Ménage à trois is the French term describing a relationship or domestic arrangement in which three people, often a married couple and another lover, share a sexual relationship, although the relationship might or might not involve all three persons having sexual relations with each other.[1] The French phrase literally translates as "household of three".
It is also used to refer to an arrangement where three people share sexual relations, and this has become the predominant definition. Some also use it to describe any sex act involving three people, otherwise known as a threesome. Ménage à trois, two women with one man, has become more common, perhaps due to its presentation in porn films.
There are ménage à trois arrangements involving two men and one woman, or also three men or three women. Sometimes ménage à trois is called Hot Wives, referring to a married woman who has sex with men other than her spouse, with the husband's consent. In most cases the husbands take a vicarious pleasure in their wives' enjoyment, or enjoy watching, hearing, or knowing about their wives' adventures. Husbands may also take part by engaging in threesomes, or arranging dates for their wives.
In Fiction
The ménage à trois is a recurring theme in fiction and has been the subject of a number of books, plays, films and songs. Some notable examples which have this as a core theme include:
- Design for Living (1933) play by Noel Coward
- Jules et Jim by Henri-Pierre Roché, adapted and filmed in 1961 by François Truffaut.
- David Crosby's song about ménage à trois, "Triad" (1968)
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
- Paint Your Wagon (1969) — in the film version, Ben marries Elizabeth, but she falls in love with Partner. They decide that if a Mormon man can have two wives, then a wife can have two husbands.
- Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), directed by John Schlesinger, a movie about a threesome with a homosexual man, a heterosexual woman, and a bisexual man.
- Cabaret (film) (1972), directed by Bob Fosse, a movie about a threesome with a heterosexual woman played by Liza Minnelli, and two men. The MC also sings a song entitled "Two Ladies."
- Summer Lovers (1982), a film with Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah, in which a vacation in Greece leads to a female-male-female relationship that is both emotional and sexual.
- A Home At The End Of The World (1990) Book by Michael Cunningham centres for the most part around a menage a trois.
- Three of Hearts (1993), directed by Yurek Bogayevicz.
- Threesome (1994), about a love triangle of three college roommates, two men and a woman: the woman loves/lusts after the gay man, who loves/lusts after the straight man, who loves/lusts after the woman. The movie explores the complications of real friendship, jealousies and sexual relationships among students still discovering their own identities.
- Kiss the Sky (1999). Aging married friends try to form a threesome while building an island retirement refuge. Though they fail, they learn to accept their situation with the help of a Buddhist monk.
- Y tu mamá también (2001), a somewhat controversial Mexican coming-of-age movie that focuses heavily on the sexual lives of the three characters, played by Maribel Verdú, Diego Luna, and Gael García Bernal. Features mixed jealousy, hedonism, and repressed bisexuality as major themes.
- Politics, a novel about a ménage à trois ("the socialist utopia of sex").
- In "Bandits" (2001), ménage à trois is a major part of the plot.
- The Dreamers - a film staring Eva Green shows a beautiful and functional ménage à trois with a very unfortunate end.
- Cold showers (2005)
- In the film Shortbus (2006) James and Jamie meet a young ex-model and aspiring singer named Ceth and the three begin a sexual relationship
- 2666, a novel by Roberto Bolaño In the first chapter of this novel the four professors all fantasize about the possibility to engage in one.
See also
References
- ^ For example, Evans v. Commissioner, 908 F.2d 369, 370 (8th Cir. 1990) refers to the relationship between Carolyn Cassady, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac as a "ménage à trois" even though there appears to be no real evidence that Neal Cassady and Kerouac had sexual contact with each other.
Further reading
- Barbara Foster, Michael Foster, Letha Hadady. Three in Love: Ménages à trois from Ancient to Modern Times. ISBN 0595008070
- Vicki Vantoch. The Threesome Handbook: A Practical Guide to sleeping with three. ISBN 1568583338
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