Do women like MMF?  You may be wondering what sort of dumb-ass question that is.  Believe it or not, it pops up in the search-terms of my Google stats every single day.

Which got me wondering who would be asking that question, and why.  Obviously, there are lots of people searching for the answer because the search term keeps turning up, over and over again.

So I thought I’d take a stab at answering the question, as a woman, a romance reader, and a writer of erotic MMF menage romances.  And I welcome you, my readers, who are all women and romance readers, to add in your comments (you’re welcome to remain anonymous if you want), for future searchers of this question to find.

Do women like MMF?

It depends.  Sorry.  There’s no straight answer to such a straight question, just like there’s no straight answer to any question to do with sex and women.  But let me lay out what I think are some basic qualifications and those answers.

MMF in romance novels

There are women who love and adore MMF romance (menage + romance) novels — the kind I write.  There are many more women who don’t.  They’re repelled by what they think are “gay” sexual activities between the two men.  But this is slowly changing as women become increasingly more educated about sexuality, the thin-to-invisible difference between gay/bi/hetero sex and how unimportant those definitions are, and as new generations of women with more open attitudes and upbringings become sexually active.  MMF Romance novels are one of the most popular erotic romance genres on the market today.

You have to keep in mind, however, that MMF romance novels are romances at their core.  Women who read these novels expect romance and committed relationships at the end of the novel.  They’re not reading the novels purely for the sexual content.

MMF in erotica and/or porn

It is in erotica and pornography that MMF activities have become a major stimulation for women’s fantasy life, I believe.  Thanks to movies like Brokeback Mountain, and the huge popularity of MM romances (gay romances written for female readers — which also became popular thanks to movies like Brokeback Mountain), and MMF romances in general, women have become accustomed to the idea of male-on-male sexual activity and enjoy it very much.  Therefore, MMF sexual play has become a “regular” in erotica for women.  Pornography for women is a very small market (most pornography is produced for men), but the little that is generated for women does include MMF sexual play.  Sites like Kink.com find their MM sub-sites just as heavily trafficked by female viewers.

MMF in real life

It is here where brakes come on and everything slows down and pauses…sometimes indefinitely.

A woman who adores MMF sexual play in her romances and/or her fantasies doesn’t necessarily transfer that preference over to her actual sex life.  Of the women that like MMF sex in their imaginations, I suspect the ratio that actually try MMF sex would be rather small.  There are a huge number of factors that make the average thinking woman reluctant to try MMF sex for real, no matter how much the idea of trying it appeals to her:

1. If she’s already in a relationship with one man, how does she broach the subject in a way that doesn’t make him feel inadequate?  Or horrified at the idea of sex with another guy?  Or appalled that she is aroused at the idea of him having sex with another guy?  Depending on how insecure the man is, this could be a relationship-breaker.
2. How does one go about finding the second male (or both males)?  You can’t exactly run an ad in the local classifieds.  And people don’t go around with signs saying they’re into MMF menages.  A man who does like MMF menages may not be sexually attracted to the other two.  Or she may not like him….  See the difficulties?
3. For most women, sex needs to involve a degree of trust and some sort of relationship.  A second male in the bed would feel artificial and uncomfortable, if that relationship is not there.
4. If the three do take time to establish trust and even the most superficial relationship before proceeding with the menage, there’s the possibility of petty jealousy and relationship issues cropping up.  Did one partner spend too much time playing with someone else, and not enough time with the other?  Does he seem to be more affectionate with the other?  It sounds silly, but the mind can play ridiculous games like this, especially when in vulnerable situations like a menage.
5. How does she look at her partner’s face in the morning when she’s watched him fucking another man the night before?  There’s a first time for anything, and no matter how many times she runs it through her head, the reality is going to have an impact.
6. How is her partner going to feel about watching her fuck another man?  No matter how cool he thinks he feels about it, the reality could be very different.
7. The three people in the bed are not characters in a novel, being manipulated by an author.  They’re humans, who have feelings, emotions and the ability to think and reason.  The aftermath of the menage may not run the way anyone would like.  There could be consequences no one anticipated.  What if the second male has strong feelings for the woman?  Or the other male?  What if he wants to make the menage a permanent thing?  What if he simply doesn’t want to go away?  What if one of the committed couple doesn’t want him to go away and the other does?
8. Then there’s STD’s, including that biological imperative:  pregnancy.  No condom is 100% guaranteed.

Women who have never tried an MMF menage will think of all these drawbacks and perhaps more.  Depending on her personal circumstances, any and all of these objections may stop her…or not.  She may decide to experiment despite the risks, if they can be offset or minimized enough, or if she has a high threshold for risk-taking.  Every woman is different, but the drawbacks are the same for everyone.

