Thinking about a threesome? You’re not alone!
Threesomes tap into some of our most primal sexual longings, though more for men than women. Men are evolutionarily wired to want to spread their seed as far and wide as possible. The more women they mate with, ostensibly, the more variations of their genetic material that gets passed on to future generations.
Modern-day numbers bear this out, too. A survey of several thousand Americans in the late 1980s by Glenn Wilson found that threesomes top the list of male fantasies, at 31% of men. Women acknowledged them as more of a blip on the erotic radar, at 15%.
Of course, no man is thinking about procreating when he entertains the idea of a threesome. Rather, the raw, primal urgings of evolutionary past show up in men’s modern fantasies of multiple, simultaneous sex partners.
To be honest, many women may consider a threesome, but ultimately abandon the idea for fidelity with a single partner. Bringing a third person into your sex life is never simple. There is the risk of jealousy, feelings of inferiority by virtue of comparison, and losing the intimacy that, up to that point, only you and your partner have shared. You can never go back to a pre-threesomes relationship. It’s an important fact to consider.
A threesome can be a whole new sexual experience — but only if all participants really want to be there. It’s never something you should be half-hearted about or pressured into. The imagined benefits of a threesome like more hands, lips and bodies to have fun with, plus a new repertoire of possibilities, may be more titillating in fantasy than reality.
As columnist William Saletan puts it: “Fidelity isn’t natural, but jealousy is. Hence the one-spouse rule. One isn’t the number of people you want to sleep with. It’s the number of people you want your spouse to sleep with.”
Many people want a ménage; it’s just a bad idea. Let’s keep threesomes in the natural world of fantasy.
Tape it to the fridge!
