Ménage à Trois

Translated literally as household of three, the French phrase ménage à trois refers to a romantic, sexual, or living arrangement involving three people. A ménage à trois relationship may be a temporary fling in which the partners of an ongoing relationship include an additional person in a sexual relationship (also known as a threesome), or it may be a more permanent relationship among three people, which has at some point involved a three-way sexual relationship. It may also be a relationship among three people that has involved a sexual relation between one party and both of the others, though the other two may never have had their own sexual relationship, nor might the three ever actually enjoyed a sexual encounter together. A ménage à trois may involve two people married or engaged to one another who invite another into their relationship, or it may involve three unmarried individuals. It might consist of a heterosexual couple who have decided to enlarge their relationship by adding elements of homosexuality, voyeurism, and group sex, or a gay male or lesbian couple who choose to add another member of either the same or the opposite sex. A ménage à trois is a version of polyamory, or the practice of loving multiple partners simultaneously, as well as an example of group sex.

The most common version of a ménage à trois in popular culture is one involving two men and one woman, especially insofar as the woman may serve as a point of mediation for a sexual relation between the two men. Threesomes involving two women and one man enable women to experience lesbian fantasies without risk, but also provide voyeuristic pleasure for the male. Gay couples who explore threesomes may do so to satisfy the romantic or heterosexual cravings of one of the couple, such as a gay male or lesbian who wishes to explore heterosexuality or a couple who wishes to liven up their own relationship with another male or female.

Ménage à trois encounters are often imaged in pornographic films not only because they enable multiple points of identification and multiple sources for viewer titillation, but also because they provide an alibi for the simultaneous enjoyment of heterosexuality, homosexuality, and licentious behaviors. They also provide a model of voyeurism, as one party watches the other two. The romantic and emotional entanglements of a ménage à trois provide material for films, especially because the intimacies of sexual relationships give rise to jealousies and the transgressive quality of group and homosexual adventures provide tensions. Films that have featured a ménage à trois include François Truffaut's (1932–1984) Jules et Jim (1962), Josh Logan's (1908–1988) Paint Your Wagon (1969), John Schlesinger's (1926–2003) Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), and Bob Fosse's (1927–1987) Cabaret (1972.) All of these portray sexual situations involving two men and a woman.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Foster, Barbara; Michael Foster; and Letha Hadady. 2000. Three in Love: Ménages à Trois from Ancient to Modern Times. 2nd edition. New York: BackinPrint.

Gammon, Laurie. 1997. Threesome: How to Fulfill Your Favorite Fantasy. West Palm Beach, FL: Triad Press.

                                           Judith Roof