Mating
How Can Nonmonogamous Couples Improve Their Dating Lives?
Tips on expanding your dating pool and treating partners right.
Posted October 9, 2020 Reviewed by Jessica Schrader
The first post in this series introduced unicorn hunters (heteroflexible couples who want to date unattached bisexual women and approach the process with an attitude of couple’s privilege) and explained why these single “hot bi babes” are so rare that people in communities of consensually non-monogamous (CNM) folks call them unicorns.
This second post in the series details the ways in which couples who want to date women can be more successful, both in finding women to date and in treating them right. To any unicorns reading this post, it would be really useful to folks who want to date you if you would comment about why you want to date couples and how they can best treat you in a way that would keep you coming back for more. Please comment at the end of this post!
What do you want?
As a couple, are you looking for a sexual experience or a relationship? That makes a big difference in how you approach the dating pool and where you look for partners. If couples want to have a sexual threesome, then they should be clear with their partners that they are focused on the sexy fun of right now and not really looking for anything else.
Swinging, orgy, kinky, and heterocentric public sex circles are probably the best places to find women who want to have (perhaps even ongoing, depending on everyone involved) sex with couples. Online sites such as Fetlife, Catch, and SDC cater to the sexually adventurous. Avoid looking in polyamorous and queer communities for a single woman, as it really pisses off the regulars who are tired of heterocentric couples’ privilege.
What do you offer potential partners?
When posting their personal ads online, one of the mistakes that unicorn hunters make is to provide a detailed description about the woman they are looking for and what they want her to do for them. This attitude often turns women off because it comes from the kind of couple’s privilege that takes the couple’s perspective and assumes the partner will fit into the predetermined role the couple has designed for them. Instead, couples seeking to date anyone should tell possible partners what they have to offer. Who are each of the individuals, what do they offer as a couple, and why would anyone want to date them? Couples who put energy into thinking about things from their potential dates’ perspectives and what they might be getting out of the interaction are a lot more attractive to anyone who is interested in dating couples. Remember, there are tons of couples looking for partners—especially women—and not enough single bi women who want to date couples, so it is especially important for couples who only want to date women to be very clear on what they can do to make it worth her time and effort.
Prepare for Reality Check
Because there is such an abundance of couples seeking single bisexual women and so many women are turned off by unicorn hunting, it can be incredibly difficult for couples to find a woman who wants to date them. This dynamic has been the bane of many a unicorn hunting couple’s dating lives. Couples seeking women to date should be prepared for a lot of rejection and disdain from others in CNM environments. Men who fantasize about being the center of attention in a threesome with two women are especially prone to disappointment when the women end up being more interested in each other than in him.
Treat Her Like a Queen
If a couple is lucky enough to encounter a woman who wants to hook up with them, they should treat her like they fully appreciate the rare and magical being that she is. That means these couples should wine her, dine her, and pay for her transit and child care so she can hang out with them. The date’s pleasure should be the primary focus of sexual encounters, and she should absolutely orgasm first. Couples should meet wherever works best for the date—do not assume she will come to the couple’s place and then be happily dismissed when they are finished with her. If a hotel room is the best place for a hook-up, then the couple should pay for it.
Avoid Couple’s Privilege If Seeking Relationship
The heteroflexible couples who want a relationship, however, will need to do a lot of soul searching about how to best go about that. Couples with unreasonable expectations of their partners are exerting couple’s privilege. One of the main ways this couple’s privilege expresses in unicorn hunting is expecting her to act like a primary when it suits the couple (level of commitment, availability, devotion, investment of resources) and simultaneously treating her like a secondary when it is more convenient for the couple for her to go away, deal with her own needs, and rely on her own resources. Instead of exerting couple’s privilege, there are a number of steps heteroflexible couples can take to approach their dating lives with more flexibility and awareness of their partners’ needs.
Broaden Your Dating Pool
Heteroflexible couples who want to expand their relationship to include consensual nonmonogamy should cast a wide net for people to date.
Include All Genders
Refusing to date men and insisting on dating only women reeks of male insecurity. Even men who are heterosexual can engage in pleasuring women together with or without sexual contact between the men. A menage a trois does not have to be two women and a man, it can be very hot with two men and a woman. It can be even hotter with people of other genders. Expanding to date people of all genders, and not just women, is a key step in dating in polyamorous scenes.
Romance & Sex Independently
Many people who approach CNM environments initially seeking to date as a unit end up deciding to date independently instead. Dating as a couple can be difficult because most folks in CNM communities do not want to be required to date both members of a couple and instead prefer to establish relationships with people they find attractive. Requiring both partners to be in on sexual encounters reeks of insecurity and the possible emotional booby traps that come with people who have mixed feelings about actually participating in consensual nonmonogamy.
In my study of people in long-term polyamorous relationships with kids, the respondents report that group sex is not a mainstay of their sex lives. The vast majority of the time, these folks are having sex with one other person at a time. People who insist that their dates have sex and romantically interact with both of the members of the couple equally and/or simultaneously makes the relationship stilted and awkward.
Date People Who Already Have Other Relationships
If you are in a committed couple and dating, then you are most likely looking for a secondary partner who will not be on equal footing with your primary partner. If you are asking a partner to be a secondary, you should not expect them to make you their primary. Instead, focus on being an attractive secondary who is supportive of other existing or new relationships. That will get you more dates and happier partners!
Hire a Professional
If all of this sounds like too much work for the couple, then the pair might reconsider what they seek. When couples really just want to experience a threesome with another woman but not put in the effort to make it a positive experience for her as well, then what they are actually looking for is a service for the couple. Just like people who want to ride a roller coaster are required to pay admission to the amusement park, couples seeking to “ride” a unicorn for their own pleasure should pay a professional for her services. Pretending it is a mutual interaction when it is really all about the couple is not only disingenuous, it can also have significant negative impacts on the women they seek to date. There is nothing wrong with wanting to have an adventurous sexual experience with consenting adults, but it is wrong to expect someone to serve sexual desires without getting their own sexual and emotional needs met as well. Couples who do not want to meet others’ needs are seeking a one-sided benefit and should be honest about that and willing to pay for those services.