Most people fantasize about threesomes, but not many people – actually dive in. In part I of our Threesomes podcast, we dive into the data and get some practical advice from Justin Lehmiller – who answers your questions including:
- How common are threesomes?
- What counts as a threesome?
- How does a threesome affect relationships for couples?
- Who is having threesomes?
- How do people find threesomes (e.g. through apps like Feeld)?
- Whatâ€
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s the appeal of threesomes?
Next week, weâ€
ll dive into how to prep for a threesome with prompts, conversations and more!
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Rough Transcript:
This is a computer-generated rough transcript, so please excuse any typos. This podcast is an informational conversation and is not a substitute for medical, health, or other professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the services of an appropriate professional should you have individual questions or concerns.
All About Threesomes
Episode 336
[00:00:00] Jess O’Reilly: Hey, hey, we are talking threesomes today and we are doing a throwback to a two part series with Dr. Justin Lehmiller on the doc today, because I received three questions about threesomes over the weekend and I think it’s a sign. So here we go. Have a listen to this throwback with Dr. Justin Lehmiller.
[00:00:27] Jess O’Reilly: You’re listening to the sex with Dr. Jess podcast, sex and relationship advice you can use tonight.
[00:00:38] Brandon Ware: Welcome to the sex with Dr. Jess podcast. I’m your co host Brandon Ware here with my lovely other half, Dr. Jess.
[00:00:45] Jess O’Reilly: Hey, hey, we are talking threesomes today and it fits that today’s episode is brought to you by FIELD. And FIELD is the first dating app for couples and singles. They’re a pioneer in allowing couples to kind of explore dating together as a pair, and they’re open to all genders, all sexual identities,
[00:01:13] Jess O’Reilly: all sexual orientations from basically for anyone who’s interested in either ethical non monogamy or alternative relationship structures, or simply those who are curious and looking to kind of dip their toe into the pond. So do check them out. Field is spelt feel and a D so F E E L D and you can download the field app.
[00:01:25] Jess O’Reilly: It’s free and you create a profile. And once you have liked someone and they’ve liked you back on the app. You become connections and you’re able to chat. And if you want to, you can share photos and they also often offer an upgraded membership option with extra features. And yeah, so do check out FIELD.
[00:01:43] Jess O’Reilly: They’re one of the largest online communities for fun stuff like this. And it’s interesting. I actually came across FIELD in my research a few years ago. when I was prepping a training for therapists on threesomes and ethical non monogamy and they really are the [00:02:00] perfect partner for this podcast because we’re talking about threesomes and of course there are people on field looking for threesomes and later we’re going to be talking with their expert Dr.
[00:02:08] Jess O’Reilly: Justin Leigh. But before he joins us, I wanted to kind of dig into some of the data on threesomes. And later on, I also want to talk if we have time about how to prepare for a threesome, like in terms of communication and reflection and just topics to address before you start exploring. I don’t know how much time we’ll have.
[00:02:27] Jess O’Reilly: I might have to split it into a couple episodes, but we will get there. It’s interesting because when you think about. Threesomes. Don’t you think porn has kind of made threesomes seem like, like they’re the norm. Everybody’s doing them. Yeah, I mean when
[00:02:38] Brandon Ware: I think about threesomes, it’s, that’s exactly what I go to.
[00:02:41] Brandon Ware: I think about, boom, somebody shows up and then all of a sudden, like, the, the mayhem
[00:02:46] Jess O’Reilly: begins. Yeah, people with long nails are sticking them in all the holes they can find. And, and of course, the reality is that Although most people fantasize about a threesome at some point in time, most people are not actually having them.
[00:02:59] Jess O’Reilly: And when you look at the data, some of it actually doesn’t align. So there, there’s not, you know, a wealth and wealth of data in this area, but there’s a study by Thompson and Byers. I think it was from 2017, if I recall correctly. They were looking at young people, young heterosexual people. It was a convenient sample, so not necessarily representative.
[00:03:17] Jess O’Reilly: And what they found was that 64 percent are interested in having a threesome. So 82 percent of men, 31 percent of women, and of course the research unfortunately only looked at the binary. But that, you know, 64 percent interest only translates into 24 percent of men saying they’ve had a threesome and 8 percent of women.
[00:03:36] Jess O’Reilly: say they’ve had one. So, the split for men, 18 percent say they’ve had FFM, so woman, woman, man. 8 percent of men say they’ve had an MMF. Of the women who say they’ve had a threesome, 7 percent say they’ve had two women and a guy. 5 percent say they’ve had two guys and a woman, and just something doesn’t align here, right?
[00:03:57] Jess O’Reilly: If 18 percent of men have been with two [00:04:00] women, Shouldn’t more than 7 percent of women have also reported having an FFM threesome? Maybe I’ll ask Dr. Lehmiller about this. And then there was another study that was nationally representative. So this was a probability sample and they found that the interest in engaging in a threesome.
[00:04:14] Jess O’Reilly: So interest is different than fantasy, right? So you can have the fantasy, but you don’t actually want to do it. The interest for men was 31. 4%. And for women, it was 11. 1. The experience for men. So about 18%. have had a threesome and about 10 percent of women had had a threesome. And this was a broader age range, but I want to note that among younger women, so 25 to 29, 18 percent said that they’ve had one.
[00:04:40] Jess O’Reilly: So we’ve got some prevalence. I thought I’d just kind of start with that in case people are curious. I, I also wanted to talk a little bit briefly about the reasons why people want to have threesomes and they’re so highly varied, right? So number one, I do think that there is pressure or the shaping of norms because of porn, right?
