The threesome fantasy is more or less universal. A research conducted by Dr. Justin Lehmiller for the Kinsey Institute, published in “Tell Me What You Want” and based on 4175 people aged 18 to 87, found that 97% of men and 87% of women had fantasised about sex with more than one person – making it the most commonly reported sexual fantasy in the US. A separate 2017 study in PLOS ONE put actual participation at 18% of men and 10% of women.
What neither study captures is the specifics – what people actually want when they think about a threesome, and how differently men and women tend to answer that question once the conversation gets honest. And we don’t mean that they want to have sex with someone in particular, but without cheating. That may be the first intent – having sex with someone a man (or a woman) is very attracted to, but including their partners, so it’s consensual.
What men want
The default male fantasy involves two women, with him as the focus of both. Lehmiller’s data shows that men are significantly more open to MFF configurations than women, and that the fantasy centres on being attended to by both partners simultaneously rather than on watching – which is the assumption most people make going in.
Physically, simultaneous oral sex comes up more than almost anything else in male accounts. One woman is giving him a blowjob while he kisses or licks the other. It’s an experience that requires exactly three people and can’t be approximated otherwise, which is a large part of the appeal.
Double penetration – one woman being penetrated vaginally and anally at the same time, by two men or one man and a toy – features consistently in male preference surveys. The 2019 YouGov data ranked it among the top ten male sexual preferences. In practice it requires more preparation than the fantasy suggests, which is why it’s reported as a desire considerably more often than as something that actually happened.
Watching also features heavily. Men consistently report that seeing two women kiss, touch each other, and go down on each other is among the most compelling parts of a threesome, even when they’re physically involved throughout. Lehmiller’s data backs this up – voyeuristic elements run through male multi-partner fantasies consistently across age groups.
What women want
Women’s preferences don’t follow the same pattern as men’s. Lehmiller found that women are more open to MMF and same-gender threesomes than men – which contradicts the widespread assumption that everyone defaults to MFF. The 2020 LELO survey of 4,000 people across Europe and the US found MFF is what most people end up doing, but women’s stated preferences, when asked honestly, are considerably more varied than that figure suggests.
What women report wanting physically: being touched and kissed by two people at once is the most consistently cited preference. Four hands, two mouths, sustained attention across the whole body – it creates something genuinely different from one-on-one sex. Being kissed on the neck by one partner while another goes down on her, or having both partners’ hands on her simultaneously – these specifics come up repeatedly in accounts of threesomes that women describe as genuinely good.
Anal sex features in female threesome preferences more than it tends to come up in general sex surveys, consistently paired with being penetrated vaginally at the same time. The physical experience of being fully attended to from multiple angles simultaneously is what women describe – the sensation of complete focus rather than divided attention.
Toys feature significantly too. In MFF threesomes, strap-on use between the two women – one penetrating the other while the man is also involved – is among the more commonly cited female preferences in the LELO data. Double penetration using a strap-on and the man simultaneously is reported as one of the more intense physical experiences in female accounts of MFF threesomes. A vibrator used on her clit while both partners are otherwise occupied is the most practical and most commonly reported toy use across all configurations.
The MMF configuration
Less discussed but more common than its cultural invisibility suggests. The 2017 PLOS ONE study found MMF configurations are underreported, largely because of stigma around male bisexual experience.
Ask women who prefer MMF what they actually want from it and three things come up consistently: being the centre of attention for both men at once, double penetration, and watching the men interact sexually. The third one surprises people, but it’s in the data. Women’s interest in male-male sex is more common than anyone publicly admits, and the MMF threesome is one of the few contexts where women say so directly.
For men in MMF threesomes, the range is wide. Some want strictly separate involvement with the woman. Others are comfortable with incidental same-sex contact. A 2018 paper in Sexualities by Scoats, Joseph, and Anderson found that straight men in MMF threesomes were increasingly comfortable with same-sex contact occurring – describing it as situational rather than identity-defining. Dr. Zhana Vrangalova of New York University notes that threesomes are among the most common contexts in which men first act on same-sex curiosity.
Pegging – a man being penetrated anally by a woman wearing a strap-on – features in MMF threesome preferences too, both as something women initiate and something men request. It comes up more in threesome contexts than in standard couple surveys, possibly because the presence of multiple partners makes the dynamic feel less categorically significant.
Four people instead of three
A 2018 study in the Journal of Sex Research found that four-person configurations are often reported as less emotionally complex than threesomes. With four people, nobody is ever the odd one out – which is the most common source of discomfort when three people are involved.
The most commonly reported four-person preference is two couples either swapping partners or combining fully. Voyeuristic and exhibitionistic elements feature heavily in group sex beyond threesomes according to Lehmiller’s data – watching and being watched becomes part of the experience in a way that’s harder to sustain with three people.
What actually makes it work
A 2021 paper in the Archives of Sexual Behavior on consensual non-monogamy identified honest communication beforehand as the single strongest predictor of positive outcomes – more than configuration, more than who the third person is.
Lehmiller’s research found that people who approach multi-partner sex with flexibility report significantly higher satisfaction than those working from a fixed mental script. The fantasy is almost never exactly what happens. That gap isn’t the problem. Expecting it to match precisely is.
Jealousy is the thing that catches people off guard most often. Not the partner who had reservations going in – usually the one who was keenest on the idea. There’s no sure way to predict it in advance. When it happens mid-evening, the only sensible response is to stop. Continuing when one person is struggling doesn’t save the situation. It makes the conversation afterward considerably harder.
The conversation after a threesome matters as much as the one before. What everyone liked, what they didn’t, how everyone feels the next day – that’s what determines whether the experience brings people closer or creates distance that wasn’t there before.
If you want to try a threesome in London, the easiest way is to book threesome escorts. Call us and tell us what you like, and we’ll show you what girls offer exactly that and work well with each other.