A Gay Woman’s Perspective on Threesome Requests

Threesome requests. I was 20, sipping a margarita while watching the moonlit water of Lake Tahoe gently lap against the shore through the bar window, the first time I experienced it firsthand.

That weekend, a girl friend and I were visiting another one of my friends at his cabin in Kings Beach—a funky, picturesque beach town on the north end of the lake.

Earlier in the day, we’d sprawled out like beached seals in the glinting, golden sand while the sun baked our bodies before a view that was unreal. Snowy mountain caps poked toward the sky in the distance, contrasting with paradisiacally blue water next to endless clusters of verdant trees.

Later that night, my guy friend took a group of us to the lakeside bar a few blocks down from his cabin, where we were now enjoying the surprisingly boisterous night life that this unassuming town had to offer.

Outside, scattered stars reflected in the dark lake. Inside, young bodies sipped cocktails, downed tequila shots, and danced. I was standing in line for the bathroom when the blonde girl in our small group—dressed in black jean shorts and an off-the-shoulder, teal top—approached me with her rum and coke in hand.

Her face was only about two inches from mine as she held it out to offer me a sip. “Do you think I’m hot?” she asked.

It might seem like the question came from left field, but I wasn’t altogether taken aback. The night before, I’d gone to a casino in Reno with her and Baird (my friend’s roommate and the guy Taylor, the blonde girl who offered me a sip of her rum and coke, was casually seeing). After ordering drinks and seating ourselves in a spacious, purple booth, Baird left to use the bathroom, leaving just Taylor and me. Slot machines blinked and beeped next to us as I sipped from the thin, red straw of my watered-down mojito.

It was at this moment that Taylor leaned slightly closer and, moving her hair from one side of her face to the other, asked me when I knew I liked girls. Something about both the question’s timing and her expression when she asked it gave me the feeling that it was more than friendly conversation.

While I would’ve loved for the story to have played out as: visit your friend in Tahoe for the weekend, then meet a cute girl and dance and kiss and have fun while pine-tinged air wafts through the opened door and stars speckle the sky above looming shadowy trees—this one takes on a different plot-line.

With her long, free-flowing blonde hair, Taylor moved with a springy and earthy elegance, exuding a laidback, Tahoe-meets-California-beach-girl vibe. The answer was yes; I did find her attractive.

Yet, so did the guy she had her arm around as she asked me that question—my friend’s roommate Baird, whose red shirt smelled like rum and coke and boy when she pushed me into it after kissing me, and whose swooping brown hair spilled across his forehead when I looked up at him, stopping just above his eyebrows like a wave pausing right as it’s about to envelope scraggly driftwood into a blanket of foam.

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Over the years, the thrill and excitement of experiences like these dropped precipitously. The threesome requests—which particularly abound on queer women’s dating apps—quickly went from feeling flattering and adventurous to unwanted and intrusive. The more I began wanting a committed relationship with a woman, the more I tired of being, as Chelsea Hawkins in her article on Mic referred to it, “fetishized and viewed as a novelty for people wishing to experiment.”

Weariness overcame me when I’d match with a cute girl, only to click on her profile and see something like: “Hiiiii everyone! I’m looking for a rad bisexual girl to come get spoiled by me and my king;” or, “We’re a fun, hot couple that would love to find a sexy girl that is down to have THE BEST time (seriously—we’re the shit). Only the best vibes need apply.”

Some were admittedly more earnest in their threesome requests: “Hey 🙂 So I actually have a boyfriend, but we have been thinking about a threesome; would you be up for it any time soon? 😉 It’s OK if you’re not, it’s totally fine, I was just wondering. 🙂 ”

It wasn’t so much the 15 seconds it took to un-match the package deal that bothered me. Rather, it was the reminder of the sexist culture—one that now and historically, frames men as worthy of commitment and women as more easily discardable sex objects—that these threesome requests seem to stem from that did.

