"I have a Jules and Jim fantasy, definitely — you know, two men and a woman in love. And I remember reading in a magazine that the high you get from falling in love only lasts about four years. So with two men, you might be able to make it last eight."
Threesomes are one of the most common sexual fantasies in Real Life, thus one that regularly shows up in fiction when writers/directors want to spice things up a bit.
However, like most sex-related tropes, Double Standard applies.
When one means a threesome, it was almost always 2 girls and 1 guy. Given that Most Writers Are Male and that threesomes are closely connected to porn, the hot threesome is almost always a lucky guy having two hot babes waiting for him in his bed. And since this is pure Fanservice, expect the girls to be bisexual and more than willing to make out in front of their male partner. In fact, it's a very rare case where the girls are not bisexual. To ramp things up a bit, writers may even make the girls lesbians just to prove the attractiveness of the male lead. And when a girl isn't initially attracted to women, she will almost always give into temptation and explore this side of her sexuality, much to her boyfriend's pleasure.
However, the reverse scenario of 2 guys to 1 girl poses more of a problem, since it's seen as even more inseparably connected to porn than the other way around. So much indeed that depictions thereof were once vanishingly rare in fiction and are still uncommon to this day. At best, expect vague mentions of it. That's mostly because, due to the possible connotations attached to a woman willing to have two hot studs in her bed, few writers dare to take this scenario on. Their character just might lose audience sympathy and become disliked, if not outright hated. Moreover, Most Writers Are Male and, unlike the reverse scenario, this version is seen as a female sexual fantasy with limited interest for straight men, so... yeah. In the rare cases where this variation does appear, the guys are almost never bisexual, even though Guy on Guy Is Hot for many women. Unless it's a minority show, of course.
The whole trope, when exaggerated, gives off the Broken Aesop that women should be bisexual but men mustn't explore this side of sexuality, mostly because male bisexuality is a much less comfortable subject for straight male viewers than female bisexuality. Add to this the belief that lesbian sex doesn't threaten a woman's femininity, but the masculinity of a man sleeping with another man may be called into question.
In fanfiction, this is often reversed, with two-guys-to-one-girl threesomes in abundance. Since most fanfiction authors are women, this makes sense.
Unisex threesomes (i.e. three women or three men) only ever show up in LGBT shows or in porn (again, including fanfiction, because we all know there's a lot of overlap there).
Sister Trope to Three-Way Sex and Twin Threesome Fantasy. Related to Girl-on-Girl is Hot and Guy on Guy Is Hot.
Examples:
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Advertising
- This
1-900-FUN-MATE commercial has an all-girl five-way.
- These Armani ads show a lucky woman having a threesome with two bisexual men.
- This Butterfinger Cups commercial promotes bisexual MMF threesomes.
- In this Schick razors commercial, the hot lady sheriff is going to have a G-rated threesome with the two cowboys.
- The commercial for The Sims Makin' Magic has a G-rated variant. A nerdy girl, a preppy girl, and a goth girl using magic to conjure boyfriends. When it comes to the nerdy girl's turn, she instead makes the other two girls disappear and takes the two guys for herself.
Comic Books
- In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic series there are two separate occasions when a look into Buffy's inner space reveals MMF three-way fantasies, one involving her and two of her (non-simultaneous) canonical boyfriends Angel and Spike, and one involving her with two different film characters played by Christian Bale.
- The Eagles of Rome: Marcus and Arminius have threesomes with various prostitutes during their time in Rome, being Sworn Brothers and all.
- Fables: Rose Red tells her sister that she does threesomes with another woman for her boyfriend Jack on his birthdays, but she may have just said this to annoy her strait-laced sister.
- Firefly: The Sting: Inara and Saffron accompany Logar at the party to get close to him through seduction. When they go into a bedroom together, Logar comments that there's room for all three of them.
- In Justice League: Cry for Justice, Green Arrow congratulates Hal Jordan on the alleged threesome he had with Huntress and Lady Blackhawk. This one-off joke actually turned out to be rather controversial among readers, though; Gail Simone, those women's most frequent writer, didn't like it either, so in Birds of Prey, she wrote that he just passed out drunk and nothing actually happened.
- In My Faith In Frankie, Frankie, Jeriven, and Kay canonically end up together.
Fan Works
Degrassi: The Next Generation:
- Fanfic writers seem to have a thing for Jay/Alex/Paige and all sorts of Sean threesome fantasies.
- Laying Foundations ends with an implied threesome. Human Magic has a more explicit one, all with Tisala, Ward, and Oreg, the fandom's One True Threesome. Apparently Tisala thinks Guy on Guy Is Hot, and anyway, Oreg has such a tragic past, she can't steal Ward away from him, and heap more misery on him, can she? The Ho Yay in the original is there, the fandom takes it to the logical conclusion.
- Very common with the Avengers in fandom, mostly of the M-M-F variety. Among the more common pairings is Captain America/Iron Man/Pepper Potts, as well as Hawkeye/Black Widow/Phil Coulson. Less common variations include Bruce Banner and Tony Stark with either Potts or Cap.
- Coeur Al'Aran:
- Remnant's Blonde Bard: Terra initially mistakes the presence of Guitar Cutie as an offer for a threesome, Saphron is terribly annoyed because she's really there to play music. It's implied only Jaune's Charisma managed to stop the misunderstanding from spiraling into a possibly relationship-breaking argument.
- White Sheep: Since Salem really wants grandchildren, she tries to convince Cinder and Pyrrha to double-team her son Jaune. Except Cinder is basically Jaune's sister, and Pyrrha refuses to be a homewrecker because Jaune already has a girlfriend. Also, Jaune isn't there.
Pyrrha took a deep breath and steadied herself. She cast out the images of herself, Cinder and Jaune entangled in white sheets, and then cast them out again when it didn't work the first time.