[00:04:57] Jess O’Reilly: Like, it just seems like that’s what you do when you have sex. Other people say that they want it because they want that attention and the worship and, you know, to be physically overwhelmed. For some people I hear they want it because just it’s exciting, it’s risky, it’s novel. Some people want to do it for the power, right?
[00:05:13] Jess O’Reilly: For the validation. to know that they can. And I find that with my clients so often because I just, because of the demographic I work with, like, so many people who are A type and, you know, feel successful along the lines of our sociocultural norms of success. And so they want to also have done this to say they have to kind of check the box.
[00:05:31] Jess O’Reilly: And that’s an interesting one because oftentimes when it’s just to check a box, they don’t enjoy it that much. It’s like this really hot thing that they think is going to be hot, but in reality it’s just kind of another. Another sexual experience that can be hot or may not be that hot. Interestingly, I hear from people who want to do it in service to their partner.
[00:05:48] Jess O’Reilly: So not because they feel pressure from a partner. Not because they feel they need to do it to preserve the relationship. Because they’re like, my partner wants to do this and I don’t mind doing it. I’m kind of indifferent. I’m neutral. [00:06:00] And in some of those cases what’s so interesting is that sometimes the partner who goes in neutral ends up enjoying it more.
[00:06:05] Jess O’Reilly: So that’s an interesting dynamic to discuss. And then finally, there are, of course, cases where people are having threesomes to safeguard the self, to preserve the relationship in maybe not, in not such a positive way, where it’s like, my partner really wants to do this, they’re pressuring me to do it, and they kind of get led to water, and it’s maybe not something that they wanted to do in the first place, and oftentimes, you know, that, that doesn’t work out.
[00:06:27] Jess O’Reilly: A big question I get about threesomes is whom to have a threesome with. So if we were to have a threesome, threesome with? Like who would you want it to be with? Someone you know, an acquaintance, someone not, like someone we pay, something like, what would be your preference?
[00:06:38] Brandon Ware: So you’re putting me on the spot because you’re looking over at me.
[00:06:40] Brandon Ware: I think the idea of doing it with a friend or somebody that you know to me just adds more pressure because you’re probably going to see that person again, and if the experience isn’t what every single person wanted it to be, I think it would be a bit of an awkward situation. So Right now, I think it makes the most sense to pay a sex worker to, uh, engage in this fantasy.
[00:07:02] Brandon Ware: I think the first time that makes the most sense to me.
[00:07:05] Jess O’Reilly: Hmm.
[00:07:05] Brandon Ware: Do you feel the same or do you feel?
[00:07:07] Jess O’Reilly: Um, yeah, I, I kind of, I like the idea of that. That there isn’t the same pressure. That, you know, you don’t have to, you know, see each other over and over again. It’s interesting because some of the research shows that men actually prefer friends and acquaintances.
[00:07:20] Jess O’Reilly: And women, it depends on whether they are having a threesome as part of a couple or if they are a third party joining a couple. So if, the research shows that if women are part of a couple and they’re going to have a third join them, they want a stranger. And what I’ve heard from some people is that they see it as less of a threat to the relationship.
[00:07:37] Jess O’Reilly: And the same thing that you just just described to reduce the awkwardness and then if the woman, however, is the third party joining either a couple or two others, they are more interested in friends and acquaintances. So I think it maybe varies on your role within the threesome.
[00:07:53] Brandon Ware: I’m just thinking about what you said and I wonder for in heterosexual relationships, if the man, if it’s a [00:08:00] male male female situation, if the male would want an outside person so they’re, I mean there’s just a lot to dissect here and I wonder how men feel in that situation versus having an acquaintance that they know that’s a female if you’re having an MFF.
[00:08:14] Jess O’Reilly: So you’re saying that the men who are saying they want friends and acquaintances are more likely wanting an MFF, like they’re thinking about two women and you’re thinking that it might be different if they were joining two men and a woman? Correct, yes. Yeah, I didn’t think about that. Yeah, that’s interesting because So much of what we believe about threesomes is written along these heterosexual scripts, and even the data that I’m able to pull is from research with heterosexual folks, or people who identify as heterosexual.
[00:08:41] Jess O’Reilly: So yeah, I think it would vary. And I think even for queer people, it’s different. Like for me, the gender just doesn’t matter. Like, I wouldn’t be thinking, Oh, I want it in this way. Like, I can, I can enjoy when I think about it in my head, a scenario with all different types of arrangements.
[00:08:56] Brandon Ware: I think about like some of the partners, like some of the people that, that we know, I just wonder if the, the men in the couple would be comfortable if it was their friend coming in and having sex, that third person in the relationship versus them fantasizing about somebody else’s, you know, a female partner in a different.
[00:09:13] Jess O’Reilly: It’s interesting because I just talked to a guy so he his partner is a woman and they had a threesome and he arranged it for her and it was a friend of his and so he like you know worked her all up and tied her up and there was this whole kind of story to it where he got her riled up and then he left and then when he came home she was kind of waiting for him and he blindfolded her and they’d already talked about it and he kind of had his friend sneak in to surprise her so this isn’t something that He just surprised her with without consent, uh, like it’s something they had discussed, but he brought in a friend.
[00:09:43] Jess O’Reilly: So I think it’s just, you know, varies from person to person.
[00:09:45] Brandon Ware: I think that’s awesome. That must’ve been, I mean, I wonder how the person, how his partner responded when they found out that that was the person that they’d been fantasizing about.
[00:09:55] Jess O’Reilly: Oh, he didn’t say that they had specifically been fantasizing about this guy.
