Rename (or merge?): A Threesome Is Manly

A Threesome is Manly doesn't have that many wicks (not even sure it had a ykttw), and its name implies that it's manly to have a threeway ("You nailed two chicks at once? You're a man's man!"), not the makeup of the sexual partners. I propose either renaming it or merging with A Threesome Is Hot (which has only a few more wicks, and also apparently doesn't have a ykttw).

edited 24th Apr '11 12:17:26 PM by DragonQuestZ

Yeah, I agree. Half of the examples are "multiple-guy threesomes are avoided or treated as gay." And the Real Life section flat out says that polyandry isn't the same as threesomes.

edited 24th Apr '11 12:26:37 PM by Madrugada

Well I would say the avoiding a threesome still counts under Defied Trope. Plus the perception of a trope still counts as well. But they do make the name even worse.

I think it should be merged as well.

We already have Three-Way Sex. I see no need for either of these half-assed pages to be kept. The descriptions are sketchy, and neither one has much of an example list or use. Three-Way Sex has 78 wicks and 63 inbounds, and is written in a much less 'wipe your chin, you're drooling' way.

We have that? Seconded.

Yeah, merge those.

Bump.

Honestly, if anything I think the more common trope is that "man-man-lady" threesomes are, in fact, kinda gay, and any heterosexual man ought to be uncomfortable with the very idea. Several of the current examples of characters going "it's totally not gay!" are playing on the assumption that it, in fact, is. Like the SNL bit — that's the joke there. If two-guys-and-a-girl threesomes really were considered manly, there would be nothing funny about a song asserting that they are.

And now I have officially given this way more thought than anyone ever should. Sorry about that.

^You explained my objection to it very clearly. Better than I did.

edited 24th May '11 8:21:56 PM by Madrugada

Bump.

Bump. I'm surprised this hasn't already been resolved.

So, merge then?

There seems to be agreement, so yes. merge.

A Threesome is Manly has been edited to better reflect how fiction actually portrays it - a threesome is really "kinds gay".

And though the trope's creator might have been wrong about the meaning behind threesomes, he had the right idea in making a separate page. Because Three-Way Sex is not a trope. it's just something that happens, something that happens in the real world and happens rather less often in fiction. It's not a trope unless is has some some of distinct storytelling purpose.

So if the point of the threesome is to throw in something sexy, or at least to have the characters think about something sexy, then it's A Threesome Is Hot. If the point is some characters can, humorously, discuss the gay consequences of sharing a threesome, than that's a totally different purpose. It's as different as Cool Chair and Chair Reveal.

We should remove all the examples from Three-Way Sex and either make that page link to the relevant tropes or just cut it.

Thank you for explaining this. I agree with everything.

"Because Three-Way Sex is not a trope. it's just something that happens, something that happens in the real world and happens rather less often in fiction. It's not a trope unless is has some some of distinct storytelling purpose."

Wait. How often does it not have any kind of purpose? Sure it mostly falls under the hot category, but that's still a purpose.

Considering it's a rare thing in real life, and has a lot of associations, fiction reflects that it's not a thing to just brush off without any meaning.

I agree, just because something happens in real life does not make it not a trope. Three way sex does not occur in fiction without having meaning or impact on plot or characterization. Therefore it's ALWAYS a trope. It just has several codified subtropes.

What we need to stomp out is this idea that supertropes aren't tropable because they're common or happen in real life. That's currently one of the big things the TRS is trying to stomp out.

edited 14th Oct '11 9:25:44 AM by shimaspawn

Yes, if it falls under the hot category, that is a purpose. Thus A Threesome Is Hot - which is a trope. One whose page has a bad description, but the trope still exists,.

But "three-ways in general", no, that states no purpose. So the page includes:

• One of the selling points of Wild Things was a threesome between Neve Campbell, Denise Richards and Matt Dillon. (The others were Girl on Girl Is Hot and a surprisingly complex plot.)
• Todd from ''Scrubs, when pressed, admits he's had a threesome. Normally he would flaunt information like this, but it wasn't the "cool kind." Of course, this was before his sexuality was revealed as "The Todd".
• In the episode "The One with the Jellyfish", it was revealed that Phoebe was conceived from a threeway between her parents and the girl who ended up being her adoptive mother.
• Featured in A Clockwork Orange where Alex brings home two girls he meets at the local record store. The entire scene is sped up with a synth rendition of the William Tell Overture.

None of these are the same trope. One is fanservice, one is homophobia related to the act, one is something wacky (without necessarily being hot) for the resident nut and one is an act of an evil deviant. And no, they're not subtropes of a supertrope. They're all examples of unrelated tropes that happen to involve the same act.

edited 14th Oct '11 9:38:13 AM by Routerie

I'm not just saying a threesome isn't a trope because it happens in real life. A threesome is... well, a threesome is like cake. Cake doesn't just happen in a story randomly. It won't just be on a table, like a dish or peas would. There's always a reason behind it. Maybe someone's blowing candles on a birthday cake. Maybe someone's picking out a wedding cake. Maybe someone raided the fridge and ate all the cake there. Maybe people are carrying an elaborate cake on the road so that a car can run right through it.

Any of these may be tropes. But you agree that Cake wouldn't be the supertrope, right?

(It would if we were cataloging recipe tropes, and Threesome would if we were cataloging sex tropes, but in terms of storytelling tropes, no, neither would be.)

Cake wouldn't be a supertrope, because not all cakes have additional meaning. Sometimes a cake is just a dessert. But Dessert Is Significant would be a supertrope, that would have all of those variants as subtropes, along with Flaming Desserts Are Romantic, Date Crêpe, Sweetheart Sipping, and a bunch of others.

Whether a larger category is a supertrope or not doesn't have a universal, always-the-same, answer. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

edited 14th Oct '11 10:09:47 AM by Madrugada

And as all threesomes in fiction have some sort of meaning, they're all significant albeit for different reasons. So threesome would be a supertrope.

Cake does not always have significance in fiction so it's a terrible thing to compare threesomes to.

This is more like a Ferrari showing up in fiction versus any car.

Would Significant Desserts allow examples?

Would the following be acceptable examples?:

• In episode 8 of Not Without My Banana, John can't eat cake because he's on a diet.
• Bert and Ernie once hatched a scheme to convince an accountant that he'd killed a stripper in a cake.
• When Satan's scoop of ice cream fell off its cone, Jesus gave him His own ice cream.
• Hamlet and Sue once struggled to work an assembly line of fast-moving chocolates.
• In The Roaches' song "Knobby Knees," Hannah sings of "cutting slices of pie."

edited 14th Oct '11 10:20:01 AM by Routerie

This is more like eating out at the most exclusive restaurant in town. In fiction, it's considered really desirable, but most characters have a hell of a time getting in, while other characters do it all the time, to show their special status.