- A Monster's Marriage: As both a reward for all the work she has done for her and also as a token of pity for her Unrequited Love for her husband, Cinder jokingly proposes to Emerald to have a threesome with her and Jaune, possibly as a birthday present. Emerald laughingly says who the reward would be for and who the birthday would be for, since she now has one thanks to Jaune. After some back and forth, Cinder points out that Emerald didn't reject the offer, to which the latter falls into an embarrassed silence.
- See the subversion of this trope in the Live-Action TV folder below? Well, there are fanfics where Athelstan isn't so celibate.
- The Eternal Quadrangle, an ER fanfic, takes four characters — Kerry, Abby, Luka, and Carter — and pairs them in various duos, threesomes, and caps it off with a foursome. It's the threesome scenario that comes up most often and gets the most elaborate, graphic detail.
- In The Future Briefing Island, Momo reveals that she has the two-girls-one-guy version of this as her kink/sexual fantasy. She eventually joins Izuku and Ochako in a three-way relationship, as she's attracted to both of them, and they correspond.
- Prussia, France, and Spain definitely think so in Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità, as they "keep surveillance" over the ship, i.e. watch Germany, Japan, and Italy get it on.
- In the Hero: The Guardian Smurf adaptation of "The Smurf Menace", Hero's Gray Smurf counterpart is married to both Gray Smurfette and Gray Wonder at the same time, who not only love Gray Hero but also themselves.
- In JLA Watchtower, Hal Jordan accidentally walked in on Arisia and Zinda Blake "fooling around." they told Hal to quit staring and join in. Hal, being Hal...
- Kataang Island Adventure has one with Aang, Katara, and Aratak. They break it off in the sequel, though.
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Tempest Rewrite: The final chapter (not counting the epilogues) details the wedding night of Mina, Emma and Orlando; for the fic in general, sex scenes with exactly two people are in the minority.
- New Tamaran:
- Supergirl's favorite way of satisfying her sex addiction is with Wonder Girl and whoever happens to be available.
- Bumblebee, Aqualad, and Speedy fully embrace being Friends with Benefits.
- On the villain side, Cheshire and Blackfire engage in threesomes with Scarecrow (who consents) and Red X (who doesn't, and the scene is meant to be terrifying).
- In the second chapter of the sequel Justice Returns, Raven awakens Robin/Nightwing, whose naked body is entangled with those of Starfire and Barbara Gordon.
- Scars (a Lost Girl fic):
- Brought up when Bo, who's been corrupted by the darkness inside her, makes a comment about having a threesome with Dyson and Kenzi, to a Red Ridding Hood theme. Far from being erotic, it comes off as unsettling, Kenzi is rattled by it and Dyson is confused by her suggestion.
- Taken a step further when Lauren and Kenzi try to stop her by seducing her in a doctor and nurse getup. Kenzi finds the idea gross, but recognizes it as their best chance. The fact that Bo previously raped Lauren makes the seduction all the more uncomfortable, and Lauren barely makes it through the ordeal. Though they stop her before they have sex, Kenzi and Lauren are deeply shaken by it, and feel "dirty" afterward.
- The Stalking Zuko Series: In the Hotter and Sexier version of The Boy in the Iceberg, Zuko is portrayed as constantly having threesomes with many random Earth Kingdom women and eventually Ty Lee and Mai.
- A Thing of Vikings:
- After they work things out, Hiccup, Astrid, and Wulfhild start all having sex together.
- More like a foursome is hot in the case of Sigurd, Sophia, Heidrun, and Gunnar.
Films — Live-Action
- Subverted in The Accountant 2. When Braxton first meets up with his brother Christian at a No-Tell Motel, he arranges with the desk clerk to have three prostitutes sent to his room. Rather than an orgy, the two brothers are investigating the Human Traffickers who brought the women into the country, and are just increasing the odds of finding one who will be willing to talk.
- In American Pie 2, Steve Stifler has a threesome with two hot women whom he mistakenly believed were lesbians.
- Batman Begins: Alfred advises Bruce Wayne to pose as a Millionaire Playboy so no one will realise he's Batman. Cut to Bruce pulling up in a low-slung sports car with two beautiful women sharing the passenger seat (later they start publicly bathing in the restaurant's ornamental pool). In The Dark Knight Bruce does it again when turning up for Harvey Dent's fundraiser; this time he arrives in his own helicopter with even more girls in tow.
- In the original version of The Beguiled, the wounded Union soldier who has taken refuge at a Virginia girls school ends up having this sort of fantasy about the two spinster headmistresses who have taken a liking to him.
- Parodied in Black Dynamite. To demonstrate Black Dynamite's sexual prowess, he is introduced having sex with three different women — one black, one white and one Asian — all at once. When they're done, he tells them not to wake a bunch of other women whom he had already satisfied.
- At the beginning of the 2009 film adaptation of Chéri, the title character is strongly implied to have had a threesome the previous night; two naked women are clearly visible in the bed he's getting out of.
- The Con is On: This was part of The Con Harry and Irina were running when they teamed up in Monte Carlo.They would lure the mark into their suite for a three-way. However, it didn't work perfectly because Irina was far more interested in Harry and ends up showing the mark out of bed.
- Desert Heat has your standard 2-girls-1-guy threesome. The two girls are, in fact, there solely to be rescued by Eddie, have sex with him, and then literally be Put on a Bus.
- In Enter the Dragon, the hostess of the island brings an assortment of girls around for each of the fighters to choose a companion for the night. Williams chooses four, and then apologizes to the rest for snubbing them because he's a little tired.
- In A Few Less Men, Lovable Sex Maniac Tom is thrilled by the opportunity of having his first threesome and resists when mightily when David and Graham show up to drag him away because Luke's body is being carried away the stoned ravers. However, he loses the fight and is sullen and resentful about it for some time afterwards.