It would be fabulous if every MMF menage played out like they did in MMF romance novels.  If that could be guaranteed, then I suspect every woman in the world who was curious about MMF menages would bust a gut to try them and the world would see a great many more permanent menages.  But reality is not fiction, not by a long shot.

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What do you think?  What is your response to the question:  Do women like MMF?  Do you agree with me?  Disagree?  Want to add, subtract, amend?

Fire away.

Related posts:

1. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part III How To Read Your First MMF Romance This is Part Three of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic?...
2. The Heroes in MMF Romance Don’t Need Classification I’ve been doing a lot of research and writing around the subject of MMF romances lately (you may have noticed).  It’s pushed me a lot...
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I’ve been doing a lot of research and writing around the subject of MMF romances lately (you may have noticed).  It’s pushed me a lot further out into the world of MMF than usual — I normally focus in tightly on my own MMF romances and the romances by other authors that I read for professional interest.  But I’ve been exploring all sorts of fringe territory and extreme borders and it has been interesting…and distressing.

The distressing side of it, of course, is because of the negative perceptions around MMF romances.  Naturally, the uneducated consider MMF romances to be porn, or just erotica with a pretty cover, or “erotica for women”.  I’ve even heard the term (brace yourself) “Female fuck books” used to describe not just menage romances, but erotic romance in general.

MMF romances in particular are wildly misunderstood by nearly everyone who doesn’t read and love them (and by some people who don’t read them and still decry them…possibly these people review the contents by divine inspiration).

They don’t get how two men can be sexually active together in bed and still fall in love with the woman.

Basically, they’re tripping over the gay/bi/hetro classification thing.

Many, many people try to stick labels on men and women.  “He’s gay.  She’s bi.  He’s hetrosexual.”  When it comes to MMF romances, they come unglued.  “Well, are the heroes gay or bi?  They have to bi, right?”  Either answer belittles the heroes in their eyes, because a romance heroes is supposed to be ruggedly heterosexual in a woman’s romance.

The truth is, no one is only one thing or another.

The Kinsey Scale, also called the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale, was first developed in the 1950s, in an attempt to chart male sexual orientation.  Please note the key word in the title:  Scale.

The researchers discovered, way back in the 50s, that orientation isn’t a black and white matter, even for females, as the scale was quickly adapted for women, too.   People are not exclusively homosexual or exclusively heterosexual.  The scale is a sliding one, with exclusivity at either end, and a wide range of bisexuality in between.  A person can find themselves anywhere on that scale.  And a critical point:  Where you fit on that scale can change at any time.

These are just stop marks along the scale. An indiviual could fit anywhere in between the stops, and change from month to year, as well.

The point I’m trying to make here is that trying to slap a label on the heroes in MMF romances ends up being a self-defeating exercise in frustration.  The heroes in MMF romances could be anything, and you stand a good chance of being wrong in your guess.  They are what they are for the story to work, and if the romance makes you sigh at the end, and the sex is hot enough to suit your tastes, does it matter what the heroes’ Kinsey rating is?

You’ll find it much more comfortable and fun if you forget about Kinsey scales and classifications altogether.  Stop trying to label anyone as anything and enjoy sensuality in whatever form it comes.  If it feels good, it’s good.  Period.  Enjoy your romance reading and stop feeling guilty about it.   Acknowledge human nature instead of worrying about classifications and tags that don’t really mean anything.

______________

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How To Read Your First MMF Romance

This is Part Three of a Series
Part 1: Ménages Categorized
Part 2: How can MMF be romantic?
Part 3: How To Read Your First MMF Romance
Part 4: Where To Find Your MMF Romances
Part 5: Narrow Down Your List of Potential MMF Novels To Read
Part 6: Keeping Track
_____

So, figure you’re reading to delve into the world of MMF romance?  Let’s go.

You’ll need to buy an MMF Romance

Where to go to get your first MMF romance, who the best authors are, and how to tell them apart — even how to tell who writes more MM in their MMF than other MMF writers…that’s the subject of the next post, so help is on the way.

Eventually, though, you will have to just pick a title and buy it.  You simply start somewhere.

How you read your first MMF will help you ease into the genre as a whole and help you enjoy it from the get-go.

Have No Expectations than to be thrilled like any other erotic romance.

When you read your  first MMF romance, don’t come at it with huge expectations that it will somehow be different from other erotic romances.

It won’t.

MMF romances are erotic romances first and foremost.  Any professional romance author putting MMF romances out there under her own name will be ensuring those stories deliver on the romance storyline in spades.  So you should read the book expecting to be moved emotionally just as you are with any other romance novel you read.  Nothing more or less.

Oh yes, and you will get to read some very hot sex, too, so…

Glide over the bumpy bits…for now.

