Ménage à trois

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Term

Examples

In fiction

• Design for Living
  Design for Living
  
  Design for Living is a comedy Play written by No?l Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship....
   (1933), a play written by Noel Coward
  Noël Coward
  
  Sir No?l Peirce Coward was an English people playwright, composer, Theatre director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise"....
   and then adapted as a movie directed by Ernst Lubitsch
  Ernst Lubitsch
  
  Ernst Lubitsch , was a German-born Jewish film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch"....
  .
• Jules et Jim by Henri-Pierre Roché
  Henri-Pierre Roché
  
  Henri-Pierre Roch? was a French author who was involved with the Dada movement.Born in Paris, France, Henri-Pierre Roch? was a respected journalist as well as an art collector and dealer....
  , adapted and filmed in 1961 by François Truffaut
  François Truffaut
  
  Fran?ois Roland Truffaut was an influential filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave; and remains an icon of the Cinema of France industry....
  .
• David Crosby
  David Crosby
  
  David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an United States guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young which is sometimes augmented with Neil Young, and CPR ....
  's song about ménage à trois, "Triad" (1968)
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  
  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a American Revisionist Western that tells the story of bank robbers Butch Cassidy and his partner Harry Longabaugh , based loosely on historical fact....
   (1969)
• Paint Your Wagon
  Paint Your Wagon (film)
  
  Paint Your Wagon is a musical film released in 1969 in film, adapted by Paddy Chayefsky from the 1951 Paint Your Wagon by Lerner and Lowe, set in a mining camp in California Gold Rush-era California....
   (1969) — in the film version, Ben marries Elizabeth, but she falls in love with Partner. They decide that if a Mormon
  Mormon
  
  Mormon is a term used to describe the adherents, practitioners, followers or constituents of Mormonism. The term most often refers to a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , which is commonly called the Mormon Church....
   man can have two wives
  Plural marriage
  
  Historically, one of the defining characteristics of much of the early Latter Day Saint movement was the doctrine and practice of polygyny , a type of polygamy....
  , then a wife can have two husbands.
• Sunday Bloody Sunday
  Sunday Bloody Sunday (film)
  
  Sunday Bloody Sunday is a 1971 in film British film directed by John Schlesinger. It tells the story of a young bisexual designer and his simultaneous relationships with a recruitment consultant and a Jewish doctor ....
   (1971), directed by John Schlesinger
  John Schlesinger
  
  John Richard Schlesinger, Order of the British Empire was an England film director....
  , a movie about a threesome with a homosexual man, a heterosexual woman, and a bisexual man.
• Summer Lovers
  Summer Lovers
  
  Summer Lovers is a 1982 in film film written and directed by Randal Kleiser, starring Peter Gallagher, Daryl Hannah and Valerie Quennessen, and filmed on location on the island of Santorini, Greece....
   (1982), a film with Peter Gallagher
  Peter Gallagher
  
  Peter Killian Gallagher is a Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild-winning United States actor, musician and writer....
   and Daryl Hannah
  Daryl Hannah
  
  Daryl Christine Hannah is an American film actress. After making her screen debut in 1978, Hannah starred in a number of Hollywood films throughout the 1980s notably Blade Runner, Splash , Wall Street and Roxanne and in 2003-4 received acclaim for her role in the Kill Bill series....
  , in which a vacation in Greece leads to a female-male-female relationship that is both emotional and sexual.
• Marion Zimmer Bradley
  Marion Zimmer Bradley
  
  Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an United States author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series, often with a feminist outlook....
  's The Mists of Avalon
  The Mists of Avalon
  
  The Mists of Avalon is a 1982 novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which she relates the King Arthur from the perspective of the female characters....
   (1982) relates the relationship of King Arthur
  King Arthur
  
  King Arthur is a legendary Britons leader who, according to medieval histories and Romance , led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century....
  , Guinevere
  Guinevere
  
  Guinevere was the legendary queen consort of King Arthur. She was most famous for her love affair with Arthur's chief knight Sir Lancelot, which first appears in Chr?tien de Troyes' Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart....
  , and Lancelot
  Lancelot
  