- Played for Laughs in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle — the guys are initially hesitant to have sex with Freakshow's wife because it's a 2M/1F situation. While they debate whether or not to accept, Freakshow offers to make it a four-way, which causes them to flee in terror.
- Horrific: In Terror Vision, Rita is cheating on her neglectful husband by having threesomes with the two hot studs who live the apartment below.
- In Hot Tub Time Machine, Lou and Jacob meet a woman who claims she only does "two at a time." But Jacob refuses to participate, much to Lou's disappointment.
Lou: Every young man dreams of having a threesome!
Jacob: Not with another dude!
Lou: It's still a threesome! - The Italian Job (1969): Once Charlie is let out of prison, he finds an entire roomful of women waiting for him, and that's only meant to warm him up for his real girlfriend. Who gets annoyed when she later catches him with three more girls.
- Jupiter Ascending establishes Titus as a massive playboy when a scene shows him having a threesome in zero gravity.
- Kaboom!: Smith, London and Rex have a threesome as Smith's birthday gift.
- Knockin' on Heaven's Door: Rudi has this wish as part of The Last Dance. He's a bit embarrassed (as his friend Martin wants to spend his money on a gift for his mother), but Martin tells him it's nothing to be ashamed of, and they eventually stop at a Dutch brothel where he gets his wish.
- The Last Emperor: Emperor Puyi is starting to have a threesome with his wife and his first consort in a rather intimate scene - before being interrupted as he's informed the Forbidden Coty burns.
- Kim Cattrall, Dana Delany and Joshua Beckett in Live Nude Girls.
- Machete manages to get into one with the antagonist's wife and daughter. He is Machete, after all.
- In Machete Kills, the President of the United States gets a late night phone call from our hero. The phone is picked up by a sleepy yet hot female White House intern, who hands it to another female intern in the bed beside her, who hands it to another female intern, who hands the phone to the President.
- A Man with a Maid: After Madame Helena takes charge of Jack's sexual education, it culminates with him being in bed with four women.
- In Missing in Action, Jack Tucker is shown in bed with a couple of naked Thai hookers.
- Perfect Addiction: Sienna fantasizes about having sex with both Jax and Kayden in the shower while she's bathing.
- Revolver (1973): When Vito goes to visit his snitch Grappa, Grappa is in bed with two women.
- In Rio Conchos, Rodriguez takes two women upstairs with him at the cantina because he can't choose between them, although he later attempts to offer one of them to Lassiter.
- In A Score to Settle, Frankie surprises Jimmy the Dragon while he is in a brothel with a pair of prostitutes. Then a third girl who had been kneeling in front of him stands up.
- In The Scorpion King, a disturbance in camp gets Balthazar out of bed with a woman, only to reveal another had been out of view behind him. As Balthazar is played by Michael Clarke Duncan, there was plenty of him to hide the other girl behind.
- Subverted in The Sex Monster. Marty thinks the idea of having a threesome with another woman would be hot, and eventually gets his wife to agree. At first, he is thrilled. She then wants to have another threesome, with another woman (his assistant, in fact), except only a twosome. Then she basically starts having sex with most of the women in Los Angeles; he is not happy about this.
- An underplayed version is in Sinners and Saints. The Russian Big Bad is talking to The Dragon on a Bluetooth earpiece, as he steps into a lift with his bodyguard and two women. Later, he takes another call in his bathrobe, while the two women can be seen sleeping in his bed.
- After the mission that opens Star Trek Into Darkness, Captain Kirk is shown waking up in his apartment back on Earth with two Cat Girls. Go Jim!
- In Summer Lovers, although Michael, Cathy and Lina are never shown in bed together, it's implied that this happens.
- Tamara: Tamara lures Shawn and Patrick into a room alone with her by promising them a threesome. It turns out that she's got very different plans for the pair...
- Tekken (2010) depicts Kazuya having a threesome with the Williams sisters. It's arguably subverted however, as Kazuya spends the whole encounter ranting about his father.
- The 1994 movie Threesome was the sole depiction of the 2 guys/1 girl variant of this trope in a full-length film until 2001's Y tu mamá también.
- In The Transporter: Refueled, after spending a night with the main female character, the protagonist Frank Martin goes into another room to find his Retired Badass father sleeping with two other women. Rather than feel outclassed, Frank just smiles. It's implied that his father used to be a spy for British Intelligence.
- Averted in Two or Three Things I Know About Her. Juliette is hired for a threesome along with her fellow hooker, Marianne. They're both attractive, but for starters their client is a creep who insists they wear bags over their heads, and beyond that, everyone seems very bored.
- In Undercover Heat, police officer Cindy Hannen (Athena Massey) goes undercover in a high-class whorehouse to catch a murderer. She discovers the fake clients set up for her cannot be relied upon and when faced with real tricks decides to sew her "wild oats" and enjoy a sexual adventure as a real prostitute, including a threesome with an attractive married couple.
- Vigilante Diaries: When Red bursts into Andreas' bedroom to complain about Jade's baby, he has four women in his bed: two of whom are making out with each other.
- Featured prominently in the "champagne sex scene" in Wild Things between Kelly, Suzie and Sam Lombardo.
- A Deleted Scene in xXx shows the Big Bad the morning after the big party, on a bed with three sleeping women. The scene was done in case the film was given an R-rating (for violence) so the audience would feel they'd got their money's worth. The actual film has him only sleeping with one woman.
- Young Lady Chatterley II: Not long after losing his virginity, Virgil invites Eunice to his room. When she gets there, she is shocked to find that Jenny is already in his bed, and Virgil beckoning her to join them. After a moment's hesitation, she does so. By the end of the film, Virgil has all five maids in his bed at the same time.
- In Y tu mamá también, Luisa partakes in a threesome with her two young lovers Tenoch and Julio, with her in between the two guys.
