The Truth About Threesomes, Triads, and Throuples

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This is the first post in a three-part series.

Romantic and/or sexual relationships among three people are so common historically and contemporarily that they have gained a variety of names: triads, throuples, threesomes, three-ways, ménage à trois. With a whopping 30 percent of the adults in North America having experienced a threesome at least once (Thompson et al., 2021), this cultural fascination is no surprise. Movies and television shows tend to emphasize a heterocentric version of a triad, where two conventionally attractive, cisgender white women with long fingernails and even longer hair make out with each other while oriented towards the camera and its implied male gaze. This pornographic vision of the triad ends with the triumphant entry of the conventionally attractive cisgender man whose magical penis “finishes off” the women.

In reality, triads are far more diverse than the conventional depiction of a man with two adoring women, both performing for him. Triads can contain people of the same gender, mixed genders, multiple genders, or no gender at all. Many people in triads spend more time folding laundry, doing dishes, talking about their day, and deciding what to watch or eat or play than they do engaged in acrobatic, three-person sex. This first post in a three-part series examines new research on threesomes.

Practicality

Foundational social theorist Georg Simmel studied group dynamics and concluded that, as the smallest possible unit larger than a dyad or couple, a triad or trio is the easiest group to form and sustain. More stable than a dyad that will completely dissolve if even one person withdraws, a triad is large enough to collaborate but small enough that people feel more responsible for its well-being than they do in larger groups, where they feel more leeway to slack on their responsibilities. Polyamorous community wisdom supports this social theory, and their sayings, like “two plus two equals three” or “a quad makes a great triad,” describe a phenomenon that is so frequent as to become cliché. Quite commonly, in polyamorous communities, a triad will form among the remaining members of a previously larger relationship that had included four or more partners. In other cases, an established couple will meet someone who joins their dyad to become an integral member of the polycule. Very rarely does a triad spontaneously form with three people who had no previous association coming together as a group.

Research

New research published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior surveyed people who had engaged in mixed-sex threesomes (MST), which Thompson and their co-authors defined as “sexual activity involving three or more people at the same time in which persons of more than one gender are present.” Researchers surveyed 276 heterosexual adults in North America (217 men, 59 women, and four “other” apparently excluded from analysis) about their threesomes, asking participants to rank their last triadic sexual encounter on a scale from 1 (far below expectations) to 5 (far above expectations). The survey also asked respondents if they were likely to engage in another threesome, from 1 (not likely) to 3 (very likely), and if they had experienced an orgasm during their most recent triadic sexual encounter.

Outcomes

The outcomes of these mixed-sex threesomes depend on who is involved and what kinds of expectations they have of the encounter. Thompson and their co-authors found the highest level of satisfaction among men who had sex with two women. These men were more likely to orgasm and wish to engage in a threesome again than were their women partners. Women and men both preferred a threesome with a romantic partner included, as opposed to having sex with two (relative) strangers.

While Thompson and their colleagues surveyed people in any kind of relationship who had ever had a mixed-sex threesome, my longitudinal research focused on polyamorous people specifically and produced some different results. In my sample, the women were the ones who reported being more satisfied with the sexual encounter, and several men mentioned that they found sex with two women simultaneously to be “not all that.” Women in my sample reported focusing more on the other woman than their male partners, and some of the men said they felt excluded and perhaps even superfluous. That is not to say that every one of my respondents reported engaging in threesomes, and some of those who did also had experiences similar to those found in Thompson’s research.

Even so, there is a clear difference between Thompson’s findings and the findings of my longitudinal research that I think speaks to the differences in our samples. Given the greater popularity of swinging and open relationships, it is unlikely that Thompson’s respondents were mostly polyamorous people and far more likely that they were couples who engaged in sex with others. Perhaps, as Thompson suggests, that scenario is more likely to emphasize men’s sexual satisfaction. My data come from people who are most likely to view the triadic experience as part of an ongoing relationship rather than an isolated incident, meaning that the women have more of an opportunity to establish a connection with each other and not focus primarily on the man.

• The second post in this series explains common interaction patterns among three people.
• The final post in this series explores the reasons that the most common and resilient polyamorous triads do not fit conventional expectations.

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