How-To's for Having Non-Disastrous Group Sex (Part I)

Ten years ago, someone I had recently met at a writers' conference emailed me with a question he hoped that I, as the only “out” polyamorous person he'd ever met, would be able to answer for him: how does one go about having group sex?

I felt a bit sheepish about admitting that I had never participated in any kind of group sex. Yes, my marriage had been actively open for close to a decade by then, but my husband and I had always dated separately. Nevertheless, here was someone soliciting my opinion on a topic that was immediately relevant to his personal life – he identified as bisexual; he and his wife were talking about opening their marriage; he had always fantasized about sharing a sexual experience with an MF couple – so I cobbled together a list of my best how-to guesses and sent them off. That list has since been lost in the mists of time, which is too bad, because I'd be curious to see how well it matches up with the list I am working on now.

I do still recall one piece of advice I gave my writer friend, and that is because I absolutely failed to follow it when I experienced my first (and, to date, only) foursome. I had told him to avoid any scenario in which group sex functioned primarily as an excuse to interact with someone who would otherwise be “off-limits” to him. Wouldn't you know it, six months later, I found myself in a hot tub with my husband, my husband's girlfriend, and my husband's girlfriend's other boyfriend – who was otherwise off-limits to me. Not because any of us had talked explicitly about relationship agreements or personal boundaries, mind you. No, we had jumped right over the “good communication is key” guideline we all professed to follow, and tumbled pell-mell into the deep end together. It was exciting, no doubt about it – but it was also a huge mistake. At least one friendship ended as a direct result of that not-so-blessed event.

Good thing I'm so much older and wiser! I'm totally beyond the stupid shenanigans of my early thirties! I'm Group Sex Guru material now, for shizzle!

Ok, ok. Truthfully, I'm still pretty much a novice when it comes to group sex. Since my disastrous debut, I've had eleven more group sex experiences, for a grand total of twelve, with thirteen different participants involved in one or more of the events (other than myself, of course): ten threesomes, five of which were FMF and five of which were MFM; that one problematic MFMF foursome; and – just last week – one awesome FMFMF fivesome. But after that first fucked-up foray, all of my group sex experiences have ranged from “super nice” to "Yes!!! I'm officially winning at life!!!”, so I think it's worth sharing what I've learned so far. I'll be posting my new & improved list next Tuesday. In the meantime, let me know if you have any Do's and/or Don'ts you think I ought to include!