Literature
- Almost Night: Ed and Bocaj are about to kill each other until Stella suggests that there's plenty of her to go around.
- The Chakona Space story Tales of the Foxtaur Clans #5: Obligation heavily deconstructs the two-lesbian version, with the lesbians treating Garrek solely as a sperm injector, expecting him to perform without any fluffing or foreplay and impatient that he is, shockingly, not ready to do so, when they aren't flat-out ignoring him to concentrate on each other; he has to threaten to leave to make them behave any better, and even when he does manage to perform, it is clearly bad sex.
- Inversions: King Quience enjoys the attentions of a couple of buxom beauties, despite the disapproval of his female Court Physician Vossil, who's in unrequited love with the king. Vossil's assistant, however, is just disappointed that he's not a king himself.
- Knowledge of Angels: Palinor gets both his male and female servants to have sex with him, plus each other as he watches them.
- In the third book in the Millennium Series, it's revealed that Erika and her husband have occasionally participated in threesomes with a male friend of theirs. Erika outright says that she can't decide which is sexier — to have two men pleasuring her simultaneously, or watching her husband with another man. Her greatest fantasy is to have on-again/off-again lover Blomkvist join her and her husband in the bedroom, and her greatest disappointment is that he is adamant that this will not happen, him having no bisexual inclination.
- My Dark and Fearsome Queen: Claire jokes about joining Erik and Catie for a threeway, but Catie shoots the idea down by saying Erik can barely satisfy her. She does, however, suggest that she'd be up for the other kind of threesome. Especially if the guys interact with each other.
- Subverted in the Newsflesh novella "How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea", in which a married trio is portrayed in a quite shockingly matter-of-fact manner.
- The Double Standard is subverted in the first Nightrunner book. When a prostitute friend of Seregil talks about a previous client while having sex with him, he tells her to invite the guy into bed with them. Her answer? "As if I'd share you!"
- Although The Occupation Saga is in the Harem Genre, the protagonist Jason Linford never quite manages the fantasy version of this trope, noting that his female harem are reluctant to share a bed sexually as heterosexual men on Earth are. When Jason does have a threesome with an Ambiguously Bi couple in the second novel, one of the women falls asleep immediately after climaxing, and he has to continue alone with her partner.
- Spellster: Tracker briefly has sex with Treasure, with them inviting Authril to join in. She accepts, and has much lengthier sex with Treasure after this.
Live-Action TV
- Batwoman (2019): At the start of Season 2, Tommy Elliot uses one of Alice's Latex Perfection masks to impersonate Bruce Wayne, whom he's always envied. Naturally, this includes becoming "the meat in a top model sandwich", as Alice puts it. Alice ends up killing one of the women (and, it's implied, the other as well) when she walks in on their meeting.
- Betty: Honeybear goes to bed with her girlfriend and a female bartender they like. She's unhappy when this leads to them having sex together when she's not there, as they hadn't agreed on polyamory.
- Bones: At the end of "The Body in the Bag", a guy at the bar tries to get Brennan and Hannah into one — they tell him to get lost.
- The Brady Bunch: Subverted in "Getting Greg's Goat" when Bobby and Peter humorously jump to this very conclusion — that their brother, Greg, was quite the ladies' man by having two girls as his overnight bed guests when, by going to the linen closet and listening through a vent, they hear two sets of footsteps and conclude two girls are in his room. Before their fertile imaginations begin any more speculation, Bobby and Peter begin getting clues that the footsteps belong not to two girls, but to... a goat!
- In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Crush", Harmony tells Spike when Drusilla comes back to him:
Harmony: I told you. No threesomes unless it's boy-boy-girl. Or Charlize Theron.
- Charmed (1998): Downplayed in the Season 5 finale "Oh My Goddess", which sees the Charmed Ones being given goddess powers. Phoebe as the Love Goddess is found in the living room surrounded by a cult of shirtless men attending to her. Unfortunately for her, Piper puts a stop to it before it can go much further.
- Control Z: Rosita invites Ernesto and Dario for one in Season 2, though the latter is unable to perform.
- An episode of Coupling focuses on two lead male characters trying to get into one of these threesomes ("It would be like a breast octopus!"), only to find out a woman is trying to get into the other kind with the two of them. The Seinfeldian Conversation of the week on threesomes pronounces that they never really happen, but a good girlfriend won't crush a man's hope that it might happen to him some day.
- CSI: NY: Played with in "Stealing Home" when the team discover that one of the Victims of the Week was a member of a committed threesome. To spice things up, a married couple asked another woman to join their relationship, and they got so far as to have a commitment ceremony. Later, the three got bored, so they added another guy, whom they called "the pinch-hitter"; he was just there to watch unless they "called him up to the plate". The original wife got jealous of the new woman getting all the attention, so she slept with the new guy, stole his gun, and shot her husband for laughing and telling her to get over it. During the investigation, Sid tells Sheldon that he'd been involved in a threesome, but that it got difficult dealing with drama from two women, so it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Sheldon politely excuses himself before Sid can go into too much detail.
- Deadly Class: Petra proposes that she, Billy and Lex all get into one when stuck in lockdown, as she's aware that they both find her attractive. The guys spend a long time discussing what position to use so they'll avoid anything conceivably homoerotic, though, and by the time it's ready, they're released, so Petra calls it off, saying that she's hungry (but really finds their feelings discomforting).
- Easy: "Utopia" follows Happily Married couple Tom and Lucy (Orlando Bloom and Malin Åkerman) discovering Tinder and deciding to have a threesome to spice up their sex life, eventually deciding on acquaintance of theirs, Annie (Kate Micucci), who teaches a singing class that Lucy attends with her baby daughter. Though their threesome isn't particularly titillating and portrayed rather realistically, and it ends up getting repeatedly interrupted by their baby crying upstairs, it's still depicted as being a mutually enjoyable experience between all three parties and doesn't strain any bonds between them.
