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)?


• What’s the appeal of threesomes?

Next week, we’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 1