Ménage. It seems to be the flavour of the moment. Men, women, aliens, vamps and weres are all doing it. Special acts of magic, a way to rule the universe, finding that final piece of the puzzle that is your heart, or just cause it's downright kinky, ménage is all the rage.
But just the concept itself has many facets - ménage-a-trois (or quatre as the case sometimes is) , polyamory, polygamy (and from that polyandry/polygny), or just the plain old threesome. None of these names mean the same thing, although the lines can be a little blurred between them sometimes - after all, no single relationship will ever be the same as another.
What makes ménage, in any of it's forms, so popular? Is it that love can come in many forms and we are capable of that big love not just only once in our life? Is it the need of belonging or fulfilment - maybe not dissimilar to the women who say they are 'unfulfilled/longing' for that one last child - that the person can only find through loving more than one husband or wife? Or is it just all about the sex?
Then of course you get into the whole issue of who's doing who, and how...
But just the concept itself has many facets - ménage-a-trois (or quatre as the case sometimes is) , polyamory, polygamy (and from that polyandry/polygny), or just the plain old threesome. None of these names mean the same thing, although the lines can be a little blurred between them sometimes - after all, no single relationship will ever be the same as another.
What makes ménage, in any of it's forms, so popular? Is it that love can come in many forms and we are capable of that big love not just only once in our life? Is it the need of belonging or fulfilment - maybe not dissimilar to the women who say they are 'unfulfilled/longing' for that one last child - that the person can only find through loving more than one husband or wife? Or is it just all about the sex?
Then of course you get into the whole issue of who's doing who, and how...
16 comments:
I just wrote my first menage which included man on man. I never thought I'd write it, but I loved stretching that creative muscle. My focus on this story was not necessarily a HEA for my three. It was more like HEAFN - HEA for now.
I like reading m/m more than menage so the m/m BJ that I wrote was a lot of fun. In my personal life and feelings, I don't quite understand the desire to share my partner with another person, so I doubt I'll write another menage. But I did love writing the m/m part.
But on the other hand, maybe I'll try writing a f/f/f menage some day. When it's time to stretch the creative muscles again.
I think the whole point is that a menage isn't necessarily anything to do with what someone wants in real life -- not for the writer or the reader. They can be fun to write or to read but I can't imagine being part of such a relationship, although I've nothing against it if it works for those involved. My Swithin trilogy has ended up being a m/m/m menage even though that's not what I intended in the beginning. It just suddenly clicked in my head that these three guys belonged together. To discard one of them would have been too cruel.
There's also a princess in my story but she will find her own kind of happiness by the end of the trilogy and may even have a spin-off book. The point is that sometimes your imagination or the story takes you somewhere unexpected.
I have a draft for a sci-fi menage that I intended to be m/f and then another writer said the two guys needed a relationship and after much indignation on my part, I thought 'Damn, she's right' and the menage sprang from there. Now I just have to finish it. LOL.
Yes, I agree that sometimes the story and/or the characters want something that wasn't intended in the first place. I didn't intend to give my two men a love scene, but I got toward the end of the story and it seemed unfair not to. I was happy to oblige them.
I do so love stretching that creative muscle. And it seems the more I write these stories that I feel are fun to write, the more I'm willing to stretch that muscle. This is fantasy , pure and simple. Erotic fantasy allows me to go beyond and tap into my characters' psyches. Menages whether m/m/ or f/f/ or m/f/m or f/m/f creates a separate world for both readers and writers, a world most of us may never enter outside our imaginations. I just finished a trilogy in which two of the stories involve a menage. And because I enjoyed writing them, there will be more! Marie A. Roy
I've been thinking for quite some time about the staying power of a menage, or rather about what would be required to make a three-way HEA. Plainly, each member must want *both* of the other people in his or her life. I've spoken to people who are in or have been in triads, and their families seem at least as stable as the average wo-person relationship. But more than half of them make me wonder how much of their contentment and stability is due to their mutual commitment to one another, as opposed to a mutual commitment to subverting the dominant paradigm. In other words, how many of them would have drifted apart long ago if they lived in a society that promoted the triad as a basic social unit?
My fictional menages have turned out to be a mixed bag. The f/m/f triad I wrote a few years ago ended on an unhappy, unstable note. While the male and one of the females were emotionally suited to be part of a plural marriage, the other female simply was not--and couldn't change without violating her most basic nature. I've tried to write a sequel, but it always starts on such an unhappy note I feel like I'm smashing any hint of the HEA I tried to reach in the first story. In retrospect, I wish I'd gone ahead and killed off one of the females.