- Entourage has E and Sloane having one with one her friends. E wakes up the next day spooning the wrong girl. Hilarity ensues.
- ER:
- Implied in "What Life?" when Doug arrives home with one of his on-again/off-again girlfriends, Linda, only to find another of his on-again/off-again girlfriends waiting for him. After they both dismiss his feeble attempts to make excuses, the scene ends with the three of them smiling at each other...
Linda: So, let me count, that makes three, am I right?
- Dr. Simon Brenner's first scene is of him waking in bed with two women.
- Implied in "What Life?" when Doug arrives home with one of his on-again/off-again girlfriends, Linda, only to find another of his on-again/off-again girlfriends waiting for him. After they both dismiss his feeble attempts to make excuses, the scene ends with the three of them smiling at each other...
- Faking It does this twice:
- When Karma feels like she's losing Liam because of her (fake) lesbian relationship with Amy, she suggests a threesome, figuring that Amy would drop out when it gets to the actual sex...but then Karma backs out after it seems Liam wants Amy more than her (which he was coached to do by a couple of bro jocks: "Always kiss the one you want less first!")
- Karma and Shane are competing for the same (bisexual) guy, who they take on a "thruple date" to prom under the guise of sticking it to the tyrant principal Turner. Shane then suggests the night end with a threesome. One episode ends with them all entering, then the next enters with Shane and Karma leaving. A "Rashomon"-Style set of flashbacks ensues before we know what really happened: the bisexual backed out, realizing that he was only doing it because he missed his ex.
- Fate: The Winx Saga depicts a rare two-boys-and-one-girl variant. Beatrix is in some kind of thruple with Dane and Riven, and Season 2 ends with a scene of both of them pleasuring her in bed. Beatrix then directs the two of them to kiss, obviously for her own pleasure.
- Occurs in the Flight of the Conchords series when Bret and Jemaine are hanging out with two hot girls, and one of the girls propositions each of them in turn for a threesome. They're initially excited, until it turns out that the girl meant to have a threesome not with her friend, but with Bret and Jemaine together. Also hilariously discussed:
Bret: You ever had a threesome?
Jemaine: Nearly.
Bret: What do you mean, nearly?
Jemaine: I had a twosome.
Bret: ...That's just the normal way! Yeah, I've done that. I've had a one-way and a two-way. This is my chance to have a three-way. - Friends:
- In "The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break", Chandler and Joey once thought they might end up having sex with the same woman. When Joey asked who would go where, Chandler suggested flipping a coin:
Joey: Yeah, I guess, but what's like heads and what's tails?
Chandler: Well, if you don't know that I'm not sure I want to do this with you! - Subverted in "The One That Could Have Been: Part Two". Ross makes several suggestions to his wife Carol to spice up their ailing sex life and she immediately jumps on the idea of a threesome. Unfortunately for Ross, Carol is a lesbian *, and Ross ends up getting sidelined pretty quickly. He confesses to Joey that he got bored and made himself a sandwich when it became clear they'd forgotten about him.
Ross: Did you ever go to a party and wonder, "Would anyone really miss me if I wasn't here?"
- In "The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break", Chandler and Joey once thought they might end up having sex with the same woman. When Joey asked who would go where, Chandler suggested flipping a coin:
- Game of Thrones:
- After his squire Podrick Payne saves his life at the Battle of Blackwater, Tyrion Lannister rewards him with four highly experienced courtesans at Littlefinger's brothel. However, it's not this scene that makes Pod a Sex God, but the fact that the prostitutes let him keep his money afterwards!
- Oberyn Martell and his paramour Ellaria Sand arrange a bisexual orgy at Littlefinger's brothel, though they keep being interrupted by affairs of state.
- Used for Fan Disservice with Theon Greyjoy. When two attractive female servants start coming on to him, he correctly assumes this is more psychological torture by his sadistic captor. He's right, as they get Theon aroused and then Ramsay castrates him.
- In "Winterfell", Bronn has organised three prostitutes to pleasure him, but they're more interested in complaining about the loss of their regular clients in the war than doing their job. Worse, he too is interrupted by affairs of state.
- Gen V: Emma certainly thinks so, speaking of desiring threesomes with people she's into to Marie and suggesting she does the same if at all possible.
- Gossip Girl (2021): Aki, Audrey and Max have threesomes together on more than one occasion. It's an unusual MMF bisexual version, before it evolves into a long-term trio.
- In one episode of Greg the Bunny, Greg and Jimmy compete for the same woman who's been reporting on the show. Eventually, Greg finds out that the reporter is a lesbian who's attracted to Allison and, as payback for something Jimmy did to Greg the last time the two were attracted to the same woman, tells Jimmy that she likes him. When Jimmy walks in on the reporter kissing Allison, he's amazed and thinks they're going to have a threesome.
- Herman's Head: Herman forces a reluctant Jay to attend a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting. His reluctance disappears after hearing a Hello, Attorney! describe her constant sexual fantasies, including this trope. "Were you the bread or the meat?" This becomes a Brick Joke at the end of the episode when we see Jay is in an elevator between the hot attorney and a Big Beautiful Woman (also a sex addict).
Jay: [nervously] So, I'm the meat.
- House of Cards (US) averts the male bisexuality avoidance of this trope: Frank, his wife Claire and Edward have a bisexualnote threesome. Frank is the Vice President of the United States, and Edward is their bodyguard.
- How I Met Your Mother: Ted meets up with an old one-night stand (which he was too drunk to remember the details of) and her old sorority friend. He gets close to "riding the tricycle", as Barney calls it. Barney claims to have "ridden the tricycle" but later admits that he chickened out at the last minute, as while it seems enticing on paper, the pressure on how to divide your attention during the act is intimidating. The same episode features Barney referring to the other type of threesome negatively by calling it "the devil's threeway". Ted is actually implied to have gone through with it with Trudy and her friend, but we never know for sure.
