A study just published in the Journal of Bisexuality provides at least a partial answer about interest in specific types of threesome. Researchers Heather Armstrong and Elke Reissing of the University of Ottawa were interested in heterosexual adults’ attitudes toward dating and hooking up with bisexual partners of the opposite sex. They asked 720 participants (a mix of Canadian undergraduates and non-students, ranging from 18 to 60 years old with a mean age of 21) about their interest in a threesome with two partners of the opposite sex across three different relationship scenarios—casual sex; dating; and committed relationship.
As you can see in the graph below, regardless of the proposed relationship type, very few women showed interest in having a threesome with two men if given the opportunity. On a scale of 0 (completely disagree) to 6 (completely agree), women’s desire for an MFM (male-female-male) threesome barely surpassed 1 in the “best case” scenario—casual sex.
Men’s desires told a different story.
In the casual-sex context, men leapt at the opportunity to have a threesome with two women, their desires far surpassing the midpoint of the scale. Although this desire was lower for more involved relationship categories, men’s interest in an FMF (female-male-female) threesome still hovered at or slightly below the mid-point of the scale for both dating and committed relationship partners.
The results were similar when participants were asked how arousing they found the idea or fantasy of having a threesome with two opposite-sex partners: Women’s average score (across all three relationship categories) was a meager 1.62 on the same 0-6 scale; the men’s average was a whopping 4.48. This gender difference was statistically significant and quite large (for any stats geeks out there: Cohen d’s was = 1.50).
Finally, only 2 percent of women said they’d already had an MFM (and all had reported only having one such experience); by comparison, a full 10 percent of men said they’d had an FMF (and half of them reported having had more than one such experience, with a few reporting up to 20).
A big caveat:
Of course, this survey doesn’t give us a complete picture of people’s interest in threesomes—women were not asked about an FMF scenario, for example, and men were not asked about a MFM scenario. The gender difference might be much smaller, nonexistent, or even reversed, as anecdotal evidence suggests both women and men are more interested in a threesome with two women than with two men.
more involved relationship categories, men’s interest in an FMF (female-male-female) threesome still hovered at or slightly below the mid-point of the scale for both dating and committed relationship partners.