This guy is living with six brothers and having sex with two of them, yet somehow it isn’t a reality TV show
A man is sleeping with two of six brothers that he’s also living with. Not awkward in the slightest, we imagine. (Stock photo via Envato Elements)
Sometimes, a series of words all fall together and form a sentence that you can’t help but read over and over again.
Words strung together that you thought you’d never see in your lifetime, such as ‘Donald Trump Jr’s book is a New York Times bestseller‘, or ‘a gender reveal party involved a hippo munching a Jell-O-filled watermelon’.
Or: “What’s the word for the thing when you live with six brothers and have sex with two of them?”
Oh.
Uh.
Man having sex with two out of six brothers he’s living with is somehow not a reality TV show.
The surreal sentence was not pulled from cancelled episode of Jeopardy! but rather from The Slate‘s agony aunt column, ‘How to do it’.
“Oh, brother” has written in with quite the dilemma. He lives in a house share with six brothers, all around the same age.
The economy, huh?
Two of them he’s sleeping with. “I am naturally much closer to them than the other four,” he wrote.
The two brothers are completely aware of the dynamic, even with Ferdinand’s “occasional flares of jealousy”.
He continued: “The house we share the rent for is large enough that I’m sure the other four brothers don’t know about the sex.
“The problem is that I don’t know what to call this arrangement, even to myself. I’m often uncomfortably aware of just how unconventional it really is.
“When with one or both of them in public, I don’t know how to answer when people ask what Yarin and/or Ferdinand are to me.
“Yarin usually answers that we’re friends, which I don’t mind
“Ferdinand has brazenly answered that I am his boyfriend whom he shares with his brother, which I DO mind.
“That part isn’t anyone’s business!
“Ferdinand is somewhat hurt by this, as he is openly affectionate with me in public and expects reciprocation, but I’m a quiet person, while there are Mardi Gras parades more reserved than Ferdinand.
“My sex life is absolutely not the business of random strangers.
“Should I follow Yarin’s lead and just say we’re friends? And can I tell Ferdinand to cool it in public?”
What’s a man sleeping with two brothers and living with six to do?
The agony aunt Rich Juzwiak is as stumped and confused as you are. Wondering why six brothers would be sharing a house – regardless of size – in the first place.
“You’ve given me a rather hearty paragraph, and I still have no idea what to call this,” Juzwiak explained. “Your situation defies easy summation.”
No kidding.
“You need not a label, not a paragraph, but an essay, at least, to explain yourself. I don’t know if there’s love involved here or if your relationship with these men is purely about sex.
Juzwiak suggests “polyamory” as the closest terms, but even he’s more concerned with “why their parents weren’t more concerned with overpopulation and what it might mean for a looming water shortage, how you found that house and were able to claim a bed, and why you all aren’t monetising your kooky living situation via a reality show”.
If you need to queue a few more classic tunes from Juzwiak’s column, may we suggest ‘wife furious husband used to sleep with gay friend, assumes he must be cheating’.
Because, you know, there’s definitely no such things as bi or pansexual, right?
