A Definitive History of Threesomes Throughout the Ages

How do you know until you've tried it? Threesomes might not be anywhere near as irregular as we've been led to believe. In fact, they've existed in art for many

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"How do you know until you’ve tried it?” is a popular refrain from many people hoping to convince a partner to try a threesome. For various reasons, many who crave two-on-one action expect to hear "hell no" from most people. 

Whether or not the act is taboo, labeling it as such can make it feel subversive, and thus naughty and ultra-sexy. In addition, threesomes might not be anywhere near as irregular as we've been led to believe. In fact, they've existed in art for many centuries.

Threesome shown in a Chinese scroll, 1800s

From carvings of ancient orgies, to renaissance paintings, to “two brunettes share a big dick,” here’s a look at threesomes throughout the ages:

Do it like they do on the History Channel

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If you thought threesomes were anything even remotely new, well, you thought wrong.

The holy book of human sexuality, the Kamasutra, which dates back to as early as 400 B.C., contained descriptions and visuals for threeway sexy times, including double penetration.  

Depictions of threesomes in ancient art were never in short supply. Baths in suburbs of the ancient city of Pompeii were also adorned with sexually explicit scenes, including at least one of a bisexual threesome, where two men stacked themselves behind a woman who was also being penetrated.  

The god Dionysus

Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fertility, theater, and religious ecstasy, had many orgies in his legendary days of ancient Greece. Nowadays, there's even a threeway sex position called “the wine of Dionysus.” Unless you work in the porn industry, we wouldn’t recommend Googling this act in the office, but suffice it to say that the position is a short-stack of three penises engaged in oral play.

Threesomes were also on display during the high middle ages. The Konark Sun Temple in India features a rather in-your-face carving of group sex, which looks more like a feat of acrobatics than an impending orgasm. The temple was built in the 13th century.

Carving from the Konark Temple

A renaissance of romance

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When the prudish asceticism of the middle ages were over, the folks of the renaissance and romantic eras of Europe wasted little time getting down to business painting images of threeway loving. One could go so far as saying that painters of this period were a bit obsessed with threeways.

Johann Heinrich Fussli, 1770s

Botticelli’s famous painting Primavera hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Itali, where one can observe close up the “Three Graces” featured in the painting. Three Tuscan women are shown in a circle, holding hands and gazing at one another. This triad was iterated many times during this period, perhaps most lustfully in a statue by Antonio Conova.

Titian’s painting "Diana and Callisto" shows the moment when the goddess Diana discovered that Jupiter impregnated her favorite handmaiden Callisto by disguising himself as Diana. There are way too many naked people in the painting to believe that at least three people didn't do it the moment after the painting was finished.

Later, during the Romantic period, one of the more famous threesomes in European history went down. One really can’t have a proper discussion about the history of threesomes without referencing Giacomo Casanova. Before he was a spy, young Giacomo's virginity was thrown to the wind at the ripe age of 17 in a threesome with two sisters. (There's a reason "casanova" basically means "ladies' man" today.) Casanova's womanizing ways have been iterated in literature, film, and on the stage countless times.

Portrait of Casanova, painted by his brother

Around the same time Casanova got jiggy with two sisters, French painter Théodore Géricault was creating one of his masterpieces, "Three Lovers." But during this period, paintings showing three or more people engaged in sex weren’t always depicting consensual sex: Orgiastic or threesome-seeming rape was also a popular painting subject. Peter Paul Rubens’ "The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus" is one example of this tragic matter.

Give me some Shunga

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The Shunga art movement in Japan is certainly one of the finest examples of an artistic affinity for threesomes.

Shunga is a style of Japanese art that's explicit in its eroticism and doesn’t shy away from kinky stuff (that famous painting of an octopus going down on a woman? That’s Shunga). The art movement was huge in the 18th and 19th centuries (the octopus painting had a major influence on Picasso), and many famous pieces from several artists featured threesomes, and in some cases sex between more than three people.

Shunga art

One of the more notable Shunga threesome pieces is by Suzuki Harunobu, who incidentally has a threesome piece on sale at worldwide art business Christie’s in case you were interested. For just under 2,000 pounds, you can purchase a piece featuring a man and woman having sex while another, partially-clothed woman creeps in with a box (of sex toys? Let your imagination decide).

Ménage à yes or ménage à nah?

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Most recently, threesomes have typically been presented as something that straight college dudes are eager to try, or a half-baked idea to "spice things up" a little.

While there's probably some credibility to the young, male horndog dying to share his goods with two women at once, the overall interest in threesome is pretty ubiquitous. This January, popular porn site Pornhub released statistics on what porn-viewers around the world were into last year. “Threesome” was the No. 2 search term for women in the U.S., and the No. 13 search term for all Pornhub users worldwide. Insofar as porn can be art, threesomes are one of the most popular subjects today.

Threesome on the CW show Gossip Girl

The taboo factor of threesomes has also worn off a bit with popularity. 

The Gossip Girl character Dan and his more-than-a-friend Vannessay got it on with Dan’s girlfriend (played by actress Hilary Duff) in 2009. And if Lizzie McGuire is doing it, it can’t be all that freaky.

The threesome, in all its lustful and (for some) unattainable glory, is perhaps ever-present on frisky minds because of its prevalence throughout time. The image of the threesome over the course of many centuries calls into question why they were ever considered so taboo in the first place. Are we prudes, or actually just sick of seeing three naked butts? Only Pornhub may know for certain..

This post originally appeared on NTRSCTN.com

 

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