This is your first MMF and you’re hesitant about the MM stuff, so when you hit a sex scene with MM sex acts in it, try reading it straight through, but if you find yourself recoiling at all — and it might happen — then glide over the sections that are making you blink until you get to calmer water again, then pick up steam again and carry on.

Whatever you do, don’t toss the book as useless, just yet.  You’re acclimatizing yourself to a whole new genre and way of thinking.  So ease yourself past the tight spot and move on.

Enjoy the romantic side of male on male to the fullest.

Do, however, revel in the romantic conflict and emotional side of the male/male romance within the menage.  There won’t be anything icky in that, and you’ll get all the same emotional tension and romantic impact that you do from the male/female relationships.  Enjoy the novel experience, experiment with the delight it brings you.  And don’t feel guilty about it.  We (all romance readers) adore this stuff.  You can, too.  Hell, it’s why we read romance novels!  MMF novels gives it to us three times over.

Meantime, check out gay photography.

If you really want to get the hang of MMF novels, slots-tabs-and-all…if you really want to understand their full power to arouse, then cruise some of the better quality gay photography sites on-line.  I’m not talking about the pornography sites, but the artistic photography sites, where really sexy men are photographed together in various poses.  A few minutes on those sites and you start to understand the sensuality of two men together…

Try Bent Boy’s Place, as a jumping off point.  But be warned:  there are nude men, solo and in groups, all over the site.

(photo courtesy of Bent Boy’s Place)

Later books, try dipping into the slots and tabs scenes more deeply.

Once you’ve passed the major milestone of your first MMF book, and you haven’t melted into a pile of sticky goo (congratulations!), then immediately acquire a second MMF title, and a third, and a fourth….

Only, with these stories, don’t glide over the bumpy bits so much.  Start reading the scenes straight through and see if you’ve acclimatized, yet.  I think, with all the review reading you’ll be doing, and the mind-broadening you’ll be going through, you’ll surprise yourself.

You may even like what you read.

Who knows, you may enjoy what you read very much. Thousands of women enjoy this stuff…a lot.  You have the potential to enjoy it too, or you would not be reading this series of posts in the first place.

Try authors who explore MM side of MMF more thoroughly.

The final phase is to try reading authors who develop the MM side of MMF romances more thoroughly than others.  They don’t just give the MM side of the romance a glancing nod and single scene.  They dive right into the sex scenes and MM romance and give them as many pages (if not more) than the MF sides of the menage.

When you think you’re ready, give one of these authors/stories a try, for these are romances with their romantic potential fully developed and at its peak of power and intensity.  In the right author’s hands, they make rivetting reading.

____________

Next: 

Where to find your MMF Romances

More resources:

My MMF Romances

Additional Articles:

The MMF Thing…How to Get It

MM and MMF – Let’s Try Again. Why Do Women Like Men Who Like Men?

Do Women Like MMF?

The Heroes in MMF Romance Don’t Need Classification

__________________

Related posts:

1. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part II How can MMF be Romantic? This is Part Two of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part 3:...
2. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part I Ménages Categorized This is Part One of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part 3: How To Read...
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How can MMF be Romantic?

This is Part Two of a Series
Part 1: Ménages Categorized
Part 2: How can MMF be romantic?
Part 3: How To Read Your First MMF Romance
Part 4: Where To Find Your MMF Romances
Part 5: Narrow Down Your List of Potential MMF Novels To Read
Part 6: Keeping Track
_____

If you’re new to the idea of MMF then the most frequent newbie question is:  How can MMF romances possibly be romantic?  With two guys, er, doing it to each other?  Doesn’t it turn into a pornographic sex-fest?

Well, with two hot alpha-style (usually) guys and their hormones in the driving seat, there’s no denying the sex gets hot in MMF romances.

But un-romantic?

Oh wow…that just about qualifies for the understatement of the year.

There’s plenty of hard evidence (pun not really intended, but I’ll let it stand) that MMF romances are more romantic than straight MF romance, by, oh, a factor of three to one.

Some Basic Math

Straight MF romance novels work well — they’re at their most romantic and effective best — when the romantic conflict is pushed as high as it will go.  In other words, the author has arranged it so that the hero and heroine are as tested, romantically, as it is possible to strain two people and still keep their love for each other alive.  It’s these sorts of books that readers find unput-downable.

In a straight MF novel, there is only one set of romantic conflict.  There is only the hero and heroine:  M <–> F .

In an MFM novel, you have three people interacting, but the two males only interact romantically with the female.  The males are often related to each other, and therefore may love each other in filial ways (brotherly love), but do not grow to love each other romantically.

