Sam and another speaker discuss why threesomes frequently fail despite seeming appealing in fantasy. The conversation centers on how the activity itself matters more than the setting or who's involved, and explores the emotional complications that arise when people actually try them.
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Now, you said something else in the book that I found interesting, and I wasn't sure really what it meant, but it's that in group sex fantasies that the action is more important than the setting or the people. What does that really mean?
What I mean by that is that it's the idea, the activity, the fact that there's three people there, there's an extra body, other genitals that you can touch and see and explore, and new activities and things that you can do that you wouldn't be able to do with just one other person. And it doesn't matter as much who the other people are. It doesn't matter where it takes place, if it's your bedroom or, you know, anywhere else, really. It's that activity that people are most drawn to. And when I look at the way people describe their threesome fantasies, they don't take any time to describe where it takes place. And many of them describe their threesome partners in totally vague terms. It doesn't matter who they are. A lot of guys will write me and two hot chicks. Right. It doesn't matter who the women are. It's just they're into the idea of a threesome.
Yeah, I think it's a common fantasy, certainly. I think everyone I know in college was thinking, wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't that be amazing how many people actually went through and did it and found out that it was more work than they thought it was? Who really knows, right?
Oh, I do know. But there aren't that many people who have had threesomes.
Really.
If you look at nationally representative surveys in the U.S. about 1 in 5 men and 1 in 10 women say they've had a threesome before. If you break it down by sexual orientation, people who identify as gay or bisexual much more likely to have threesomes than people who are heterosexual. But the reality is that most people have fantasize about threesomes, but relatively few have ever actually done it. And threesomes are actually the fantasy that are least likely to turn out well when people go to act on it, because they do get into that situation and realize, hey, this is more work, or oh, suddenly I'm jealous. Like, I didn't realize how I would feel if my partner was getting attention from somebody else or who's supposed to do what with whom and when and what goes where. And it's just people don't have a script for it.
I fully would agree with that, Sam.
