Has Something Flipped The Threesome Script For Indian Men?

It's seven in the evening. He walks in looking completely dishevelled. Hair a mess, shirt wrinkled, stride not confident. I know he’s nervous. He knows I have sensed it. The look of a man who hasn’t kissed another man. Not yet. She wants him to. Kiss another man and do so much more. Have sex with him. He’s not gay. Neither is she.

“Probably that’s why she won’t do it with a woman,” he says.

Probably why he would?

“I’m not sure, that’s why I’m asking you for advice”.

If I had a penny for every time a man asked me if he should sleep with another man for the sake of his wife…

Threesomes are tricky. They’ve always been, but never more than now. A man with two women is just a fantasy. In the Indian context, it almost feels like no woman’s keen on doing it for the sake of a man. There’s no three-way, if he isn’t going to go her way.

Even the movies have flipped the script. Unless she wants it for herself. “I saw Challengers—I know what you’re talking about,” he says with a hint of something. Not disdain; surrender, maybe. His wife is asking him to flip the script. Their anniversary has to be ‘special’.

Seven-year itch?

“Probably,” he shrugs.

He doesn’t get it. He can’t even get why his wife would ask him to “turn gay”.

He’s considering it though. “You’re considering ‘turning gay?’” I prod. 

“For one night. It’s not gay to have a threesome with your wife and another man as an anniversary gift for her. It’s what she wants, and I love her.” 

Is it not gay? I don’t make the rules. 

“I wanted a threesome—I asked for it. I can’t back out now!” 

As long as it’s consensual. Which it is, I suppose. He’s nervous though, not convinced. But he’ll do it. Men end up doing a lot of things to get laid. Even hook up with another man despite being heterosexual. Did I tell you I loved Challengers? 

A few days go by. I meet him again. He looks relaxed. The three-way went the right way. They plan on making it a regular occurrence. Two men and one woman always? “Not always. But yeah, quite a bit.” He is smiling. Words can never say it well enough. It’s not gay to make love to a woman along with another man—is how he sums it up. I don’t prod further. Nishant wasn’t the first man to say it. 

The first time I heard it from a straight man was back in 2021. We’d just come out of that brutal second wave of the pandemic. Life would never be the same. So why should threesomes? Sahir had been quite a player about town, before love found him and took him down the aisle. He wanted to experiment, and the wife had consented. 

“There’s one condition,” he told me on the phone. He sounded sheepish, I told him. 

“I can’t believe I’m saying it, but she wants the third wheel to be a man.” 

There was silence on both ends. Sahir waited for a reaction; I didn’t know how to respond. 

Would he be expected to do things… to the other guy? It was an obvious question, but I asked it nevertheless. 

He took a moment. That silence again. I could hear the seconds passing. 

“I’ll see how it goes,” he spoke, completely matter of fact. I’ll admit I was taken aback. A heterosexual Indian male being somewhat cool about going with the flow wasn’t something I was prepared for. It’s something that still catches me by surprise. 

“They’re changing,” she told me over coffee. My go-to for every kind of female take. I first met Rukmini when I had just started my career in journalism. She’s older than me by a couple of decades, so I have always counted on her years of experience to know better. 

“Men my age are rigid,” she said. “Their lists of what they won’t do is exactly what puts us women off.” 

I asked if she’d done it with two men at the same time—or knew of someone who had. She promptly gave me her friend’s number. “It’s totally Mudra’s thing.” 

Through Mudra, I came to know about her many encounters with men, all of whom identify as straight, and each one more than happy to go along with another straight man for the sake of a threesome. Some wouldn’t even touch the other man during the act, she told me, while some others were cool with kissing and fondling each other. I’ve always felt women could get a man to do pretty much anything in bed. They’re not risking refusal for sex at any cost. But to hear her talk about it made it all the more real. Patriarchy is clearly out of fashion, at least in the bedroom. 

I’m always reading about the changing face of gender and sexuality. Somewhere between changing generations, women found themselves, and their voice. Social media helped as well. Did men find what they were looking for? Maybe they’re just going along with their women. They can’t afford to upset them.

At the time of writing this piece, I spoke to Nishant again. I wanted to know if he agreed.

“I don’t think I always wanted it—I still don’t think I want it.”

Want is too strong a word. What about a random craving or a happy discovery? 

“Let’s just say I tried it, and I didn’t mind it.” 

A married couple has asked me to join them for a threesome. They’re my friends of many, many years. I didn’t know they were into it. You can’t ever know your friends that well, can you? They’re keen. I’m thinking about it.