How a Threesome Helped Me Come to Terms With My Chronic Pain

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I was laying back on my living room floor relaxing. Across the room, my lovers were kissing on the couch. It was a Saturday, and we were all naked. My girlfriend — who was also dating my other girlfriend — had driven down to visit for the weekend. And weekend visits usually meant a marathon of sex, home-cooked meals, and the kind of laughter that made me feel lucky to be a lesbian.

I watched their bodies move, their tomboy-butch masculinities meeting and meshing and clashing, knowing I could rejoin whenever I wanted to. But instead, I wanted to take a break and watch. Through our relationships, I'd learned there was something uniquely pleasurable about watching the women you love love each other.

But then I saw my girlfriend really move, with a casual flexibility that amazed me. Her hips opened up smoothly, and her legs parted wider than mine ever could. My girlfriend, suddenly, was straddling my other girlfriend. And the lazy, relaxed appreciation I had for my lovers fizzled. I was thrown off, really off, and felt as my stomach dropped and my eyes got hot and stingy. Suddenly, I wasn't having fun anymore. I was hurting, and the sex happening before me prodded at my insecurities.

I didn't feel jealous, although that's the kind of possessive pain most people associate with threesomes or group dating dynamics. What I felt was closer to envy. I wished I could have what my lover had; the ability to move in my body with ease and the confidence to do so knowing my body would support me. It was about my lover using the parts of her body that, for me, still felt like such a nightmare.

At that point, I was still newly reckoning with my life-long union to chronic pain, and I didn't have the language to describe what I was feeling. The pain manifests primarily in my lower body — my hips, my groin, my thighs, all the way down to my toes. At times, my injuries can make orgasms painful, as my legs and hips seize up into muscle spasms. Sex can sometimes feel like a gamble — and I have to assess when it's worth the physical pain. Other times, I have to weigh if I trust any potential lovers to see me whiplash, without warning, into tears and painful, jolting movements.

Now, I know exactly what the feeling was. I call it body grief — the grief one feels over the loss of their body's ability, be it slowly due to illness or suddenly due to an accident or circumstance.

I'm familiar with the very particular mourning that comes when someone is young, in pain, and confined not only by the reality of their bodies, but the societal barriers that keep those bodies from showing up in physical and cultural places. I'd been living that tightrope walk for almost five years before I was even in my mid 20s. But seeing that grief bleed over into the arena of sex — something that still made me feel so able — was lonely. Especially when my lovers had no idea what I was feeling.

So later, after sex, I brought it up. I'd been distant and a little distracted, and my change in mood wasn't unnoticed. We sat cross legged on the floor, facing one another. I was worried my body grief would be misunderstood for pettiness or a desire for attention and pity. But I trusted my partners and the communication and trust we'd built up slowly over time.

I laid my feelings bare, telling my partners that I was sad, and angry, and envious that my body had changed. But I also told them that I was sorry — sorry I had to bring it up, sorry I wasn't "over it," and sorry that my grief had to touch their happiness.

They responded with comfort, and assured me that I had nothing to be sorry for. They actually apologized that I felt the need to deal with this pain alone. I had feared judgement from them, misunderstanding that I was angry at them, rather than my circumstances. But both people were gentle and comforting. I could see the empathy in their faces and body language. The relief was incredible, sort of like the relief of an orgasm, but honestly so much better.

They assured me that my grief — and how isolated it made me feel amid so much pleasure — wasn't shameful. And that it could still exist, be named, and understood without dampening the safety and joy we shared with one another. The solidarity and gentleness me lovers offered me held me emotionally. And, later, they held me physically.

The next time we shared a weekend together, I was ready to accept my body grief, completely unafraid. When we had sex, I felt the pang swell up in my stomach, but I noticed it was nowhere near as powerful as it once had been. Within a few moments, I was able to let it recede. And the sex I had after that moment was filled with love, acceptance, and orgasms.