[00:09:59] Jess O’Reilly: It’s just [00:10:00] that it’s who he was able to arrange, I guess. Oh. Like, sometimes it’s a matter of, um, and I’m not saying that’s the case in this person’s scenario, but sometimes it’s a matter of availability and accessibility. Who’s schedule permits. Right. Exactly. And who’s comfortable with it. You know, the other thing that people threesome going to ruin the relationship?
[00:10:18] Jess O’Reilly: And so. There is some data on this. So there was a study by Morris, Chang, and Knox. Again, a small, convenience, young sample. It was 196 undergraduates, so that gives you some context as to their age, and probably, you know, the longevity of their relationship to date. And 15 percent of them had had a threesome.
[00:10:36] Jess O’Reilly: And about half of them, 48%, said that the threesome kind of had no effect on their relationships. 17 percent said they felt closer after the threesome. And 21 percent reported a negative outcome. And so, this is a tiny little sample. I mean, I have to say, I’ve spoken to hundreds and hundreds, probably more than a thousand, probably, you know, could be in the thousands, I’m not sure, of couples who have had threesomes.
[00:11:00] Jess O’Reilly: Just because I work in groups, I’m not, you know, a one on one person. So I hear, sometimes, you know, you hear a dozen stories a day. And what I would say is that I think the planning affects the outcome. So if you’ve kind of led up to this and really talked about it, I admit I’m speaking more to the couples than the singles, although I’ve spoken to many singles as well, but not nearly as many as I have couples.
[00:11:20] Jess O’Reilly: I would say, and I can’t give you data because this is just anecdote, that they’re mostly positive reports. Like people, have a good time. There’s a good chunk of neutral reports where they’re like, okay, that was fine. Whatever. Um, I mean, it was sex, so that’s good. I hear some significant reports of letdown.
[00:11:36] Jess O’Reilly: So not disaster, but just letdown. Like, oh, I thought it would be hotter, or this was awkward, or I thought it was going to be like this, but all I had was someone else’s foot in my mouth, and that’s not what I was going for. Oh, I was also thinking that you could never sneak a second. a third person in with me because I’d smell them.
[00:11:51] Jess O’Reilly: I smell everything. You’ve got a wonderful sense of smell. I don’t know if it’s wonderful. It’s debilitating. I can smell everything. Like even if we’re on a hike and we’re near someone, I’m like, Oh, I can’t walk near them. I [00:12:00] can smell them.
[00:12:00] Brandon Ware: Seriously, somebody walked by us the other day. We were out for a walk and you come, you were like, I can smell that person.
[00:12:05] Jess O’Reilly: It’s not even that they smell bad. I just have a really sensitive sense of smell and I’m sure they don’t smell bad at all. So I don’t want to like make other people self conscious. I just have a very sensitive. sense of smell. Anyhow, back to what I’ve seen. I haven’t seen a ton of significant adverse consequences for people in these threesomes.
[00:12:24] Jess O’Reilly: The times that I’ve heard about adverse consequences is when they don’t plan. It’s when they stumble into it. It’s when honestly they’re drinking and something happens. It’s when not all parties, all three parties, are equally on board. And I’m not saying that you have to have an equal interest, but if there’s any pressure, if there’s hesitation and then somebody pushes through, sometimes, you know, that can be upsetting.
[00:12:47] Jess O’Reilly: I do hear more adverse consequences from singles than I do from couples. And I wonder if it’s because The couples have spoken to each other more in advance and really played out scenarios and talked about how, what they’ll do if they feel uncomfortable or jealous or insecure or surprised by a reaction.
[00:13:03] Jess O’Reilly: With couples I hear that it’s, it kind of gets them more excited for each other, right? Because it’s something new they’ve done together, sort of that formula for passion where there’s trust and risk and they make it through. From singles I hear that the greatest benefit, and again this is just what I’m hearing, is the friendships.
[00:13:17] Jess O’Reilly: Like these cool people they’re connecting with to be friends. So there are all these different outcomes, and you know, beyond the data, I also really am hoping to have some time to share dialogues and prompts for, I think, reflections and conversations that I think are useful, and I might have to do that next week, just depending on timing, but before we get to that, if we get to that, we’re going to chat with our expert from FieldNow, Justin Lehmiller.
[00:13:40] Jess O’Reilly: Justin is a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute, host of the Sex and Psychology podcast, scientific advisor to our friends over at FIELD, and the author of the book Tell Me What You Want, The Science of Sexual Desire, and How It Can Help to Improve Your Sex Life. Justin, the last time I saw you, We were kind of [00:14:00] bouldering in the San Diego area, weren’t we?
[00:14:02] Jess O’Reilly: We were climbing mountains. The world was in a state of normalcy. Are you still climbing and exploring? How’s life in your world?
[00:14:10] Justin Lehmiller: I’m starting to get back out there a little bit day by day, but yeah, you know, some things haven’t changed when we were out. You know, bouldering. We were also talking about lube and sex toys and all that other good stuff and still doing that now.
[00:14:22] Justin Lehmiller: So, you know, some things haven’t changed. There’s been a lot of sex talk and work over the last year, but not so much interaction with the world. But like I said, getting back out there.
[00:14:32] Jess O’Reilly: Yeah.
[00:14:32] Brandon Ware: I want to jump in really quickly just because if you hadn’t given some context as to bouldering and climbing, I think between the lube and the sex toys, like we went bouldering.
[00:14:41] Brandon Ware: And what is that all about? Is that something I need to learn about or like what’s going on here?
