Understanding Threesomes

Gender, Sex, and Consensual Non-Monogamy

Ryan Scoats

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429842368
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Interest in sexual threesomes is significant, but how much do we really know about them? Why do people engage in them? What influences people's interest? And what are the longer term ramifications of a threesome? This book explores these questions and more; contextualising the findings in relation to wider norms of gender, sexual behaviour, and relationships.

Drawing upon more than 50 interviews and 200+ qualitative surveys this book offers a rich and in-depth analysis of contemporary threesome behaviours. The findings suggest that threesomes are a complex and multi-faceted sexual behaviour. A behaviour which simultaneously resists and maintains norms of monogamy, serves important roles and functions for individuals and relationships, and is both highly desirable but potentially risky.

This book would appeal to both undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as postdoctoral scholars in the fields of sociology, psychology, and sexology. In particular, this book is essential reading for those interested in threesomes, consensual non-monogamies, and contemporary norms of sexual behaviour.

Chapter 1

Why study threesomes?

I still remember the first time I heard that someone I knew had had a threesome. I was 17 years old, and the rumour was that a girl I was vaguely acquainted with from my sixth-form college, and her boyfriend, had engaged in a threesome with one of their mutual friends. Despite knowing virtually nothing about the encounter, what struck me was that before this point it had never really occurred to me that threesomes were something that ‘regular’ people did. To me it was something left to the realms of pornography, celebrity, or perhaps those at the very fringes of society. I also remember finding it strange being able to put a face to this sexual act, and not just any face, but one that I might run into between classes or at a party. Ten years later, midway through my graduate studies, and some things had not changed—knowledge of someone’s threesome still seemed to provoke disbelief. One difference, however, was that I now (regularly) witnessed these realisations from others rather than experiencing them myself. Let me explain.

When interacting with groups of strangers at social occasions, small-talk would usually go either very well or very badly. When people would ask: ‘What do you study?’, few, if any, were generally expecting my answer: ‘Threesomes’. Consequently, this could result in a number of interesting responses. If the questioner had not immediately shut the conversation down or steered it in a different direction, one of two things would generally happen: (1) someone from the group would enthusiastically admit to knowing someone who had had a threesome; or (2) someone from the group would admit to having had a threesome themself. This second scenario often occurred in the presence of others who had no prior knowledge regarding this part of their friend’s sexual history. Cue reactions of astonishment!

But why does the knowledge of a friend’s threesome elicit such a reaction? Although there are a number of answers to this question, in part I believe that our relative reluctance as a society to openly talk about what are seen as ‘unusual’ sexual behaviours can lead to perceptions of particular activities that are distorted and exaggerated. The act of threesome sex is an excellent example of this. As a male participant once told me: ‘I always assumed that threesomes were the holy grail of sex and then once you have it, it wasn’t that great’. In contrast, one of my female participants suggested that: ‘My preconceptions before was swinging and group sex, and you know, rooms with mattresses in and baby oil and horrible smells, dark rooms or dogging in the car park at the weekends. A little seedy’. Thus, the knowledge of a friend’s threesome might shock and disgust, or elate and excite, depending on your own personal perspective towards threesomes.

Looking to my own experiences, although I do not remember the expectations I had prior to my first threesome, I do know that it did not develop as I had expected. Rather than a one-time exploration with a previous partner and a comparative stranger, we continued to meet over a number of months. The three of us continued to have sex, and our friendship developed further, but no new romantic attachments seemed to materialise. Rather than illuminating what a threesome was all about, this experience had created more questions: is this how threesomes are for other people?

At this point, not knowing of anyone else who had had a threesome, I turned to the academic literature to try and contextualise the experience. Regarding threesomes, I was surprised to find that the last book-length study into them was published in 1988. Furthermore, there were few contemporary studies, and even fewer that offered a rich, in-depth insight into people’s lived experiences. In addition, other literature on open relationships, swinging, and polyamory, while sharing similarities with my experience, did not provide much further insight. Thus, with many of my questions remaining unanswered, the seed of a research project began to take root. What do threesomes mean to the people having them? How and why do they happen? How can they inform our understanding of sexual behaviour, romantic relationships, and society as a whole?

