To threesome or not to threesome? That was Katia’s dilemma when asked by her boyfriend to join a ‘ménage à trois’. Read our mysterious writer’s advice!
It’s Saturday morning and I’m enjoying myself in a busy street in São Paulo, Brazil. I’m walking around, looking at windows and crashing against people, anxiously waiting for something exciting to happen.
My phone suddenly rings.
It’s one of my closest friends, let’s call her Katia, wondering once again what to do with her love life. This time her boyfriend suggested what in her opinion is something less reasonable than the usual. This time he wants to go beyond experimenting with sexual positions, fetishes or strange sexual objects that come in interesting shapes and nice textures. This time he wants to invite someone else over.
A threesome. With another girl.
She’s shocked. I yawn with the predictability of the request and her absence of an open-mind. Not even my remark on whales having threesomes lightened up her spirit. After all, there is a lot of research that shows that a threesome is the number one fantasy of many men – and not only whales. A recent Cosmopolitan survey from September 2013 in the United Kingdom showed that over half of the men polled would be interested in introducing a third party to the bedroom (you can read about this finding and many others here).
Another older study done in 2009 by benaughty shows that my friend has no reason to be conservative or to think that other women think likewise: British women surveyed think that having a threesome is the ultimate turn on for sex. And overall, who still really thinks that women and men don’t fantasize about the same things?
I called another friend, a guy, just to check if my theory held water. I wanted to know his opinion and if he had ever engaged in a ‘menage a trois’. My friend, let’s call him Pedro, was 28 years old when he had his first threesome, and surprisingly, the initiative came from a woman.
“End of the night, some alcohol, and the final push, a girl who really persuaded myself and another girl to have a threesome. We weren’t expecting it, but we just let ourselves carry on”.
I’ve known my friend for a couple of years now and I know he’s the liberal type of guy. Did he think that other people shared the same type of sexual openness like his?
“I think that at least once in a lifetime people will be willing to try it out and curiosity to experiment new things is many times stronger than the preconceptions or prejudices that you might have”.
Another survey backs up his theory. An online nationwide survey done by Playtex and Environics Research Group in December 2012 in Canada reveals that one in five sexually active adults – 22 per cent – have taken part in a threesome or moresome (two or more partners at the same time) and that another 29 per cent are indeed open to having one. That means that more or less 7.5 million Canadians have had sex with multiple partners at the same time and that around 10 million have fantasized about it. This study also found out that nearly 10 per cent of Canadians have had sex in a canoe. I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to read about this fact.
Although Canadians seem very liberal, there are still more conservative cultures around the world. Look at the Brits: in a sex survey done this year at the Imperial College in London, threesomes seem far less common than the other statistics written on this article. Only 9 per cent of all surveyed disclosed to have taken part in a threesome. Overall, almost 12 per cent of guys have been part in a threesome, versus only 7 per cent of girls who have been in a ‘menage a trois’. Also according to this survey, women are asked more often to be part of a threesome than men, but men are the ones asking more frequently. True gentlemen, right?
Moving on, I called my friend Katia to talk once again about her boyfriend and his spicy request. Once again, I flooded her with sex stats, and what is in her opinion my extremely liberal perspective on sex, and some historical back up with stories of Greeks and Romans and the ‘crazy’ things they used to do thousands of years ago.
Guess what? She was still not convinced and her main argument was being jealous of the other girl. Katia is part of the 8.5 per cent of women who according to Maxim sex survey 2013 would only have a threesome if with other two strangers. In her case, she thinks that she would feel more confident and less inhibited if she knew that this encounter would be more of a casual sex one. No strings attached, no awkward encounter two days later. No moralism or guilt.
To add up, she is also worried if her relationship would survive a threesome, and she would be able to look again at her boyfriend without remembering him having pleasure with another girl, or if also having sex with another girl would shake up her, so far, strict heterosexuality.
She has a reason to be fearful of the match between threesome and trust. According to the website 3somes the biggest risks in threesomes do include:
- conflict during or after the threesome
- ending of the relationship
as well as …
- pregnancy
- STDs / STIs
- misunderstanding boundaries / miscommunication
However, many couples who take part in threesomes do it in stable relationships and basically because they’re looking to explore their sexuality and not because they’re having a problem in their relationship. And that’s exactly what I told my friend during that lengthy phone call in a hot afternoon in São Paulo, Brazil.
“Katia, my dear, you can always say no, But try to enjoy yourself and trust your boyfriend that he loves you, and he just wants to bring some extra flair to your sex life. Just please don’t find the third person in a bar, your work, or get an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend to hop into your bed”.
The adviser
Cover image: Christine Rondeau (CC by SA 2.0)