  In the Arthurian legend, Sir Lancelot is one of the Knights of the Round Tables of the Round Table . He is typically considered to be one of the greatest and most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories....
   as a ménage à trois.
• Also The Fionavar Tapestry
  The Fionavar Tapestry
  
  The Fionavar Tapestry is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Guy Gavriel Kay, set partly in our own contemporary world, but mostly in the fictional world of Fionavar....
   by Guy Gavriel Kay
  Guy Gavriel Kay
  
  Guy Gavriel Kay is a Canada author of fantasy fiction. Many of his novels are set in fictional realms that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Justinian I or Spain during the time of El Cid....
   ends with Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere - at the end of numerous adventures - departing on a ship, the three of them happily holding hands, embracing and looking forward to a shared future.
• The Garden of Eden
  The Garden of Eden
  
  The Garden of Eden is the second posthumously released novel of Ernest Hemingway, published in 1986. Begun in 1946, Hemingway worked on the manuscript for the next 15 years, during which time he also wrote The Old Man and the Sea, The Dangerous Summer, A Moveable Feast, and Islands in the Stream....
   This novel by Ernest Hemingway
  Ernest Hemingway
  
  Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story author, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, France, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation"....
  , written between 1946 and 1961, and published in 1986, centers on an American expatriate couple who bring another woman into their marriage.
• A Home At The End Of The World
  A Home at the End of the World
  
  A Home at the End of the World is a 1990 in literature novel by Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-winning United States author Michael Cunningham....
   This 1990 book by Michael Cunningham
  Michael Cunningham
  
  Michael Cunningham is an award-winning United States writer, best known for his 1998 novel The Hours , which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999....
   centers for the most part around a ménage à trois.
• Three of Hearts
  Three of Hearts (film)
  
  Three of Hearts is a 1993 in film comedy/romance film directed by Yurek Bogayevicz and starring William Baldwin, Kelly Lynch, and Sherilyn Fenn....
   (1993), directed by Yurek Bogayevicz
  Yurek Bogayevicz
  
  Yurek Bogajevicz is a Polish film director, known for directing Anna , Three of Hearts and Exit in Red .External links...
  .
• Kiss the Sky
  Kiss the Sky (film)
  
  Kiss the Sky is a 1999 in film film Film director by Roger Young . The plot follows two men on a business trip to the Philippines....
   (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
  Y tu mamá también
  
  Y tu mam? tambi?n is a 2001 Cinema of Mexico directed by Alfonso Cuar?n and written by Carlos Cuar?n. The film is a coming-of-age story about two teenage boys taking a road trip with a woman in her late twenties....
   (2001), a somewhat controversial Mexican
  Mexico
  
  The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
   coming-of-age movie that focuses heavily on the sexual lives of the three characters, played by Maribel Verdú
  Maribel Verdú
  
  Maribel Verd? is a Spanish people actress. She is perhaps best known to English-speaking audiences playing the roles of Luisa in the 2001 film, Y tu mam? tambi?n and Mercedes in Guillermo del Toro's 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth....
  , Diego Luna
  Diego Luna
  
  Diego Luna is a Mexican actor known for his childhood telenovela work, a starring role in the film Y tu mam? tambi?n, and supporting roles in American films....
  , and Gael García Bernal
  Gael García Bernal
  
  Gael Garc?a Bernal is a Mexico actor and film director....
  . Features mixed jealousy, hedonism
  Hedonism
  
  Hedonism is a school of philosophy which argues that pleasure has an intrinsic value and is the most important pursuit of humanity....
  , and repressed bisexuality as major themes.
• Politics
  Politics (novel)
  
  Politics is a 2003 in literature novel by Adam Thirlwell about a father-daughter relationship and about a m?nage ? trois which includes said daughter and two of her friends....
  , a novel about a ménage à trois ("the socialist utopia of sex").
• In Bandits
  Bandits
  
