Charlie Sheen's "Winning" Threesome

Oh boy, Charlie Sheen. The star of Two and a Half Men seems to be giving 110 percent of his effort to the very public meltdown he's having — dubbed the "Charlie Sheen Self-Immolation World Tour 2011" by The New York Times. And yet — perhaps because he's out of work for the time being — he seems to have enough free time on his hands to be maintaining full-time relationships with a pair of young ladies.

But before I get into his threesome, let's review what's been going on with Sheen, for those of you who have been living under a TV set. Last week, he ranted against the producer of his CBS hit, and when the network subsequently announced they'd be putting the show on hiatus for the rest of the season — and possibly the next season — Sheen made all sorts of maniacal statements about, among other things, his status as a super human, his tigerblood, and his desire to sue CBS. He has repeatedly insisted he is "winning" … and when you make as much money as he's been making for the last many years, you probably are. But he also seems to be losing his mind, kinda literally.

(Then again, as The Times points out, a lot of what Sheen-o is saying — like, "I'm tired of pretending I'm not special" — could "have come from the interior monologue of any of a hundred high-profile stars. They just have the good sense — and the concentric circles of protective layers around them — to keep those thoughts bottled up. Now, amazingly, someone has uncorked the bottle." This, the Times continues, is simply "what happens when you introduce to the celebrity media a self-destructive blabbermouth who'll say any loopy thing to anyone who'll listen.")

Yesterday, when I got wind of an article in The New York Post about his unusual living arrangement, I felt newly amazed and awed by Sheen's audacity. In the story, the two women that he lives with — former adult-film star Rachel Oberlin, 22, and erstwhile nanny Natalie "Natty" Kenly, 24 — went into detail about their three-person sexual relationship. The three of them sleep together in one bed. Sheen calls them his "goddesses." They use a football term to describe their relationship, saying that they are in a "wedge" — that, as Oberlin puts it, "Charlie is the man with the ball and we're on either side looking out for him." She also said: "We do whatever Charlie wants us to do. This is the type of lifestyle I've always wanted, and I'm thrilled with it." Ohh-kay. Then she added, "All three of us are in a relationship, and if Charlie ever wants to go outside 'the wedge' and act out on his sexual desires, that's fine with Natty and me. We're laid-back people."

She went on to say: "A lot of people, they ... say the way we live is harmful. But all we are is nontraditional. In my experience, most guys are hypocrites — they will say one thing and think another. Charlie is living it up. Men are programmed to want to reproduce. They are genetically engineered to try and have sex with as many women as they can. I don't see the problem with going forth with your desires and acting out on your sexual desires as long as your partner is okay with that."

Wow.

I wouldn't be okay with a threesome, and I also think that there are plenty of men (possibly most of them) who wouldn't feel comfortable living with two sexual partners, either. If all societal and cultural restrictions were removed, would my attitude be different? Possibly. But even if that were the situation, I imagine I'd still have emotional and psychological reservations — concerns about feelings of neglect, mistreatment, and jealousy. I can't imagine a world in which I'd ever agree to be one of a man's two live-in sexual partners.

What do you think? Do you think the reason that one-on-one romantic relationships are the norm is because that's what the vast majority of people, throughout human history, have felt most comfortable with? Or ... do you have a different take?