RH: What inspired you, after years of living in a menage à
trois, to write this overview?
BF: We'd talked about writing a book about our experiences.
We had so much going on in our lives, and we'd written other books
about subjects less intimately connected to us. Our original intent
was to do a book much more about us and less about other
threesomes, but once we started the research, we found so many
amazing people out there...
MF: One of my inspirations was Vito Russo's The Celluloid
Closet, for the way that it showed that images of homosexuality
were present throughout film history, even when they were buried
or obscured. I wondered if there was something similar going on
with menages, and as Barbara says, the data we found in our
research began to fall into a pattern. We're in the same position gays
were in pre-Stonewall; we exist, but we're not seen. We're observed
but we're not identified. I saw a PBS documentary on romantic
comedies just a few days ago that never mentioned menage
à trois. You'd have thought that romantic comedies were
only ever about couples.
RH: In the opening chapter, you discuss how a threesome often
has a fourth member -- the observer.
BF: The fourth feels the incredible energy going on among the
three and wants to join in.
LH: We've had a number of fourths over the years, and they
all tend to be transitory. Three is a number where the members tend
to turn inward and stick together like glue, while foursomes tend to
split into couples. One of our fourths was my ex-husband. It was like
he was doing comparative studies and not really involved
emotionally or spiritually in the relationship as we are.
MF: I think the fourth can be salutary at times, but it rarely
plays a key energetic part. Its main function is to view the
threesome and sometimes to write about it. The connections between
each duad in the threesome don't necessarily have to be sexual, but
they do have to be close.
RH: You make a strong effort to describe what you see threesomes
as not being.
MF: I'd say the one-night stand menage bears the same
relationship to threesomes as junk food does to food. But it doesn't
always have to be like that. The woman reviewing our book in
Nerve talks about how she wanted to go to bed with her
roommate, another woman, so she brought in her boyfriend for a
threesome. That's obviously about those women being drawn
together and using the man as an excuse.
RH: Before you initiated this threesome, had any of you thought
about doing this before? How has it worked out for you?
BF: Mike and I had already what's called a tolerant marriage,
so it wasn't totally surprising. We'd each had relationships before.
But this was a bolt out of the blue because Letha was totally
different.
MF: If the relationship lasts over time, I think each person
gets to satisfy their needs. Barbara, for example, has always been
more of the going-out type than I am. So how do you deal with that
over a period of time? Usually, I don't see couples reconcile those
kinds of differences, but why the hell shouldn't everybody get to
exercise their wants? With the three of us, we can always find a
combination that works for us. I don't dance, so sometimes the two
women will go out dancing together.
LH: Those of us who grew up as baby boomers were given a
big dose of positive images of threesomes. Like Superman -- Lois
Lane flies through the air with Superman, which has an obvious
erotic charge, and on the ground she's got Clark Kent, who's a very
steady marriageable type. She exercises both sides of her psyche, she
has it all. It's something we all took for granted. A lot of people have
looked for this ideal of plenitude and reached for menages
because they want more than the duality of the couple.
RH: But it's a lot of hard work, even when it's a dream come
true.
MF: We have plenty of quarrels and disagreements like
everybody else. But as we've been out, we've had quite a bit of
tension. The literary establishment has fled from us. Radio and TV
glommed onto us hoping for sensational stuff that they didn't get.
They tried to fit us into slots. Barbara gets flack as the wife with
lovers. As the "man with two wives," I inevitably get attacked and
insulted by women reporters.
BF: Now that we're out of the closet with the book, we're
starting to get people who feel obligated to shun us or to let us know
how they feel about our relationship. It's interesting too how often
we get attacked by other women. Somehow there's this idea that if
you're getting more than you're "supposed to," it's anti-democratic
and anti-feminist.
LH: There's been very little crossover between Three in
Love and my professional world of alternative medicine. People
usually don't want to know about the personal lives of their
health professionals, so people don't nudge me in the ribs and say,
"Hey, I saw this book." They might have seen it, but they don't want
to face me with it.
RH: Any closing comments?
LH: We hope the book will provide examples for people who
are trying to broaden their horizons, and there are positive aspects to
narcissism in that regard. When you associate yourself, as I have,
with people who are extremely talented and seductive and
ambitious, you have to learn. You have to stretch. Having that
relationship with those people improves you, and that's a form of
narcissism as well.
My own experience is that my nature is generous and loving to a
fault. When I was married, I was consumed by the relationship. I've
become more generous, more gentle to myself. I encourage other
people to make their own menage. It's one of the best ways of
learning to be compassionate and kind and to produce good work
together.
BF: I grew up reading true romance magazines, where you
always had your one romance, and I took for granted that would be
my karma, and it really has been other. It's been what it is, it's been
threeway. That's my path, and I'm not sorry at this point, and I
doubt I'll be sorry further down the pike.
MF: I would like people to discover what they really want,
whether it's one lover or two or celibacy. Whatever it is, look inside
yourself and find it, and pursue it.
