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My first group sex experience in 2016 was arguably the best timed event in the world: Not only was it my first threesome but it was also my debut into queer sex and it happened on London Pride, which coincided with my birthday. It doesn’t get much better than that. It was spontaneous, sweaty and very, very sexy. That night opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities.
Since then, some of my most rewarding sexual experiences have been threesomes, foursomes and moresomes. Not because they were novel, “bucket list” moments but because the connections in those dynamics were so strong. Often these have been moments where I’m sleeping with like-minded friends, and going from fully platonic to friendships with sexual and romantic layers has been a truly beautiful thing. For me, group sex isn’t about the novelty; it’s a place to learn more about myself and the people I love. In my eight years working as a relationship and sex educator, I have been asked often about the logistics of group sex: How to find potential partners, tips for communicating consent and checking in, how to manage expectations. A less explored aspect is how sex with three or more people can really shift the ways we experience pleasure — a mindset I’ve found incredibly useful when it comes to my own sex life.
The foundation of my sex ed work is about encouraging people to question the prescriptive messages we’ve inherited about what sex “should” be like. Sex happening between two people (traditionally a cis man and woman — hello, heteronormativity) is an assumed part of this script. Now don’t get me wrong, partnered sex is amazing. That equilibrium of focusing on your partner’s pleasure as they focus on yours is a beautiful loop that I’m a big fan of. But it’s just one way of experiencing sexual pleasure. Once you add more glorious bodies into the mix, things can get really interesting. My experiences in groups have transformed the sex I have with myself and with individual partners. Here’s how.
De-prioritizing orgasms
I’ve recently started describing my approach to sex as “writhing around.” There’s something fluid and more creative about approaching sex from this angle, as I learned through various group dynamics. The more bodies involved, the more potential to writhe. In my experience this creates a more meandering approach to sex, where orgasms are a welcome aspect but not an expectation or something we’re chasing down. Practically speaking, I find it harder to orgasm in group settings. I need a very focused headspace in order to get there and while the overstimulation of many bodies is exciting, the abundance of sexy stuff happening can make it more difficult for my brain to shift into orgasm mode. Many of my friends have similar experiences. But rather than seeing this as a failure, it’s helped me revise my expectations of myself and appreciate the exploration of pleasure so much more than any end goal. I’ve gone on about the importance of de-prioritizing orgasms for my entire career as a sex educator but it wasn’t until getting into a groove with group sex that I truly started living it.
Less emphasis on penetrative sex
This originally came about through necessity. Penetrative sex is quite a two-person-centred act and in a group setting, when you’re getting to know each other’s bodies, I’ve found it’s logistically easier to focus on all the lovely things you can do with your hands, mouths and toys, which helps reduce the chance of anyone feeling left out. Over time, this has grown into a preference for me in both group and partnered dynamics.
Penetration can be fun but it’s just one of many options and decentralizing penetration has been a big shift in how I experience pleasure in recent years. It’s something I encourage everyone to integrate into their sex lives, particularly if you or your partner(s) has a vulva. This 2015 US study involving 1,055 women aged between 18 and 94 found that 81.6% of women don’t orgasm from vaginal penetrative sex alone (though as we’ve established, the end goal isn’t orgasm but more an increase in pleasure overall). Once again, taking penetration off the table encourages my partners and me to think more creatively about how we approach sex, which leads to a lot more fun. There’s more fluidity to non-penetrative sex — ample opportunity to writhe and to focus on the body as a whole rather than concentrating all your attention on the genitals.
Shifting from sexual to sensual
I know it’s a funny thing to say but I feel like sex is often over-sexualized. When the points I’ve already mentioned are combined in group sex, something beautiful happens: Sensuality comes to the forefront of these experiences. This doesn’t mean there’s less pleasure, rather that my understanding of pleasure has shifted. It’s not solely focused on genital touch and the more explicit aspects of sex; it’s about creating environments where there’s an abundance of sensation, where all of my senses are engaged. It’s being pressed up against multiple bodies, feeling different people’s varied touch simultaneously, the layered sounds of multiple partners’ heavy breathing and moans, how kisses taste and feel different from person to person. Group sex is an opportunity for sensory overload and experiencing it has heightened my senses and encouraged me to appreciate the sensuality in other types of sex, too.
Group learnings
The more sexual experiences I have, the more I’m reminded of just how endlessly varied sex can be. It’s fascinating to dip into other couples’ dynamics and see the different ways that people communicate and explore. There’s something wonderfully wholesome about approaching a lover’s pleasure as a team, joining forces to lavish one partner with attention and create the ultimate sexual adventure for them.
In my experience, real-life threesomes and group sex rarely look like the stuff you see in mainstream porn. The male gaze is replaced by a queer lens and the emphasis is on playful connection and exploration. It shapes not only how I approach sex in my personal life but also how I talk about sex and pleasure in my work. Whether or not you’re curious about exploring group dynamics, we can all learn so much from each other’s experiences of pleasure.
Ruby Rare is an accredited relationships and sex educator with Acet UK, and an ambassador for the sexual health charity Brook.