[00:14:47] Jess O’Reilly: Nah, man, we were just climbing between rocks. Justin, don’t you run into that, that you, you use a very innocuous term and people are like, oh, what is that? I remember posting on Facebook once that I was going snow tubing and people are like, what’s that?
[00:14:58] Jess O’Reilly: Well, it’s just going in the snow in a, in a blow up tube, but they want something more perverted, right?
[00:15:02] Justin Lehmiller: I know everyone thinks I’m talking about sex, even when I’m not talking about sex. If anyone can relate to that, it’s probably you and every other sex educator and researcher out there.
[00:15:12] Jess O’Reilly: Absolutely. All right.
[00:15:13] Jess O’Reilly: So we’re here to talk threesomes. You are the scientific advisor to field. Let’s talk threesome. So from your perspective, and I think I know what you’re going to say here, but what even counts as a threesome?
[00:15:24] Justin Lehmiller: Well, the easy part of defining a threesome would be that there would be three people involved.
[00:15:29] Justin Lehmiller: It’s one of the few sex acts where I think there’s a bit more consensus. You know, for example, if I ask people what counts as an orgy, they’re like all over the map in terms of the minimum number of participants, but at least with a threesome, that’s pretty clear now, when it comes to like actually what takes place during a threesome, that’s where we run into, you know, different people defining it in different ways.
[00:15:51] Justin Lehmiller: So for example, does a three way kiss. Count, you know, and when you ask people, how do you define sex? You see that they’re kind of all over the place. Some [00:16:00] people define kissing as sex. Some people don’t count sex as sex unless there’s some penetrative intercourse taking place. And so that’s where, you know, the definitions get a little bit messy.
[00:16:10] Justin Lehmiller: And so if you ask people, have you ever had a threesome? You’ll have a lot of people who will say yes, but some people might be talking about a three way kiss. Some people might be talking about, you know, there was just mutual groping and mutual masturbation. Other people, there might be penetrative intercourse or oral sex.
[00:16:26] Justin Lehmiller: So, you know, it’s kind of hard to know what people are. Meaning or referring to when they say they’ve had a threesome, unless you ask about the specific activities that took place.
[00:16:34] Jess O’Reilly: Right. And it’s not easy to get funding for in depth threesome research, right? It’s not at the top of funders lists in terms of, well, did you touch them with your left hand?
[00:16:43] Jess O’Reilly: Was there anal tickles? Was there nipple play? And I hear from folks sometimes, especially I’d say MF hetero couples. Where one partner is sort of complaining that they haven’t had a threesome, right? So they’ve played around, they’ve maybe had some like petting and kissing. And as you said, groping, and maybe they’ve had sex with their partner in the presence of another person or people.
[00:17:05] Jess O’Reilly: But oftentimes folks will be lamenting the fact that their partner won’t have a real threesome. And I think we need to get away from that notion that. You have to check a specific act off the box and instead just focus on, you know, what feels good, what feels exciting. But what role do you think porn has played in prescribing to us what a threesome must be?
[00:17:25] Justin Lehmiller: Well, I think we all get a lot of ideas about what sex is supposed to be from porn. And porn helps to guide a lot of our scripts about kind of how sex should go. And so I think when you’re talking about something like a threesome, which most people have never experienced in real life, you know, if you look at the best nationally representative data points we have on threesomes, you find that about one in five men and one in 10 women say that they’ve had.
[00:17:50] Justin Lehmiller: A threesome before, but you know, when it comes to how those experiences actually go, I think a lot of people go into it thinking it’s supposed to look like what it looks like in porn. And [00:18:00] you know, that’s actually one of the big misconceptions about threesomes is that, you know, everyone’s going to go in and it’s just gonna know exactly what to do with everybody.
[00:18:07] Justin Lehmiller: Everybody’s going to have a great time. There’s going to be this simultaneous orgasm by everyone at the end, you know, and it doesn’t really. Uh, so, you know, porn can give us this idea, but I think we have to step back and say, you know, that’s really the fantasy that’s, that’s what a scripted threesome looks like.
[00:18:26] Justin Lehmiller: And that’s not what most threesomes look like in reality.
[00:18:28] Jess O’Reilly: So you, you bring up fantasies and you’re the expert in fantasies. So in your book, tell me what you want. You explored the fantasies of, I believe it was Americans, correct?
[00:18:37] Justin Lehmiller: Yeah, there were 4, 175 Americans I surveyed and threesomes were really the most, uh, Popular fantasy, you know, more than 90 percent of people across genders and across sexual orientation said they’d fantasized about a threesome before of some type.
[00:18:52] Justin Lehmiller: You know, again, there’s a lot of variability in how that’s going to take place. And one of the other things I find when I look at people’s threesome fantasies is that most people want to be the center of attention and that kind of creates this conflict intention when people actually go into a threesome situation, because if everybody wants to be the center of attention, you know, You can’t really get that, you know, you’re going to take turns and you have to communicate that if everybody’s going to get what they want out of that situation.
[00:19:19] Jess O’Reilly: Ah, that’s really interesting. So that desire to be the center of attention, babe, is that sort of your, would you say that’s your, your perspective? That’s why you’d want a threesome?
[00:19:27] Brandon Ware: Yeah. You know what? Thinking about it, I don’t. I’m not trying to make excuses. I don’t know that I’d necessarily always want to be the center of attention.
[00:19:35] Brandon Ware: I think it would be nice sometimes to have that, but I think there’s a lot of fantasy that could just incorporate in your partner or the third person and, you know, focusing on them and that being very arousing. But I also think that the idea of a threesome sometimes is much easier than. The threesome in reality, right?