  Bandits is a 2001 in film comedy/crime/drama/romance movie directed by Barry Levinson. It stars Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett....
   (2001), ménage à trois is a major part of the plot.
• The Dreamers - a film starring Eva Green shows a beautiful and functional ménage à trois with a very unfortunate end.
• In the film Shortbus
  Shortbus
  
  Shortbus is a 2006 in film Cinema of the United States comedy-drama written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, writer/director/star of the play and film Hedwig and the Angry Inch....
   (2006) James and Jamie meet a young ex-model and aspiring singer named Ceth and the three begin a sexual relationship
• The 2004 film Head in the Clouds
  Head in the Clouds
  
  Head in the Clouds is a 2004 in film United Kingdom/Canada drama film written and directed by John Duigan. The original screenplay focuses on the choices young lovers must make as they find themselves surrounded by increasing political unrest in late-1930s Europe....
  , starring Penélope Cruz, Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend tells the story of these three characters' sexual and romantic relationship with each other.
• The 2008 Woody Allen Film Vicky Cristina Barcelona
  Vicky Cristina Barcelona
  
  Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a 2008 in film written and directed by Woody Allen. The film features well-known stars Javier Bardem, Pen?lope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson, and less-well-known British people actress Rebecca Hall....
   depicts a disfunctional, sometimes violent relationship between two Spanish artists (played by Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz) that is finally brought in to balance with the addition of Scarlett Johansson.
• The 2008 film The Duchess
  The Duchess (film)
  
  The Duchess is a 2008 in film British costume drama film based on Amanda Foreman best-selling biography of the 18th-century English aristocrat Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire....
  , based on the biography by Amanda Foreman
  Amanda Foreman (biographer)
  
  Amanda Lucy Foreman is an award-winning British/American biographer.Her father was the renowned screenwriter and film producer Carl Foreman who had to move to England in order to work after being Hollywood blacklist by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the McCarthyism of the 1950s....
   of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
  Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
  
  Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, born Georgiana Spencer, was the first wife of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire and mother of William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire....
   who ends up in a ménage à trois with her husband
  William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire
  
  William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, Order of the Garter , was the eldest son of the William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire by his wife the heiress Charlotte Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington, suo jure Baroness Clifford of Lanesborough, who brought in considerable money and estates to the Cavendish family....
   and her best friend Lady Elizabeth Foster
  Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
  
  Elizabeth Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire , , is best known as the close friend of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Elizabeth supplanted the Duchess, gaining the Duke's affections and later marrying him....
  
• Science fiction
  Science fiction
  
  Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media....
   writer Bob Shaw
  Bob Shaw
  
  Bob Shaw, born Robert Shaw, was a science fiction author and science fiction fandom from Northern Ireland. He was noted for his originality and wit....
  , in The Two-Timers (1968), gave the theme a new twist in having a Ménage à trois in which the husband and the lover are two versions of the same man, from two alternate time lines.

See also

• Polygamy
  Polygamy
  
  The term polygamy is used in related ways in social anthropology, sociobiology, and sociology. Polygamy can be defined as any "Types of marriages in which a person [has] more than one spouse."...
  
• Swinging
  Swinging
  
  Swinging, sometimes referred to as the swinging lifestyle, is "non-monogamous sexual activity, treated much like any other social activity, that can be experienced as a couple." The phenomenon of swinging may be seen as part of the Sexual Revolution of recent decades, which occurred after the upsurge in sexual activity made possible by...
  
• Polyandry
  Polyandry
  
  In social anthropology and sociobiology, polyandry refers to a form of polygamy marriage , or other sexual union, in which one individual is married to two or more husbands at the same time....
  
• Polygyny
  Polygyny
  
  Polygyny is a form of polygamy, where a man has more than one recognized female sexual partner or wife at the one time. It is distinguished from a man who has a sexual partner outside marriage, such as a concubine, casual sexual partner, paramour, or other culturally recognized secondary partner....
  
• Polyamory
  Polyamory
  
  Polyamory is the desire, practice, or acceptance of having more than one loving, intimate relationship at a time with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved....
  

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