Mind Matters with Kyle MacDonald: You're not a prude for turning down a threesome

Try talking openly and directly about a threesome because there is a risk - and that risk is to the relationship. Photo / 123RF

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Q: My partner is obsessed with having a "threesome" and keeps trying to convince me it would be a good idea. I'm not comfortable with it, am I being a prude?

A: No, you're not being a prude, in fact, it's incredibly important you listen to yourself. It may be necessary to tell your partner to back off on trying to convince you if you feel strongly about it.

I'm not moralising when I say that - there's nothing necessarily wrong with having sex with more than one person at a time but, as with all kinds of sex, consent is non-negotiable.

If I was you I'd also be interested in knowing more from your partner. What is it about the idea of a threesome that means they want to make it a reality? You could even try talking with them more openly and directly about this.

Because there is a risk - and that risk is to the relationship.

It might be old fashioned, but generally, sex and love are meant to co-exist in the same place. For some people this is very strongly the case - I suspect this is true for you.

For other people - perhaps like your partner - it is less true.

The other risk is that the reality is a lot more weird and uncomfortable than the fantasy. It's very normal to think about and fantasise about all sorts of things, the brain is the biggest sexual organ as they say, but that doesn't mean what we think about should happen in reality.

I think one of the more subtle impacts of freely available pornography - which can be seen as fantasies acted out - is to blur this line as to what is real, and what should stay as fantasy. And if sex is less strongly connected to love for an individual, then pornography can normalise this.

So don't let your lines get blurred. Be clear and stick to your values. But also talk more about your fantasies, and what turns you on - while recognising they are just fantasies.

Q: I hate eating in front of people, and have started avoiding lunch at work because of it. What should I do?

A: We can probably all think of a time where, when eating in public, we've taken a too big bite of our food and had to noisily slurp it up, leaving sauce all over our chin, or worse, our shirt. It's embarrassing, but mostly we move on with our day.

Fear of eating in front of people - or in public - is associated with social anxiety, and as such is the fear of normal embarrassment, amplified through anxious thinking and an over-focus on negative ideas about "what other people must think of me".

The problem with any anxiety is once we start to avoid what makes us anxious, the anxiety grows.

So the first step is to start finding small ways you can do the thing that makes you anxious. And you may also need to distract while eating. It takes time, but if you keep gently challenging yourself, it will change.

Q: If I go see a therapist, are we going to spend a lot of time talking about my childhood?

A: At the risk of sounding like a therapist, "Why, do you think you need to...?"

Most people come to therapy because they're feeling a pressing issue or problem in the present.

So usually, we start there. Most of the time an assessment - what we call the first few sessions - will ask about what growing up was like for you, your relationship with your parents, and childhood experiences, because it's important.

When it comes to what people talk about in ongoing therapy, we don't need to go deliberately digging around in your past - what needs to be talked about usually comes up naturally or even more intensely, you find you can't escape certain thoughts or memories from childhood.

So, if you need to talk about your childhood, then yes. If not, then - no. As one of the oldest therapeutic cliches says, you just need to "trust the process".