[00:19:53] Brandon Ware: Like in my mind, everything can play out perfectly. And, you know, I don’t have to think about any of the after [00:20:00] intercourse or after sex elements, right? Like I don’t have to think about the emotional side. I don’t think about like, do I have to make somebody food after or who gets the cab or, you know, are you staying the night?
[00:20:10] Brandon Ware: Right. So anyway. Going back to your question. Yeah. Sometimes I focus on myself. I think about it. And sometimes I think I could also take pleasure in focusing on somebody else in the, in the fantasy.
[00:20:21] Jess O’Reilly: Now, Justin, you mentioned that people want to be the center of attention. Why else do people fantasize about threesomes?
[00:20:27] Jess O’Reilly: Did that come up in your research?
[00:20:28] Justin Lehmiller: Yeah. And you know, I should mention, well. Most people said they want to be the center of attention. There’s a lot of diversity and variability in how these threesome scenarios play out. And I think that speaks to the fact that different people are trying to meet different needs through a threesome.
[00:20:45] Justin Lehmiller: And so for a lot of people, there is that wanting to be overwhelmingly desired by more than one other person. And so it’s very validating and it can. Increase your feelings of sexual competence and self confidence. And so that’s part of the appeal for some people, but another part of the appeal is just that it’s a novelty and something, like I said, most people have never experienced and human beings are just.
[00:21:09] Justin Lehmiller: Inherently turned on by sexual novelty. And so the idea of having another partner there, another set of body parts to look at and to, uh, touch and all of these things, you know, that, that novelty is another big draw for a lot of people as well. And it can also be a way that some people can explore their sexuality, right?
[00:21:29] Justin Lehmiller: So if it’s a mixed gender threesome, you know, some people are interested in that because it’s a way to explore. Bisexual or pansexual attraction that they’ve never otherwise had a chance to experiment with in real life. And we know that there’s a lot of sexual fluidity in people’s sexual fantasies. A lot of people who identify as exclusively heterosexual who have same sex fantasy, you know, a threesome is a.
[00:21:52] Justin Lehmiller: Perfect avenue for, for starting to explore that.
[00:21:55] Jess O’Reilly: That’s so interesting because so much of the research that I came across in threesomes, the folks [00:22:00] identified as heterosexual, and that’s, I mean, just speaks to the fact that the way we identify or the way we label ourselves doesn’t always reflect, you know, our behavior.
[00:22:08] Jess O’Reilly: Right? Because at some point, if you say you’re straight and you’re having sex with someone who, I mean, I don’t obviously subscribe to the gender binary, but if you’re having sex with someone who is either the opposite gender or a different gender or whatever the case may be, your identity can still be hetero, of course.
[00:22:22] Jess O’Reilly: I’m not telling you you’re not hetero, but behaviorally people might see that differently. I got to ask you about the disparity in research. So we have this research that says that about twice as many men. Are saying they’ve had heterosexual men. Okay. About twice as many hetero men are saying they’ve had threesomes as hetero women.
[00:22:41] Jess O’Reilly: And then again, if you dig deeper into the data, they’re saying they’re having more M f f threesomes. So how does this, is there any way to reconcile this data? Like is it the same, I don’t know, million women in the world who are having these threesomes over and over again or are lies? Lies? Are women underreporting threesomes and men overreporting?
[00:23:01] Jess O’Reilly: Both. What do you think?
[00:23:02] Justin Lehmiller: It’s a great question. And, you know, it reminds me of this other finding in the literature where when you ask men and women, and, you know, we’re generally talking about heterosexuals here, because that’s where most of the research is based. When you ask how many sexual partners they’ve had in their lifetime, on average, men report having about twice as many partners as women.
[00:23:21] Justin Lehmiller: And it’s like, you know, the math. Just doesn’t totally add up there. And so some researchers have tried to look at, well, what explains this disparity? And so part of it is that there’s some lying, there’s some socially desirable responding that’s going on where women are underreporting and men are overreporting.
[00:23:38] Justin Lehmiller: And one of the best demonstrations of this is they’ve actually done a study where they’ve asked men and women about the number of sexual partners they’ve had in one of two conditions, you know, one is where they can. Just report it as they would on a survey. Another is they’re hooked up to a lie detector or what they’re convinced is a lie detector.
[00:23:55] Justin Lehmiller: And what they find is that the difference between men and women gets a lot smaller [00:24:00] when they’re in the lie detector condition. So, you know, that’s part of the story. That’s part of what’s going on here. But there’s another factor at play, which is that. When you’re talking about something like number of sexual partners, we find that men and women have different counting strategies and women actually go through and count, whereas men tend to ballpark it.
[00:24:18] Justin Lehmiller: And so, you know, that’s another part of this story here. And when you’re talking about threesomes specifically. You know, there might be a difference in what people are counting as a threesome. You know, I haven’t seen any research that specifically looked at that, but maybe men have a broader definition of what a threesome is, maybe they’re counting more things as threesomes.
[00:24:37] Justin Lehmiller: And so maybe that’s partially what’s, you know, kind of explaining it. So it gets back to that definitional question of what does sex mean? How are people thinking about this? And that just, you know, makes it a little bit hard to interpret what people are actually saying on surveys. If you don’t ask really specific questions.
[00:24:53] Brandon Ware: I have a question about the average number of partners. So can you just tell us what is the average for, and I’m assuming this is part of your study, hetero, like males and females, men and women.