In MFM romances, therefore, there is only two possible sets of romantic conflict: between hero A and the heroine (1) and between hero B and the heroine (2).  These romances provide twice the amount of romantic conflict, and some confusion for the heroine — especially if she feels she has to pick between the two heroes.

You can imagine that if an MFM novel sets up twice the amount of conflict and confusion, how much better an MMF romance gets.

Hero A and heroine (1)
Hero B and heroine (2)
Hero A and Hero B (3)

Plus, all three characters are facing romantic dilemmas:

• They’re falling in love with two people at the same time (or they might already be in love with one and falling in love with the second).
•  Romantic guilt is rampant, until the menage is settled (that is, if these characters have any sort of moral conscience at all!),
•  If the author sets her plot up for maximum romantic tension, then the characters will also have to consider romantic sacrifice, too: giving up the one they love so that the second one they love will be happy.

Neither of these last two romantic dilemmas is possible in any sort of romance but an MMF romance!

Then, consider the Character combinations.

MF has your basic girl/guy combo.  The hero can be alpha, or beta or the new style Gamma (A short-hand definition of a Gamma would be a politically correct Alpha male).

MFM opens up all the possibilities:  The two heroes could be any combination of all the endless types of heroes we like.  Alpha and a Beta, or an unredeemed bad boy with a metro-sexual beta…the author’s imagination and the heroine, genre and inspiration provides unlimited possibilities.

Except…neither of the heroes interact with each other romantically, so dreaming up fabulous combinations means very little.  They’re just two more interesting heroes for the heroine to fall in love with.  A Yin and Yang bookend for her heart to collect.

Let those two heroes romantically collide and all sorts of romance possibilities can develop.  The character of the two heroes adds depth and layers to the romantic conflict already in place, can provide fuel to fan the fire and really blow the conflict into a raging inferno.  Add in the heroine’s drives, ambitions and character, and the romantic conflict takes on nuclear meltdown characteristics.

How the romances are resolved in an MMF provides endless novel possibilities, too.

When you consider the many thousands of straight MF romance novels that have been written and published over the decades, coming up with a fresh way to bring the hero and heroine happily together at the end of the novel just isn’t possible these days.  It’s all been done before.  Authors rely on the uniqueness of their characters and situations to provide the novelty, now.

There is a reason why romantic “tropes” are listed and laughed over:  The amnesia plot, the pregnant bride plot, the big misunderstanding plot….  They’ve all been done before.

In MMF romances, because there are three characters in the romance, and the genre is so new, the plot possibilities are still fresh and novel, and the way the romance is resolved at the end is still often a mystery until the end for you, the reader.  You get to be genuinely surprised by how it all gets sorted out.

 How can two guys “falling in love” be romantic?

1. Brokeback Mountain
2. If you haven’t tried reading an MMF yet, you’re going to have trouble with the concept, plain and simple, because you’re getting the idea of the sex act mixed up with love.  Two different things.  And yes, both sex and love between two men are included in an MMF novel.  But it’s possible you’re thinking ewww, gay porn.   Or even, simply, oh, bisexual, then?
3. Stop.  Don’t put labels on it.  Love is love.  We’re talking about a romance novel and about love, the greatest emotion on the planet.  Romance novels celebrate that emotion and its power to move mountains, conquer heroes and bring them to their knees.  And that’s exactly what happens to the two men in an MMF romance.  They’re humbled by love for two people, one who just happens to be male, the other female.  And their lives are utterly changed by that love.  You will thrill to see it happen, I guarantee it.
4. Here’s another reassurance.  MMF romances are written for a female (primarily – something like 99.8%) audience.  The book is designed to thrill and entertain you, the reader.  Therefore the heroes are gorgeous, hunky, driven, and desperate..and sexy to the nth degree.  They aren’t going to do anything that will turn off a female reader who understands the MMF genre.  The books are romance, first and foremost, designed to appeal to you.
5. And don’t forget, the heroes in an MMF novel are also falling in love with the heroine at the same time — the romantic tension is tripled and conflict, the engine of any good book, spirals.

Ultimately

MMF is more romantic than MF or MFM because:

1. It has two sexy, desparate heroes that interact with each other, not one or two independent heroes
2. It holds three times more romantic conflict than MF novels and a third more than MFM novels.
3. It has more emotional tension and
4. more potential for novel romantic entanglements and difficulties

In the right author’s hands, MMF will melt your heart, and you’ll wonder why you ever hesitated to read one.

Next:

How to read your first MMF Romance.

More resources:

My MMF Romances

Additional Articles:

The MMF Thing…How to Get It

MM and MMF – Let’s Try Again. Why Do Women Like Men Who Like Men?

Do Women Like MMF?

The Heroes in MMF Romance Don’t Need Classification

__________________

Related posts:

1. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part I Ménages Categorized This is Part One of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part 3: How To Read...