- Intimate: Max's girlfriend Isabella is very keen on spicing up their dull sex life and makes it clear that she would love a threesome, never mind the gender of the third party — she's both excited by the idea of her female roommate walking in on them in the bathroom and having sex with Max and his friend Oskar, or Oskar's twin brother Emil, or both. (A less than thrilled Max points out that would make it a foursome.)
- Killing Eve: Villanelle has an offscreen threesome with two random women whom she ran into (possibly a same-sex couple), and treats it with her usual casual manner after they leave when Eve's there. Also, in Season 1 she had a threesome with a couple when it was established that Villanelle Really Gets Around.
- Letterkenny: Defied. During a hot tub party, Darryl, Squirrely Dan and Katie all compete for a chance with local smokeshow Bonnie. When they finally ask her to choose between them, she cheerfully admits she couldn't sleep with one of them because they all have good qualities... Therefore she'd rather have sex with all three of them. After a moment's consideration the hicks burst out laughing and decline, knowing Wayne would kick their asses for it.
- One Leverage episode has Parker stumbling in on the mark's daughter making out in a food pantry — and being invited to join in. Given later reveals in the episode, she may have invited Parker more to squick her out and get her to leave, giving her the privacy to kill the power as part of her plan to murder her father.
- Bo, who is openly bi, has one with a married Fae couple in Lost Girl. The wife later reveals that they have threesomes fairly often, as it keeps their century-old marriage interesting.
- Lucifer (2016):
- Lucifer is shown in bed with both an attractive woman and a man. It's called the Devil's Threesome for a reason, as he points out.
- Maze arranges a foursome at one point, but her boss has to rush off and suggests that she indulge herself instead.
- In "Deceptive Little Parasite", three women dressed up like Detective Chloe Decker come on to Lucifer, wielding Kinky Cuffs. Lucifer has to refuse this "triple-Decker".
- The L Word: In "Generation Q", Alice and her girlfriend Nat have a threeway with Nat's ex-wife Gigi, as they still have an attraction for each other.
- The Magicians (2016): Margo and Eliot both reference multiple instances where they have engaged in threesomes, moresomes and orgies together and separately. They also have a threesome with Quentin.
Margo: You're welcome — both of you.
- Motherland: Fort Salem:
- During the festival of Beltane the witches participate in a dance ritual (the Reel) which matches them up with someone or someones compatible for an evening of pleasure (whatever that means to you). While it's not always sexual, it typically is. Several threesome and moresome groups walk off together at the end, most notably Abigail and her two male witch suitors. It starts off as an MFM threesome, but at Abigail's request, the guys engage in a heavy make-out session and she has to divert the attention back to her, making it an MMF example.
- When Tally and Gerit are caught in bed together by his wife Hilary, the latter two suggest this, but Tally is not interested, though this might have more to do with how it was suggested to her rather than the idea itself (to start, they just sprung this on her, and had staged the "Hilary walks in" scenario). Overall, it seems like there's no taboo about threesomes in witch culture.
- The Nevers: Pansexual Hugo is introduced while in bed with a man and woman.
- Nip/Tuck features several, including one for Matt with his cheerleader ex-girlfriend and her girlfriend, Christian with a mother-daughter combination, and Sean and Christian with a hooker where they mostly take turns with her.
- In the Parks and Recreation episode "Born & Raised", Ben and Tom take the local talk show host Joan Callamezzo out to lunch in order to persuade her to feature Leslie's book in her book club. While there, she gets drunk and eventually tells them what she'd like to do to both of them at the same time. Most of it is bleeped out, but what we do hear involves bending over.
- Peep Show: Jez tells his girlfriend that a threesome with two women is his ultimate fantasy, and she surprisingly agrees to do it — confusing him because he had been trying to break up with her. He gets hyped up for it hoping the other woman will be Big Suze, but instead it's a dour High-Powered Career Woman with a foot injury who seemingly wants nothing to do with him. The whole thing ends up being a big chore for everyone including Jez, not a fantasy fulfillment.
- Red Dwarf: In "Can of Worms", Cat has an Erotic Dream about being in bed with a pair of beautiful lady cats.
- Robin of Sherwood has an odd tendency to associate its villains with MFF threesomes. Baron de Belleme has two girlfriends who resurrect him after his death; King John, while still a Prince, is seen retiring to his chamber with two women; and in his final appearance Gulnar is accompanied by two witchy and scantily-dressed barbarian babes who are described in the credits as his "maidens", but really don't look or behave like it. On the good side, however, Nazir is rather suggestively welcomed by two women when the outlaws arrive at the Blessing festival in "Lord of the Trees". Maybe he's allowed to do it as a good guy because Muslims accept polygamy?
- Roman Empire: Emperor Tiberius removes himself from public life to the island of Capri, where he engages in decadent pleasures. Naturally, this involves him watching three beautiful prostitutes have sex with each other, and at one point he invites a young Caligula in and insists that he join them so he can "learn what it is to be an emperor". When Caligula falls into debauchery, he has the inevitable Bed Full of Women.
- Roswell, New Mexico has a rare MMF example when Alex, Michael and Maria have Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex after going through a near-death experience.
- Schitt's Creek:
- Bisexual Jake, who is dating both Stevie and David, suggests that the three of them become a "throuple" in order to lessen the tension between them, which makes Stevie and David uncomfortable for fear of ruining their friendship. In the online video extra "The Threeway" Stevie claims to have been open to the idea of the "throuple" but not necessarily the threeway, while a skeptical David expresses offense at the term "Devil's Threeway" and strongly implies he has had a unisex threeway in the past.