Sexism has contributed to the invalidation of the lesbian identity for as long as homosexuality has existed. Like other minorities (particularly women of color), we queer women have often been viewed as fetishes and porn objects more than as complex humans with our own agency. This is only now beginning to change.

Carmen Maria Machado touches upon early instances of this invalidation in her book In The Dream House: “In 1811, when faced with two Scottish school mistresses who were accused of being lovers, a judge named Lord Meadowbank insisted their genitals ‘were not so formed as to penetrate each other, and without penetration, the venereal orgasm could not possibly follow.'”

Eleanor Roosevelt’s lover Lorena Hickock serves as another early historical example wherein a woman was given a “side relationship” to a man’s center stage. The two had their affair in a “hiding home” that Eleanor rented from a lesbian friend in Greenwich Village, and when apart exchanged passionate letters (often 10 to 20 pages long) while Eleanor played the public role of wife to FDR. Because she split her time so, Lorena had to accept that she would always play second fiddle.

“Though she had come to accept that she could never mean to Eleanor what Eleanor meant to her, the yearning in her soul was still too powerful to allow her to break away. At the time, people only viewed it as a close friendship; perhaps even FDR himself,” wrote Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of No Ordinary Time.

Every threesome request I opened brought reminders of that history. Reminders that many women are down to hook up with another girl without any intention of committing to her. Reminders of the not uncommon ongoing public perception of female same-sex encounters as fun, passing flings in between a woman’s more serious and substantial relationships with a man.

I felt saddled with the message, each time I matched with a couple, that the man is the main course, while the woman is the appetizer or the extra salt—a nice after-thought, but not essential in any way. And as someone who wasn’t on dating sites for compliments or ego boosts, but to find a genuine, committed relationship with another woman, to repeatedly witness the perpetuation of this toxic narrative became increasingly frustrating.

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I would like to give the benefit of the doubt, because I truly don’t think that couples’ intent is to harm. That said, there are ways to look for a third more considerately, and without imposing one’s self on lesbians’ spaces.

For one, couples could include both their names and a picture of the two of them. On many of the profiles I’ve encountered, the main photo was often of the girl by herself, underneath her name on its own. It wasn’t until after matching with “her” that their couple status would reveal itself (“SURPRISE! Two for one!)

(In my more pessimistic moments, I could almost sense the man in the background, throwing her out into the world of Tinder like she was bait on a pole, then operating her lines from behind the scenes like a ventriloquist as they attempted to reel in a ripe piece of femme bait.)

Matching with “Cece” only to find that you’ve actually swiped right on “Cece and her man David” is not only frustrating, but also misleading. Pairs should be immediately upfront about the fact that they are one (for example, I once came across a profile where the name simply said “Couple”). I respected that they made this known right off the bat.

Considering other mediums aside from dating apps—for example, swingers’ parties or polyamory bars—is another option. Lastly, couples could read the profiles of the individual girls they match with, and if a woman hasn’t explicitly stated that she’s looking for a hook-up or a polyamorous fling, clarify their couple status in the first message.

Here’s an example of a message that a couple once sent to me that I really appreciated: “Hey E, just wanted to make sure you knew we were a couple—if you’re cool with that, great! We’d love to get to know you. If that’s not your thing, we understand.” Just basic, respectful, direct communication.

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I want to be clear that I’m not against the existence of couples seeking threesomes; equating my frustration with prejudice against polyamory feels to me like referring to women who object to mens’ unsolicited sexual requests or dick pics as discriminatory against heterosexuality.

What I do take issue with though, is couples’ continual appearance in lesbians’ space, or the space of anyone who has not clearly specified in their settings that we are looking for this type of relationship. It strikes me as similar to straight men going to lesbian bars to look for dates. It’s not that they shouldn’t pursue women; it’s that their encroachment into our spaces to do so comes with repercussions.

I’m of the opinion that everyone has a right to try and get their needs met, provided they are not hurting others. So couples, do your thing—but please be conscientious and respectful about it at the same time. Above all, try to be mindful in refraining from behaving in ways that contribute to the continued objectification of queer women.