The m/f/m triad I wrote more recently (The Huntsmen 1: Lights Out!) had much better long-range potential because the males were strongly bonded to one another emotionally, albeit not sexually, and the sexual/emotional bonding with the female was both balanced and strong.
The m/f/m triad I'm writing right now has the same bonding between the males, who are brothers, and between each of them and the female, but I have to work with a tension I worked around in LO! One of the guys is straight; the other has bisexual interests. Unless the bi guy cuts off part of his core identity, he will eventually follow his nose in the direction of prostate massages and nuzzling testes. He can't satisfy this sexual urge inside the triad because--never mind the other guy is straight--the other guy is his brother. And don't tell me the female of the group can scratch his itch with a strap-on. I love guys. I can identify with guys who love guys. Just as I don't think a woman with a strap-on would do it for me, I don't think she would do it for a guy who hungers for that different curve, different smell, different feel to the skin and different timbre to the groans. So what do I do? Add another guy to the bed? Make it a foursome? I don't know. I'm in the last stretch of writing this thing and at least a third of the chapters have alternative versions. This is NOT an efficient way to write!
As a reader, I despise menage. I'm just too much of a romantic. I see why it's popular, people like their fantasies, but for me stories need an underlining realistic tone to it, for me to enjoy the stories.
I did however I enjoy D.J. Manly's Amusing Amanda series which is a menage, but it's more voyeur than anything else. I can handle that.
I write menage for many reasons, not the least of which is that it's something that still pushes the envelope. Not necessarily in terms of people's fantasies - I believe most individuals have fantasized at some point about having TWO _____(insert gender here) focused on their pleasure, but in terms of acceptability in general society. While it is becoming more and more politically correct to accept same-sex relationships, that same tolerance does not apply to romantic relationships involving more than two, whatever the sexes involved. Despite the popularity of the show "Big Love" and other tentative media forays into polyamorous relationships, the idea of long-term, committed, successful poly-relationships where the people involved consider themselves "married - 'til death do us part" and equally in love with and caring for more than one person is not something the general public considers acceptable, or in some cases, even believable. As a writer who likes a challenge, I look for those kinds of elements to bring into the stories I write. Plus, I like to explore concepts that challenge the status quo. The reality is that ... reality changes! What was true five thousand or even five hundred years ago is not necessarily true today.
For example, in exploring the idea of polyamorous relationships, I found myself coming up against the idea of a single "soul" mate for each person, and I asked myself "Is this realistic?" Is there some natural, biological reason that there would only be ONE person, ever, that would be exactly right for another? For that matter, is there some natural, biological reason that ONE person could EVER be everything that someone needs? I found myself thinking - even two hundred years ago, the idea of actually MEETING this one person, ever, in a single lifetime was pretty slim - realistically, how many people did a person come into contact with in their lifetime, given the limitations of communication and travel? But NOW, with the advent of ubiquitous phones, free internet, IM, e-mail, video chat, the ease of travel - I don't find it difficult at all to believe that the chances of finding that soul mate are better than ever before, simply because of the increased number of people we encounter each and every day. For me, it's not much of a stretch to take that a step farther and deduce that, out of all the tens of thousands of people we might encounter in our lifetime, we may meet MORE than one soul who seems completely attuned to ours.
And from there, I get to the question of "But is any one person REALLY perfect for any other person?" Is there really a SINGLE person out there whose personality, habits, desires, beliefs, culture, etc. is so attuned to ours as to be the ONLY one? And I have to wonder. Again, it isn't a stretch for me to extrapolate that for some people, it may take two, three, or even more personalities, joining as a unit, to create that perfect whole.
This doesn't mean I don't believe in "one soul - one mate", I personally believe I have found my soul mate - and there's only one of him! However, I'm NOT willing to say that MY way is the only way. I am willing to consider the possibilities, and open my mind and my imagination to those possibilities, and explore what having this different type of relationship would mean - in my books!
Why? The more the merrier, of course! If you can find love with one person, why not another? Why can't a woman get two guys? Why can't a guy want a guy AND a woman?
For me, it only works if it really is a three (or more) way sexual relationship, with all members attracted to all other members. The menages where, for example, the two guys don't touch each other and focus on the woman seem unfair to me. I've read some and seen it work, but it's not for my stories, I don't think.
