Margaret BauerThanks in part to steamy HBO serials, explicit advice from “Sex Grandma” Sue Johanson and the carousing coeds of MTV’s “The Real World,” sexual experimentation is shedding its closed-door, taboo status. And students are getting in on the action.
In a 1997 study, researchers Leland Elliot and Cynthia Brantley surveyed college students about engaging in “variations of sexual behavior.” Ten percent of women and 13 percent of males reported having participated in a threesome.
Joe became a statistic early in his college career.
“They started kissing me at the party, and then we came back to my place,” said Joe, a senior whose pride soon overtook his awkwardness at describing his m‚nage … trois. And why not, he said. “Let’s be honest, every guy wants to.”
Joe asked that his name be changed to protect his reputation-and to keep his new girlfriend from learning about his playboy past.
After Joe and his two girl friends came home, they drank some more. Then one woman slipped off her bra, and everybody started undressing each other.
“Clothes were coming off left and right,” said Joe.
Foreplay soon led to more racy behavior.
“We started off having oral sex,” said Joe. “They gave me oral sex together, which was quite nice. And then they proceeded to have oral sex on each other, and I just sat back and watched.”
Then the trio decided to move into the bedroom. One girl asked Joe if he had a video camera. He did.
“I videotaped them for awhile, then [one of the girls] and I had sex for awhile. Then all three of us had sex at one time.”
Joe gave oral sex to one girl while having intercourse with the other-and then they’d trade.
“There are multiple positions that we all did to make it a good time for everyone,” he said.
When pushed to estimate how long the three spent getting it on, Joe said “four or five hours,” with all three reaching orgasm “multiple times.”
As for any awkward silences the next morning, Joe said it wasn’t an issue.
“Not at all. We woke up and we were like, all right, that was cool. We should do that again sometime,” he said. “We hooked up like two or three times after that.”
Every man’s XXX fantasy
Joe’s experience seems idyllic. No awkwardness, no messy breakups-in fact, it’s reminiscent of the plot of a pornographic film.
Run-of-the-mill pornography is all about fantasy, said senior Danielle Christmas, a women and gender studies minor. Christmas has been surfing X-rated Web sites all semester, compiling research for an independent study on pornography.
As viewers, “we never see realistic portrayals of sex in mainstream pornography,” she said. Instead, pornography deals in the realm of fantasy.
A study by Harold Leitenberg and Kris Henning in 1995 discovered substantial differences between men’s and women’s fantasies about multiple partners. The study suggested men are “more likely” to fantasize about hooking up with multiple partners and playing the dominant role than women are, while women are “more likely” to have submission fantasies.
Senior Keren Lehavot is a women and gender studies major who plans to practice psychology with an emphasis on gender and sexuality issues. She described the “typical” m‚nage … trois as a pair of women with one man, where the man’s role is central and the women’s roles are defined in relation to the dominant male.
Lehavot did not want to make generalizations about real-life encounters, but she did say that in the vast majority of pornography, sexual pleasure “is all about the man.”
“When you think of sexy threesomes, like mainstream, you always think about girls giving a guy a blow job or a guy being able to fuck two girls,” said Lehavot. “If it’s two males and a female, you think about it like, oh, she’s going to be gang-banged, or get what she deserves. It’s all about power.”
Dr. Mark Schwartz, an expert on human sexuality, works at the Masters and Johnson Clinic in St. Louis. During the 1960s and ’70s, Masters and Johnson achieved fame by publishing groundbreaking research on human sexuality.
Schwartz highlighted the distinction between intimacy and “recreational sex.”
In today’s “fast-food” society, monogamous sex can get boring for sexual partners, prompting them to draw in a third. Schwartz said that such behavior is probably not healthy for the relationship.
“The reason it’s unhealthy is implicit in the assumption that you’re not getting your needs met from the other person,” he said. “The other person is not enough.”
Instead of concentrating on “making love,” couples may just be looking to add more stimulation.
But for three friends who stumble into the bedroom after a drunken party, Schwartz said the situation is entirely different.
“That’s recreational sex,” said Schwartz. “Whatever people do for recreational sex is fine. It’s like play. Exotic play is wonderful.”
Outside the realm of pornography, some stereotypes persist, though to a lesser extent. Dr. Schwartz said men talk about threesome fantasies more than women.
“You certainly hear it more in males than you do in females,” said Dr. Schwartz. “Men want two women. With women, it gets complicated.”
For a woman, having sex with another woman brings the word “bisexual” into the equation. And Schwartz said men think of a threesome involving another man as “queer.”
A 2001 study by Thomas Hicks and Harold Leitenberg reinforced the theory that men are more interested in threesomes than women-at least in their fantasies. However, the m‚nage … trois fantasy holds sway with both sexes. A survey of 349 university students and employees found that 98 percent of men and 80 percent of women had fantasized about having sex with more than one partner in the past two months.
Several of the comely stars in the HBO hit “Sex in the City” experimented with threesomes. In one episode, the more reserved Miranda set up an interview with a couple looking for a third. As soon as they asked her to join them in bed, however, she fled-satisfied merely by being wanted by the couple.
For women, feeling attractive can be a heady aphrodisiac.
“I do think women can experience it as powerful ‘because two guys desire me,'” said Lehavot.
While several male students argued that the sexiest pornographic threesomes are girl-girl-girl, they generally agreed that, in practice, they’d only consider joining in on the fun if the other participants were both women.
Joe responded vehemently when asked if he’d consider participating in a threesome involving another man.
“No. Definitely not. I don’t want to do that,” said Joe. “I don’t feel that I need to see another guy have sex with a girl in the same room.”
Homosexual threesomes
In their study, Leitenberg and Henning also found that homosexual men and women are likely to have fantasies similar to those of their heterosexual counterparts-only the fantasies involve members of their same sex.
Some students said that dynamic did not play out in homosexual pornography.
“The power dynamics are very, very different,” said Lehavot. “It’s much more egalitarian. It’s not about fucking somebody over.”
Christmas said homosexual threesomes are a little further off the radar screen, so they don’t necessarily conform to the power dynamic supported in pop culture.
“When you step outside of that, it becomes more playful,” said Christmas. “It’s more of an exchange of power. It’s more kind of relaxed, less constricted by gender norms at large.”
In lesbian threesomes, the players are free from the phallus-centered sex so dominant in mainstream porn.
The dynamics are different, of course, when the key players are all men.
“That’s pretty much all about the phallus,” said Christmas.
Ruining the friendship
Some couples that have considered threesomes worried that living out their fantasy might cost them their relationship. One student lost his best friend after the two had sex with the best friend’s girlfriend.
“I wouldn’t have done it if I had been dating one of [the girls], because there’s more emotional attachment involved,” said Joe. “You’re more willing to try that with friends because there’s less to worry about.”
Joe has stayed friends with the two girls, and the relationship they shared is still cause for excitement.
“We’re all still friends and I still talk to them both. It’s not weird or anything,” said Joe. “We’d still do it again, but one of the girls moved out of town.”