[00:25:04] Justin Lehmiller: So it depends on the study that you consult and whether it’s a college age population or, you know, an older, more diverse population, you know, in a lot of the college age samples that I’ve seen, you know, you’re looking at.
[00:25:15] Justin Lehmiller: You know, women reporting like three and men reporting like six, you know, it’s something like that. If you look at nationally representative surveys, you find that the overall average is somewhere closer to 11 or 12 that people are reporting. And there’s usually, you know, a gender difference study after study, you’ll find different inconsistent findings, but on average, men are reporting about twice as many partners as women.
[00:25:36] Jess O’Reilly: I mean, I, this aligns with men reporting higher measures in so many realms, right? So if you look at performance in the workplace, men are more likely to rate themselves higher than women. Like we see this just kind of across the board. And so I guess we always have to change our lens or take data with a, with a grain of salt.
[00:25:55] Jess O’Reilly: Now let’s threesomes. When you, you work with FIELD, so this is an [00:26:00] app that allows couples to date online. There are people who are looking for a long term ethical non monogamy on there, but there are also people just simply looking for threesomes for that hookup. And I understand the app kind of leaves it open for people to define how they use it.
[00:26:13] Jess O’Reilly: Do you have any advice for first timers who are interested in exploring threesomes in terms of how to approach it? I think you wrote a whole guide on threesomes.
[00:26:22] Justin Lehmiller: Yeah, so there’s a few things to think about here. And one is just kind of like, how are you going to find a threesome? And a lot of people kind of start threesomes just spontaneously, they’re out at the bar, people are having a few drinks, and it just kind of like happens.
[00:26:36] Justin Lehmiller: And those are the situations that people often end up. Regretting when they’re a threesome, when it’s unplanned, it’s spontaneous, they don’t know the other people. And so there’s not like that kind of established communication between them. And it’s harder for everyone to get what they want out of that situation.
[00:26:52] Justin Lehmiller: And so I think that’s where an app like field can be really handy because threesomes are actually the number one desire reported by users of the app. And so, you know, it’s a good way to start by finding like minded others. And then you can have this communication beforehand about. What is it that you want to get out of that experience?
[00:27:10] Justin Lehmiller: What are you looking for? What are the other people looking for? And you can kind of talk through some of that stuff. And when you have that greater communication and intimacy with everybody going into the threesome, I think that tends to promote a much more positive experience. Because, you know, it’s very easy when you end up in this sort of group situation for things to move beyond your comfort zone very quickly.
[00:27:33] Justin Lehmiller: And it can be hard to communicate. In that moment in that situation and to express, Hey, this is something I’m uncomfortable with. You know, people have a hard enough time doing that when it’s with one other person, but when you’ve got two people, you know, the, the normative pressure is higher. And especially if you’re say a single person joining a couple, you know, you might not want to interrupt that dynamic between the partners.
[00:27:56] Justin Lehmiller: And so I think having that greater communication beforehand can make [00:28:00] you feel more empowered in the moment to say what it is that you want and to ensure that just everybody is on the same page. Going into the situation.
[00:28:07] Jess O’Reilly: And so you’re talking about planning, how is planning different for a couple versus a single?
[00:28:12] Justin Lehmiller: So that’s a great question. And, you know, there’s all different kinds of threesomes. It could just be three single people going in three people who are friends, or it could be a couple with, you know, a single joining them, right. And the dynamic is going to be different in all of these situations. But let’s say you’re a couple and you’re going to bring a third in.
[00:28:31] Justin Lehmiller: I think it’s important to remember that that other person is entitled to the same amount of pleasure as you are. And so it’s important to put them on a level playing field when you’re thinking about this situation to ensure that everybody’s getting what they want so that it doesn’t feel exploitative.
[00:28:48] Justin Lehmiller: And it’s also really important for a single who’s joining a couple to Make sure that you’re going into it for the right reasons. You know, you’re not just into one person and you’re using this as an excuse or opportunity to hook up with that individual. And you’re kind of going in thinking you’re going to ignore the other person because that’s not going to create a great situation or dynamic for everyone.
[00:29:09] Justin Lehmiller: Because when threesomes turn into twosomes, that’s where we start to see the jealousy and the conflict, you know, the negative outcomes happening. And, you know, you, as the single coming into that couple, well, you might. Have a great time in that situation and leave, but there’s going to be some aftermath that the couple’s going to have to deal with.
[00:29:27] Justin Lehmiller: And, you know, it’s not really cool to sort of believe them in that situation. If you know, somebody is going in and trying to use another person in that threesome,
[00:29:36] Brandon Ware: I feel like I hear that. A lot like, like, I mean, in some of the conversations, it’s, it’s like the couple, there’s one person in that couple who wants it more than the other.
[00:29:45] Brandon Ware: And I could just see the pressure ultimately resulting in a generally negative outcome for all people involved, right? The person, the other partner in the couple feels uncomfortable, just so many layers. So that’s a really, really interesting way to, to, I [00:30:00] think, approach the situation.
[00:30:02] Justin Lehmiller: Yeah, there shouldn’t be that there shouldn’t be any element of coercion when it comes to a threesome.
[00:30:07] Justin Lehmiller: Nobody should feel like they’re going into it because they have to do it. They have to please somebody else. Ideally, you know, everybody is on the same page. They want this. And again, I think that’s where, you know, talking through all of this in the beginning is so important and so helpful. And, you know, if you’re in a situation where you’re part of a couple and your partner really wants a threesome, but you don’t.
