The Third Way
If I am an orgy guy I am ambivalent about it. The sublime is what I am after — the kind of transcendent experiences that stay with you — and if these pleasures are more rewarding than self-gratification, they also require empathy and patience. Fuck and run just doesn’t cut it.
I try to keep my non-monogamous karma in balance by attending a polyamorous event now and then. Really though, when people tell me about their loves and lovers (and I blanch at the thought of all the scheduling involved) I start to feel like polyamory is an in-joke I’ll never get. Maybe I’m a contrarian, but I am always looking for a third way.
I hadn’t given much thought to what to do about the date — it had all been so heady and unexpected — but we did share a philosophical skepticism about things and a common love for my wife’s perfect ass. So when I decided to drop by the poly cocktail hour I invited her along.
“My ex is here,” she told me after Les and I arrived. If I disappear from certain scenes for months at a time, this is why — these little communities are all so incestuous. New York appears to shrink with each passing year (it has limits!). Most of the night I made my rounds, checking in now and then with the date, and most of the night her ex hovered around her, eyeing me like I’d pissed on his hedges. I wanted to pull him aside and let him in on my little secret, that if you learn to let women go you’ll have to beat them off with a stick.
If I was reserved it was because I didn’t want to be one of those people who come to poly parties so they can slobber all over their lovers like status-seeking primates. The sly seductress kept brushing up against me though, and so I pressed her to me as we stood by the bar talking about the sex people think sex-writers have versus the sex they actually have.
“You know, I go to sex parties fully intending to hook up,” she said, “but I’m not often comfortable enough to make it happen.”
“I’ve been going to sex parties off and on for years now… if you’ve seen one big sweaty pile of bodies you’ve seen them all.”
She laughed, and when she did so I tugged at one of her pigtails. “And then there are the creeps, and the people you don’t want to see naked.”
“Right. It’s so much more… fulfilling with people you trust. I guess that’s why I prefer the kind of parties that happen in my living room.”
Later on, over dinner, Les and I conducted our customary debriefing — well, we gossiped like schoolgirls — while our date listened, very much amused at our take on things. Something set me off and I went on a far-ranging rant about how so-called sex-positive communities are still not safe spaces for women, after which I felt slightly self-conscious. Then it struck me that it is probably okay to relax around a woman whose ass I’ve fucked.
Leslie disappeared for a while. We would find out later on that she had been pulled into a comedian’s routine and had, of course, held her own against him. That’s just how my wife rolls. “Theoretically I’m poly,” I told our date. “I also adore my wife. Maybe I’m overly picky, but it’s hard for me to justify taking time away from her to be with other women just because I can.”
There was a time when I was after the perfect fuck, or else the perfect love. These are illusions. I am more confident now that as long as I approach life with a spirit of openness and adventure good things will come my way. Because I’ll never really be the orgy guy, with his eternal hardon and his unending parade of partners, and I’ll never really be the poly guy, with his new-agey philosophy and his five totally serious girlfriends.
There may not be a name for what I do, there may not be an off-the-shelf identity that fits, or a community that reflects my particular viewpoint, but I am content, for the most part, with the path I have chosen.
More: Marriage | Polyamory | Dating | New York | Philosophy
Comments Off | Top ↑