Accordingly, after many years of research, interviews, surveys, and informal conversations with hundreds of people, this book is an attempt to better understand threesomes.¹ It is hoped that this book can give voice to those stories often left unheard as well as ground our understanding of threesomes in reality, rather than myth, stereotype, and stigma.

The context of this research

In contemporary Western society, sexual behaviours that were once reserved for only the most brazen and adventurous of practitioners are becoming more and more commonplace and even expected (Attwood, 2005; Bernstein, 2001; Sheff & Hammers, 2011). For example, the acceptability of pre-marital sex has risen over previous years (Harding & Jencks, 2003; Twenge, Sherman, & Wells, 2015), as has anal sex (Mercer et al., 2013; Satterwhite et al., 2007) and oral sex (Mercer et al., 2013; Wells & Twenge, 2005).² England, Shafer, and Fogarty (2008) even go as far as suggesting that casual sex is now hegemonic compared to the pursuit of romance or a relationship among young adults.

All of the aforementioned changes are happening alongside a broader trend towards viewing pornography and sexual behaviour as a consumer experience, one that people seek out as part of a desire to have different, varied, and unique experiences. This ‘consumer sexuality’ perspective, or what McNair (2002) calls the pornification of society, involves seeking pleasure as a way of bonding with one’s friends; of experiencing something different and new; and viewing sex as a harmless, healthy, consensual experience to be consumed as a leisure activity, only sometimes with one’s romantic partner (Attwood & Smith, 2013; Frank, 2008; Joseph & Black, 2012).

At the same time, in recent years, consensual non-monogamy has also become more visible to the general population. Consensual non-monogamy is an umbrella-term that encompasses many styles of negotiated, non-monogamous relationships: for example, open relationships, polyamory, and swinging.³ Increased media visibility (Barker & Langdridge, 2010; Wosick-Correa, 2010) and academic research into consensual non-monogamy has steadily grown and expanded to look at a wide range of aspects within the field (Barker & Langdridge, 2010). A ‘new burst of commentaries and debates every few months’ have allowed more people to be exposed to alternative relationship styles (Barker & Langdridge, 2010, p. 749).

The general population are now exposed to consensual non-monogamy through a multitude of sources, including popular entertainment, celebrity gossip, and the internet more generally. Reality television shows such as Polyamory: Married and Dating, Sister Wives, or Louis Theroux’s Altered States put a human face to unconventional relationship types and allow viewers the opportunity to observe the ways in which people might organise them. Elsewhere, in films such as Short Bus, fictional characters explore their sexuality and relationships; bringing others into a dyadic (two-person) relationship or alternatively, seeking exploration away from it. Well-known celebrities, such as Tilda Swinton, Will Smith, Zac Efron, Ashton Kutcher, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and many others are alleged to have practiced assorted forms of consensual non-monogamy at various times in their relationships, and to varying degrees of openness. The internet has also been of vital importance in allowing people to connect, engage, and learn about different relationship styles (Barker, 2005). Dating sites like OK Cupid now allow for open relationship and polyamorous statuses and Facebook allows one to identify as being in an open relationship (although not polyamorous).

The normality of threesomes is growing in popular culture (e.g. Adriaens & Van Bauwel, 2014). Regularly featuring in a wide array of media publications and websites, there is a strong argument that threesomes have become a risqué but nonetheless socially accepted, perhaps even expected, part of a contemporary young people’s sexual repertoire of experiences. Highlighting the latter, Leitch’s (2006) article for Men’s Health suggests that men are supposed to have had a threesome by age 30! Other articles give advice on how to have a threesome (Buxton, 2015; Griffin, 2014); highlighting the impacts of threesomes on relationships (Gilmour, 2017); investigating how people make threesomes work for them (Bell, 2018); discussing what women think about threesomes (Bacharach, 2016); suggesting that they might be a gateway to open relationships (Parker, 2014); giving advice on finding the right partner (Gonzalez, 2014); and arguing that threesomes are so common they are now mundane (Moore, 2014). They are also a common occurrence in popular entertainment, including in movies such as Zoolander, Vicky Christina Barcelona, and American Psycho as well as TV shows such as Gossip Girl, Sex and the City, True Blood, Orange is the New Black, and House of Cards.