- Jake later casually suggests a foursome between himself, Stevie, David, and Patrick, which David quickly rejects.
- Alexis, when discussing the idea of "throuples" with David, advises him against it based on her own past experiences with one of the partners always getting jealous.
- David tells Patrick he came out to his parents by bringing a male-female couple home with him from college and telling them to deal with it.
- Bisexual Jake, who is dating both Stevie and David, suggests that the three of them become a "throuple" in order to lessen the tension between them, which makes Stevie and David uncomfortable for fear of ruining their friendship. In the online video extra "The Threeway
- Scrubs:
- The Todd admits to having had one of these, and it's strongly implied that it was the male-male-female version.note
- Dr Molly Clock says she had one in college. JD excitedly asks if it was two girls and a guy or a "Devil's Threesome". It was all-girl.
- In an Imagine Spot where JD fantasises about married life with Elliott, it progresses to them having a threesome with an attractive brunette.
- In the Miniseries The Search for the Hillside Stranglers (Based on a True Story of a pair of serial killers operating in late-1970s Los Angeles), the younger one is seen waking up in bed with two women at one point. Though the encounter was consensual, this is clearly meant to demonstrate how depraved he is.
- The scenario comes up several times in Sex and the City:
- Samantha almost has sex with two gay friends of hers who want to experience sex with a woman, but they can't go through with it — they're simply not attracted to her due to their Incompatible Orientation.
- Miranda isn't really interested in doing this, but answers the ad of a couple seeking a third partner to see how they'll react upon meeting her (she's been feeling undesirable). Once she's satisfied that they find her attractive, she makes up an excuse and leaves.
- Samantha's boyfriend Richard asks her to do threesome for his birthday. She isn't happy about it, but goes along anyway so as to please him, only for him to be disappointed in the whole experience—the other girl isn't a bad lover, but having fallen in love with Samantha, Richard has zero interest in her. They end up literally kicking the poor girl out of bed.
- Played straight when Steve goes to confront Miranda's ex Robert over smashing his TV. When Robert opens the door, we see two gorgeous women in the background, making it quite clear that he's moved on.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World: In "Amazons", Malone catches the attention of two lovely Amazons. After he, Roxton, and Challenger are captured by the society, they have their way with him. Veronica interrupted before it gets too far.
- In Spartacus: Blood and Sand, there's all kinds of sex to be seen from all kinds of characters, including three-and-more-somes of any kind. However, while the male protagonists (okay, only Gannicus) may engage in the 2 girl-version, on the female side only sex slaves and prostitutes are shown having intercourse with multiple men.
- Supernatural: Bobby takes the brothers to see hot-looking psychic Pamela, who clearly likes the look of Dean. He's smirking over his sure score when she chimes in that Sam is "invited" too.
Dean: You are not invited!
- In Third Watch, a woman tries to defer her co-worker's advances by telling him that she likes threesomes — with two guys. He calls her bluff upon realizing that she's deliberately trying to freak him out.
- Twenties: Marie and Chuck, her fiancé, are both turned on by threesomes, watching a porn video of two men with a woman as their foreplay.
- Vida: Emma meets up with lesbian couple Sam and Alex in a club (after she'd previously hooked up before with Sam) and they have sex (offscreen).
- Vikings:
- Subverted when Ragnar and Lagertha (Viking husband and wife) invite their new slave Athelstan into their bed. Being a monk, he declines, and they don't force him (though they could, considering the Viking ways).
- Floki, Helga and Torstein have a threesome in 1x05. Floki and Helga are a couple, and Torstein shares a mutual physical interest with Helga. Floki invites Torstein to lie with them.
- It's mentioned that Jarl Borg used to share women with his brother.
- Played straight at one point, when it is revealed that Ragnar somehow managed to talk his ex-wife Lagertha into one with his current wife Aslaug. Mind you, Lagertha despises Aslaug, so naturally Ragnar is damned proud of himself.
- The White Lotus: Dominic makes a valiant effort at resisting Lucia's advances since he wants to get a handle on his sex addiction. When she dangles the possibility of a threesome with Mia in front of him, he folds right away.
- The Wilds: Fatin admits during a "Never Have I Ever" game that she's had sex with two guys together.
Music & Music Videos
- The Lonely Island's song "The Golden Rule" is about a 2 guy (Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake), 1 girl (Lady Gaga) version of this. The song implies the boys enjoy each other's company as much or more so than Miss Gaga's, as they don't notice when she leaves the room, and the boys spend most of the song trying to convince themselves that it technically wasn't gay. The eponymous 'golden rule' is "It's not gay when it's in a three-way."
- Beginning at the 1:52 mark in the video for "Hangin In", Tanya Tucker is going to have a G-rated foursome with three guys.
- The Jan and Dean song "Surf City" is about 2 girls, 1 guy threesomes; the Go-Go's cover version is about 2 guys, 1 girl threesomes.
Professional Wrestling
- This was the idea behind the Basham Brothers Tag Team, in their own mind. Other wrestlers disagreed since Dough and Danny were totally submissive to Shaniqua.
- This was also the idea behind the Twins Attraction gimmick of Quebec's DM Strokes and LJ Strokes.
Video Games
- In Choice of Robots, if you make a robot with a high Empathy stat, you can eventually build a "companion robot" who might fall for you. If you invite him/her along with your partner (if you have one) to go stargazing, the companion bot will suggest a threesome in order to experience physical pleasure without breaking up the Player Character's marriage. If your choices have been right up to this point, your partner will agree. However, things get awkward after the act, when the companion bot suddenly declares his/her love for you. You can either reply in kind (which will alienate your partner) or reject him/her in one of two ways (which will alienate the companion bot and get him/her to leave for good shortly after).
