
Jan Oliver "Ollie" Lucks and his partner, Zoe, were a year away from their wedding when they decided to temporarily open their relationship to other people.
It was about curiosity and desire, at first. A chance to explore their respective bisexuality. A chance to test their relationship beyond the bounds of traditional monogamy before they committed to its most orthodox institution.
There were some rules; the 'Monogamish Manifesto', they called it.
Rule 1. Our goal is to create a fun, happy, healthy, sexually exciting relationship with each other. Satisfying our libidos and egos always comes second to the health and happiness of our relationship.
Rule 2. There is to be plenty of warning before sleeping with someone else and only samesies (same-sex encounters) are permitted.
Rule 3. Honesty is paramount and we talk about every encounter...
There were others. But they didn't last long. Within months, casual sexual encounters led to deeper connections and the experiment became about polyamory (having multiple, loving relationships at once, with the consent of all in involved).
And Ollie, a filmmaker, recorded it all.
Watch: Ollie asks, can you have your cake and eat it too?
The result is There's No I In Threesome, a 90-minute film available in Australia on Binge.
Speaking to Mamamia's No Filter podcast in the wake of its release, Ollie delved behind the scenes of the film, which began back in 2014.
"At the time, we were just so excited and enthralled and invigorated by doing all of this, seeing only the positives that we wanted to share with the world," he said.
At the time...
This is their story.
The beginning.
It started with threesomes.