to surprise her with," at which point I drained my drink and left him with the bill.