[00:30:28] Justin Lehmiller: You shouldn’t feel like you have to have a threesome just to satisfy your partner or to stop that conflict from occurring, you know, it might mean that maybe you’re not a good sexual match and you know, maybe this isn’t the right relationship for you because if you start compromising yourself sexually, just to please your partner and your partner, it’s all about giving your partner what they want.
[00:30:46] Justin Lehmiller: It’s not about you that. That’s not a healthy situation to be in.
[00:30:50] Jess O’Reilly: Yeah. And there’s absolutely, um, you never want to do anything under pressure, but there are all these things you can do between fantasizing about a threesome and having a threesome, right? Like there are lots of different kind of steps along the way that may fulfill that desire for a threesome without actually having a threesome, right?
[00:31:07] Jess O’Reilly: So you talked about, for example, wanting to be the center of attention. So I always kind of go back to the emotion underlying a desire. Well, if they want to be the center of attention, what are. other ways to play with that desire, to manifest that desire, other than bringing a third person in, if you’re not comfortable doing that, I want to rewind for a moment to something you said about three friends getting together, because in almost all of the threesomes that I see and hear about, and it’s more than I asked to hear about, you know, hundreds and hundreds of threesomes.
[00:31:36] Jess O’Reilly: It is very rarely in my, from just from my experience, just three people deciding to do it. Oftentimes I’m seeing couples or singles. Do you see that often with just three people hooking up together?
[00:31:50] Justin Lehmiller: I mean, I know it happens. It’s one of those things where we don’t have a lot of great. Data points on all of this, because, you know, as you said, there’s not really funding to do this kind of work.
[00:31:59] Justin Lehmiller: And [00:32:00] so threesomes rarely get asked about on like a nationally representative sex survey. And in fact, the first national data point that I saw on this only came out in the last couple of years. So prior to that, we really only knew things. from college students and, you know, these other limited types of samples.
[00:32:17] Justin Lehmiller: So some of my colleagues and I have started to conduct more research on threesomes to better understand this. And, you know, what we see is that there is a lot of diversity and variability, but I would say more often than not, it’s usually the case of a, you know, there’s a couple and then a third person.
[00:32:31] Justin Lehmiller: Coming in because, you know, a lot of people, and I would say that that’s likely to be the case. A lot of people find it challenging enough to just find one other partner, let alone two at the same time. You know, there’s a lot of coordinating and logistics that have to happen for three non partnered individuals to get together and have a threesome.
[00:32:49] Jess O’Reilly: Yeah, that definitely makes sense to me. What do you want people to understand about threesomes before going in?
[00:32:54] Justin Lehmiller: So I think it’s important to recognize that the reality of the threesome might not live up to your fantasy, right? You know, I think that’s really kind of the biggest misconception. You know, that there also isn’t just one script for how to have a threesome.
[00:33:07] Justin Lehmiller: There’s all kinds of ways that you can do this. And I think it’s also really important to recognize that it might take a little bit of practice. In order for you to get what you want out of a threesome. And I think this is true of any fantasy that practice makes perfect. The first time you try it, there’s some uncertainty, some hesitation, and you kind of have to figure it out and you have to communicate with your partners.
[00:33:29] Justin Lehmiller: And so it might be that the second or third or fourth time that you try having a threesome, you know, maybe that’s when you really. Start to figure out your groove. So if you had a bad experience with a threesome the first time, I wouldn’t say to automatically discount that and say that you would never like threesomes.
[00:33:45] Justin Lehmiller: You know, I’m a fan of saying try anything twice, right? Because the first time might just not have been the optimal experience for that. And so, you know, something you can do if you’re new to threesomes is to consider experimenting with different formats. So one of the things I [00:34:00] did for field was to write this guide on how to have a virtual threesome, right?
[00:34:04] Justin Lehmiller: And that was something that you could do. During the pandemic, you know, to safely interact with multiple people and to fill, fulfill and satisfy your sexual desires, but it can also be a good practice run for sort of figuring out how do multi partner dynamics work. And so, you know, that’s something that you could try kind of like as a first step where, you know, the stakes are a little bit lower than actually having three people in bed at the same time.
[00:34:29] Jess O’Reilly: Right. I love that. And you’re minimizing some of your risks as well. I know, like, one of the big fears for a lot of people who are potentially reproducing in the type of sex they have is what do you do if there’s an unplanned pregnancy, right? Is this something we’re talking about? I know that, you know, the likelihood of pregnancy isn’t super high, but it’s still something that concerns people.
[00:34:46] Jess O’Reilly: And of course that is eliminated with virtual threesomes, STI risk. And transmission is eliminated. I think it also gives you a peek into how you might feel, right. So to be able to be kind of alone in your, not alone, but with a partner perhaps, or alone in your own space and think, okay, how am I feeling in my body at this moment?
[00:35:05] Jess O’Reilly: And as much as it can be a turn on and overwhelming with the virtual interaction, something that you, that you said that really stands out to me is that I wonder if we have to prepare ourselves to be disappointed. Not because, not because threesomes can’t be hot, but because. So many people build this up, as you said, from your data as the ultimate fantasy.
[00:35:24] Jess O’Reilly: And when you build anything up, when you hype anything up that big, you know, you’re creating an expectation that may not be attainable in reality. And I really appreciate the fact that you’re underscoring that just cause you have one bad experience doesn’t mean you never do it again. Like if we did that with sex, none of us would ever have sex again, right?
[00:35:40] Jess O’Reilly: One bad experience and I’m out. But we do that with more subversive experiences, or we, we hear one story about one person or one couple who had a bad experience. And we generalize that and say, Oh no, no, no, this happened this one time to this one couple. Therefore it’s toxic or therefore it will lead to a relationship dissolution.