Threesomes are, furthermore, a popular category on porn sites, particularly among women. Analytics of the porn streaming site ‘Pornhub’ shows that ‘threesome’ was the fourth most commonly viewed category of pornography by women in 2018, and the eighth most viewed category overall (across all viewers) (Porn Hub’s 2018 Year in Review, 2019). Similarly, 2017 saw threesomes as the second most viewed category for women, and ninth overall (Porn Hub’s 2017 Year in Review, 2018), only marginally different from 2016’s results (Pornhub’s 2016 Year in Review, 2017). According to Pornhub’s data, women’s interest in threesomes may also be increasing, as it was only their fourth most viewed category in 2015 (eleventh overall), and eleventh most viewed category in 2014 (no data on overall ranking) (Pornhub’s 2015 Year in Review, 2016; Pornhub’s 2014 Year in Review, 2015). One can even simulate a threesome experience through the use of virtual reality equipment, such as Oculus Rift or Samsung Gear VR (Knight, 2015).

Facilitating real-life threesomes has also become easier with the advent of location-based smartphone apps such as Tinder, Grindr, and even some dedicated to finding threesomes, such as Feeld (formally 3nder), 3somer, and Trippple. Location-based apps allow users to find others looking for the same thing (be this dating, casual sex, etc.), sorted by geographical proximity (Weiss & Samenow, 2010). These apps allow users to upload pictures, provide personal information or what they are looking for, and chat with other users.

Thus, this research takes place in a period where sex is no longer intrinsically tied to procreation (Macklin, 1980), but is seen as having multiple potential uses and functions (McNair, 2013). At the same time, interest, information and exposure to different styles and forms of consensual non-monogamy are likely the highest they’ve ever been. Furthermore, studies are suggesting that a significant number of people are engaging in consensual non-monogamy. Rubin, Moors, Matsick, Ziegler, and Conley (2014) estimate the prevalence of consensually non-monogamous individuals in Western society to be around 4 to 5%, whereas Haupert, Moors, Gesselman, and Garcia (2017) estimate that approximately 20% of the population have at some point engaged in consensual non-monogamy. Specifically looking at threesomes, Herbenick et al. (2017) found that 18% of men and 10% of women from a US nationally representative sample of 2,021 adults had engaged in one. Despite the growing academic knowledge around consensual non-monogamy, however, research in the area of threesomes is still limited.

About this book

This book is the culmination of three separate studies into people’s experiences of threesomes. Although the results of these studies have been combined in order to form a coherent narrative for this book, I will describe here each of the studies in greater detail. Specifically, I will give details on the focus of the study, the method of data collection, and the sample demographics. All three studies utilised thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) for the analysis of data (for a further discussion of thematic analysis and other methodological considerations in this research, see Appendix 1). Furthermore, in all of the studies, ethical protocols were adhered to and participants were given a brief description of the purpose of the research, the right to anonymity, and the right to withdraw at any time (Arksey & Knight, 1999). Throughout the book, interview participants are referred to by their pseudonyms, and further information regarding these participants can be found in Appendix 2. Survey respondents are referred by demographic data including their: sex, age, sexual orientation, and the configuration of their last threesome. Owing to the fact that not all participants were asked the same questions, some chapters draw more heavily from specific participant sets than others. Although qualitative research (such as this very book) is generally unconcerned with issues of generalisability, for a discussion of this topic, and other limitations of this research, please see Appendix 1.

Study One

The first study was an investigation into university men’s experiences and attitudes towards threesomes, conducted in collaboration with Professor Eric Anderson and Dr Lauren J...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Why study threesomes?
• 2 Living in a monogamist culture
• 3 The consensual non-monogamy burden
• 4 What do we know about threesomes?
• 5 Why do people have threesomes?
• 6 Circumstances leading to threesomes
• 7 Jealousy and negotiating exclusion
• 8 Women and MMF threesomes
• 9 Experiences of stigma
• 10 What happens after the threesome?
• 11 Conclusions
• Appendix 1: details of methodology
• Appendix 2: participant information for Studies One and Two
• Appendix 3: Study Two recruitment and data collection strategy
• Appendix 4: Study Two women’s sexualities
• References
• Index