- Dragon Age:
- Dragon Age: Origins:
- Alistair excuses his acceptance of a threesome with the player character he's romancing (female only) and Isabela with "What can I say? I'm a weak, weak man." If Zevran is offered to join in too he will decline, probably due to this trope and/or to not Squick out the heterosexual Alistair.
- In the same scenario, Leliana will insist on coming along with the player character (male or female) and Isabela in order to "keep an eye on things..." Hearing her decision will make Oghren faint. Zevran will not decline in this version as everyone in this scenario is bisexual.
- Dragon Age II:
- Hawke can imply this during conversation with Anders (if pursuing a relationship with him): the third party in this instance is Justice. It's even lampshaded later, by Isabela.
- Hawke can also have a threesome with Isabela and Zevran, if he/she is involved with the former and the latter survived the Origins playthrough.
- Dragon Age: Origins:
- In Jade Empire, it's possible for a male character to have a threesome with Dawn Star and Silk Fox. There's a bit of incest in that, since they're revealed to be cousins.
- Mass Effect:
- In Mass Effect 1, Shepard can suggest this as a way to solve their Love Triangle with Liara and Ashley/Kaidan. The latter doesn't go for it.
- In Mass Effect 3, the Citadel DLC plays this straight. One of the party scenarios can have Female Shepard overhear a totally hammered Tali tittering about the possibility of a threesome with Fem Shep and Garrus, if you're romancing him. To the surprise of exactly no one, Tali suggests nothing of the sort when playing a Male Shepard who is romancing her, and never even mentions Garrus. If one wants to be charitable, a possible explanation for this is that she suggests the threesome because she's not interested in Female Shepard, but rather wants to get into bed with Garrus (and this is the closest she can get since Female Shepard is with him). When she's in a relationship with Male Shepard though, she's not really interested in Garrus because she already has a boyfriend and a very strong relationship with him for 2 games now. Another explanation is that it could be a nod to the original idea that Tali could be romanced by a male or female Shepard, but the option was cut from the game due to (according to rumour) Tali's voice actor being uncomfortable doing scenes of romancing another woman.
- In Overlord II, the titular Overlord can solve his three mistresses' constantly bickering for his attention with a Hell-shaking foursome.
Visual Novels
- The "Fate" route of Fate/stay night includes a threesome between Shirou, Rin, and Saber for somewhat contrived reasons. Complete with Rin realizing she likes girls.
- The protagonist of Melody (2019) can have sex with Melody and Sophia together if, while he’s dating both of them, he sees the two of them fooling around and tells them so. Additionally, if he’s previously been involved with Xianne, she can also join in for one scene.
Web Animation
- Strong Bad Email: In "sisters", Strong Bad gets an email from "Ali" telling him that she and her sister think he's cool, and asking "Do you have a girlfriend? There is two of us." Strong Bad is intrigued ("Oh, there's two of them!"), but unfortunately the Tandy malfunctions and accidentally deletes the email before anything comes of it.
Webcomics
- In El Goonish Shive, Dan likes to tease the threesome of Grace, Sarah and Tedd through Threesome Subtext in canon strips and all but explicitly confirm them being a threesome in sketchbook strips. This has resulted in sketchbook strips ranging from this to this.
- Grrl Power has alien Cora proposition both Math and Hiro. The next morning indicates that they accepted.
- In Love Me To Death, both Mercedes and Enrique gradually develop feelings for Victor because of his kindness and patience. But given that Mercedes and Enrique were already married to each other and the imbalance in their relationships with Victor, both of them are reluctant to admit it. When they learn that Victor needs a tresalma, a romantic trio between a necromancer and their lovers, to survive the spell he used to resurrect Mercedes, she and Enrique agree without hesitation.
- Threesomes occur occasionally in Ménage à 3 (funnily enough); they sometimes go badly, but many are treated as successful and hot, and may be regarded as Fanservice. The double standard is largely avoided; most possible permutations can and do happen. (The men involved in the M-M-F groupings are sometimes twitchy about doing anything sexual with another man involved, but may get over it.) Some fairly unambiguously "hot" occasions are listed here; see the notes on the comic's own page and under Three-Way Sex for a more complete list of occurrences.
- A flashback shows Zii's foursome with (male) triplets, which was certainly enthusiastic on her part.
- Zii gets a threesome with Sonya and Jake. The night ends badly, but no one is objecting at the start — and Jake subsequently develops an excessive taste for (mostly off-screen) group sex.
- Matt manages to bag two cast members (one male, one female) from Dillon's play, simultaneously.
- Zii is pleased to get Erik and Adrien into bed simultaneously, the first night that they all meet.
- The trope is played with when Amber offers Gary a threesome, and he fantasises about her and Chanelle. Unfortunately, she means with her and Dillon, which isn't to Gary's tastes.note
- Matt arranges a foursome with Gary, Kiley, and Peggy, but then Kiley discovers his dubious motives, dumps him, and storms out. The scene reduces to a threesome, which Matt for one refers to as hot. However, he's later shown sobbing over the loss of Kiley, suggesting that he was using the sex to block thoughts of his loss.
- Motherlover: Jonathan seems to think so — drunk after a date night with Imogen, he asks Alex if she swings, embarrassing Imogen.
- Rascals has Quick engaging with Amanda and his girlfriend Chrissy after an Unresolved Sexual Tension between the former and Quick due to the both of them being trapped in a pool house thanks to a convenient Big Storm Episode, even more conveniently weather reported beforehand and teased by radio hosts, whom went as far as playing Atlantic Starr's "Secret Lovers" song to "set up the mood".
Western Animation
- Bob's Burgers: Played with in "Two for Tina", in which Tina finds herself in a Love Triangle with Josh, a kid from a fancy art school, and her usual crush Jimmy Jr. Near the end of the episode, Tina suggests that she and the boys "put the 'try' in 'triangle'", but it just makes things weird, and both boys leave.