[00:35:57] Jess O’Reilly: So I appreciate that message to keep [00:36:00] an open mind. I love your research. Love following along with the work that you’re doing. Are you working on a new book yet?
[00:36:06] Justin Lehmiller: Um, I am working on revisions for the third edition of my textbook. But at the moment it’s called the psychology of human sexuality. And so that’s my next book project.
[00:36:15] Justin Lehmiller: And then once that is out of the way, then I can start looking at other books.
[00:36:19] Jess O’Reilly: Okay. Awesome. Makes sense. Well, I’ll be following along. I hope to see you soon. Are we going to get to go back to San Diego that when we were in San Diego, I should mention to folks, I won’t say the company, but we were working on product development and it was a two day workshop to come up with new projects.
[00:36:32] Jess O’Reilly: And I thought that was so cool. Such a cool experience.
[00:36:34] Justin Lehmiller: Oh yeah. It was amazing. I can’t wait to do stuff like that again.
[00:36:37] Jess O’Reilly: Oh my goodness. Yes. Let’s go. Get on a plane and, and then go hiking in between. We went to the coolest, I wish I could look up the place that we went hiking, but we went to this Canyon, which was not a difficult hike, but I just remember the pictures were so fabulous.
[00:36:49] Justin Lehmiller: Yes. And if you do a deep dive on our Instagram feeds, you can find photos of our little. Hiking experience. And it was, it was a ton of fun and absolutely beautiful. And then I think we got margaritas afterwards and talked about sex. So, you know, that was also fun.
[00:37:03] Jess O’Reilly: Checks all the box margaritas, sex talk and climbing mountains.
[00:37:07] Jess O’Reilly: Well, thank you so much for being with us. We so appreciate it. And we’ll make sure to leave all your information in the show notes, but folks can follow along Justin Instagram. that’s kind of hard to spell, but I’ll put it out there for you. And don’t forget to check out the book, Tell Me What You Want, The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You to Improve Your Sex Life.
[00:37:25] Jess O’Reilly: Thanks so much, Justin.
[00:37:26] Justin Lehmiller: Thanks for having me, Jess. It’s always a pleasure.
[00:37:28] Jess O’Reilly: This is such Threesomes, it comes up in every single group I work with. It doesn’t matter where I am. Somebody is going to either ask out in the open or sneak off and ask me about threesomes. Yeah.
[00:37:38] Brandon Ware: Well, I mean, in addition to the fact that it’s a lot of people’s fantasies is what’s constantly reinforced in porn.
[00:37:43] Brandon Ware: I mean, we see you see so much where it’s there’s three or four people involved in a scene. So I think that maybe for that reason, it becomes a prominent fantasy as well.
[00:37:52] Jess O’Reilly: Yeah, absolutely. So I want to keep talking about this. So what we’re gonna do is just because of time, do a part two next week. And [00:38:00] next week what I want to talk about is how to prepare for a threesome.
[00:38:04] Jess O’Reilly: And I have dozens and dozens of questions and prompts and considerations. I want to begin with a self questionnaire, like the questions you should ask yourself before you prep for a threesome. I want to also leave you with some prompts to consider. different feelings like jealousy, insecurity, and distress, so we’ll come to that next week.
[00:38:23] Jess O’Reilly: I also have a questionnaire I want to share with couples, so something that you can talk through with a partner. And I really want to talk about couples privilege and unicorn complaints and what happens when you treat the third Like, they’re there to serve you. And really, like, how do we address that privilege?
[00:38:39] Jess O’Reilly: Because you can’t get rid of privilege. I know people hate that word, but you have privilege, you have privilege. So what do you do with it? And how do you manage it? I also have a three way discussion for things you can talk about when you find your threesome, right? When you eventually, hopefully, hop on field and find a second or third party to play with.
[00:38:57] Jess O’Reilly: And I want to talk about how to introduce a threesome, right? How to talk about it, kind of my three step formula applied to threesomes and how to create those what I call third party bridges. And I also want to talk about threesome light. So Justin had mentioned the virtual threesome and even that would feel like too much for some people.
[00:39:16] Jess O’Reilly: So I want to talk about what that threesome light looks like. So that is the plan for next week. We’re going to have to do some shuffling around to make that work. A whole lot to discuss next week. Yeah. And I just think all of these Questions are really important, like, to consider because the, you know, that’s my anecdotal experience is that the couples and the singles who prepare for it have more positive outcomes.
[00:39:37] Jess O’Reilly: And Justin said the exact same thing from his data. So make sure you come back next week. Do go check out F. E. E. L. D. F E E L D in the App Store. Download it, check it out, and just kind of play around. It doesn’t matter how curious you are, how serious you are. They’ve kind of got something for you. Everyone there.
[00:39:55] Jess O’Reilly: So thanks, babe, for chatting threesomes. We’ve talked about our experiences before, right? On [00:40:00] the podcast?
[00:40:00] Brandon Ware: We definitely have and you today we really hit the nail on the head. Some have been great. Some have been a letdown and Some would have been better kept in my mind.
[00:40:10] Jess O’Reilly: Okay Well, that’s like you just added volumes to it.
[00:40:12] Jess O’Reilly: I don’t even remember what we’ve shared in the past, but that’s okay. All right, babe. Thanks for joining me. Thanks so much, of course, to Justin Lee Miller. Folks, make sure you’re following along and thank you for joining us. We’ll be back next week with part two of how to have threesome.
[00:40:25] Jess O’Reilly: You’re listening to the sex with Dr. Jess podcast, improve your sex life, improve your life.
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