There's got to be a reason and it's got to work for the story. There has to be a need that just one person can't fill for some reason.
Besides, it's fantasy. Probably couldn't work in real life because of jealousies and insecurities, but wouldn't it be nice if it could?
I find Rachel's take on this particularly interesting. In my interview the other day I said that I believe in a soul-mate because if my husband isn't it, he's the closest thing. However, do I believe it's possible to love more than one person. Of course it is because otherwise, when a partner died you'd never be able to love another person. Not only that but you know the person who has gone doesn't want you to live without love if you happen to meet someone. So the human heart definitely has the capacity to love more than once, and in different ways. I just don't know if I could love again and hope I never need to find out, and I seriously doubt I would find anyone so attuned with sharing the things I love, as well as caring for each other.
The real question is whether it's possible to love more than one person 'at the same time'. I think it is possible but it's difficult enough to find one genuine love in this world so for three people all to love each other is rare, and the issue of jealousy arises, of course. The whole idea that if you're caring for someone else then you're not caring for me etc. In real life I think this is a problem. What with all the work you have to do, the errands you have to run, the bills you have to pay, sometimes it's difficult enough for two people to find quality time to share. With three, of course, two could be together while the other one is working or whatever, but this leads back to an acceptance and trust issue.
In fiction, I think I'm more inclined to read a menage in a fantasy or futuristic setting because then it truly is removed from real life and I'm looking for a little escapism. Again, it's not about what you find acceptable in 'real' life. It's about not having to focus on the everyday routine. For a writer it's also about pushing boundaries. Although when I wrote m/m I never set out to stand on a soapbox I quickly realised it was a way for me to openly say let people love who they want to love. As long as it hurts no one else and it works for them, this world needs all the love it can get. Personally, I've come to believe that monogamous relationships are what most people are more suited to in a long-term relationship but then if we're going to look at reality there are a lot of failed marriages and that's not romantic at all.
Sharon wrote:
"Although when I wrote m/m I never set out to stand on a soapbox I quickly realised it was a way for me to openly say let people love who they want to love. As long as it hurts no one else and it works for them, this world needs all the love it can get."
Wow -- that is a terrific point of view! Thank you for putting it into words so well. (applause!)
The most intelligent thing I can say about menages this early in the morning is this: They work for some characters and not for others. There is a fantasy m/m/f manage in my first book where one of the males is deliberately testing the female's boundaries. She goes with it for a while -- yes, the sex is hot -- but then she refuses to continue. It's not right for her. There's no value judgment involved; it's just not something she can enjoy. The scene is part of her journey to learning that true love is more important to her happiness than all the sexual gratification in the world. (And yes, of course she finds both in the end. ;-) )
LOATHE it
Now you knew I was going to say that, didn't you? *g*
That said, I don't begrudge anyone else his/her kink. I'll just never write or read it myself.
I've written everything from the uneasy menage arranged for the benefit of one member (which is still romantic in its own way, when two people can put aside their differences because they agree they love the same person) to arrangements where all parties involved derive both emotional and physical satisfaction. As an author who explores D/s in my work, menage allows me to explore varying dynamics of power exchange. On a technical note -- crafting a menage scene proves an interesting exercise in writing, between keeping the positions and the pronouns "straight"!
Do these arrangements work out in real life? For some yes, for others no, but then monogamous relationships aren't easy either! But in erotic fantasy, I say anything goes.
I think menage books are popular simply because the subject is outside the realm of normalcy. People like reading about things that seem taboo or out of reach.
It's fantasy, an escape, a way to imagine all the best things that never really happen. Similar to the way romantic historicals are glamorized, menage is as well.
The possibility of experiencing a menage relationship is very slim in the RL. Which makes it a perfect topic for writing. Sure some stories deal with the difficulties of such a relationship but in the end everyone still gets their HEA. Which is why many read/write romance.
I'm a menage lover at least in reading and writing. *G*.
I like the challenge of writing it. Menages more so than two person pairings need a reason for plausible connections. It's easier in futuristic/fantasy than in contemporary to give the relationship this. Or at least IMO.
Do they work? Just like in real life, not for all people. Some make it work wonderfully. Others can't. That's true of characters, too.
I think they are popular because it is fantasy and it's something out of the realm that most people have experienced in our societies.
Love it! At least in stories. I think it's because I like the idea of having that much attention focused on me. As a fantasy I want to be taken care of completely. It's a great escape since it's too selfish a way to be in real life.
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