Still, fewer women than men have had threesomes. According to one Canadian study published earlier this year, eight percent of women and 24 percent of men reported having had a mixed-gender threesome. This research also shows that participants were also kind of lazy about arranging threesomes—unless they were men. "It is likely," authors Ashley E. Thompson and E. Sandra Byers note, "that any increase in [mixed-gender threesome] experience among heterosexuals will be driven by men rather than by women." [...]
One reason for the difference between female and male interest in threesomes is that pop culture has traditionally pitched threesomes toward a male gaze. Researchers including Breanne Fahs and activists including Shiri Eisner have written of how TV and porn cultivate an expectation of women's "performative bisexuality," involving men as spectators and participants. And while the idea of being with two women is often exciting for a man, Scoats' research with women suggests that many are initially intimidated by the idea of a threesome with two men—but this is only if the expectation is that the two men won't touch. If all three are interacting sexually, women are more turned on. [...]
Admittedly, Scoats' findings have been limited in scope to middle-class white college students. "We have predominantly found it among younger white British guys," he says of the greater open-mindedness when it comes to straight men's sexual boundaries, "but... there's also some research from the UK [of this happening with] of people from lower socioeconomic classes; there is some research starting to come out with people of color." [...]
In fact, much of the increasing male tolerance of mixed-gender threesomes seems to be limited to the MFM variety, where the two men don't touch each other, rather than MMF, where it's all hands on deck. (The letter in the center corresponds to the person in the middle of the sex sandwich, so to speak.) As one Reddit user on a thread about threesomes notes: "I don't want this dude touching me even if it's by accident."
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