Resources About and For Triads
"...A ménage à trois...an innocent and beneficial arrangement" -- George Bernard Shaw
There are a few sources of information we've found that are specifically about committed relationships among three (or more) people. Far more common is information about polyamory and bisexuality. We've learned a lot from these sources as well.
Polyamory means responsibly loving multiple individuals, possibly at widely varying levels of commitment. The committed threesome we envision is one kind of polyamorous relationship. Much of what you'll find in discussions about polyamory in general applies to multi-person long-term deeply committed relationships also.
Bisexuality means sexuality directed at persons of both sexes. There are certainly monosexual triads, but if you're this far into our web site you're probably bisexual like Gracie. Many people, like Gracie, struggle with their sexual identity as they develop. Gracie used to think "bisexual" meant "undecided." Now she's much happier seeing it as meaning "both."
Books
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read". --Groucho Marx
Note: We're associates of Amazon.com. We get a 5% referral fee if you link to them from this page and order these books (or any other) at their standard prices. (No big deal; we'll probably pay for coffee or dinner if we meet in real life, anyway). We set this up because we use Amazon.com a lot ourselves and this gives us an effective 5% discount.
We strongly recommend The Ethical Slut, by Dossie Easton and Catherine A Liszt. Gracie felt very validated by it, George felt very challenged by it, and it's given us a framework for many fruitful discussions. Based on those discussions, we've changed our behavior, and it feels like more change will follow. Gracie read it within the day that it arrived from Amazon.com. George was so challenged by some of it that he had to put it aside for a week in mid-read. The content (not to mention the title!) is very in-your-face, but it also presents a very appealing picture of the benefits of open relationships. We've given copies to friends. We want our 18-year-old to read it. Amazon.com said it would take 4-6 weeks but shipped it in about 4 days. (Your experience may, of course, be different.)
A good balance to The Ethical Slut is Polyamory : The New Love Without Limits : Secrets of Sustainable Intimate Relationships, by Deborah Anapol. This book views things from a more intellectual angle. It has great chapters on how to tell if polyamory is right for you, and on jealousy. Anapol pays some attention to what tends not to work as well as what does, which is helpful. She says that couples that successfully evolve into triads often have 10 or more years together when they do so. We have just reached that milestone,
Three in Love : Ménages à Trois from Ancient to Modern Times, by Barbara and Michael Foster and Letha Hadady reviews famous ménages à trois in history. They have a pretty broad definition of the term, which literally means "household of three." The authors are a long-term triad themselves. The book covers, among many others, Alexandre Dumas, Casanova, Friedrich Nietzche, Salvador Dali, Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Voltaire, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, Pablo Picasso, Emile Zola, and Greta Garbo. It seems we're in good company!
Threesome: How To Fulfill Your Favorite Fantasy by Lori Gammon and Bill Strong is a sometimes appalling "how-to" book primarily aimed at assisting coupled women in finding a bedmate. It's not aimed at establishing lifelong relationships. It expresses or implies lots of politically incorrect assertions about the differences between the sexes. PC or not, we find most of them to be valid in our experience. Amazon.com said this will take 4-6 weeks to ship, but shipped it in about 4 days. (Your experience may, again, be different.).
Newsgroups
The alt.polyamory newsgroup is international in scope and voluminous in content. Its focus is polyamory, and much of the discussion is relevant, informative, and thought-provoking. We don't read it, though. It just takes too much of the day to read it all.
Likewise, the soc.bi newsgroup.
Mailing Lists
A variety of mailing lists, to which you can subscribe, address issues of polyamory. Many of these have a local focus. We are quietly on the sfbay-poly list. You can find an annotated list of poly-related mailing lists here. We subscribe to the polyfi list, which hosts a wise and compassionate group who generally have experience in triads or quads.
Other Sites on the Web
The Bisexual Options site offers pointers to 'net resources about bisexuality and a contact list of bisexual people, organized geographically.
Stef's "Information About Polyamory" page has lots of wisdom. Stef also maintains the alt.polyamory home page which has pointers to local mailing lists and activities.
The Poly
Ring drops you into a collection of sites, mostly personal pages of
polyamorous people (including us!).
