'Tinder for threesomes': does new hook-up app 3nder spell the end for monogamy?

As 17,000 people join threesome app 3nder every week, Phoebe Luckhurst reports on the new sexual frontier
Three in a bed
Alamy

Every generation thinks it invented sex; millennials are no different. Essentially, of course, the act remains unchanged, though the ins and outs have always varied from couple to couple, throuple to throuple.

However, millennials have a modest claim to innovation. Our generation is rejecting labels and normalising a more fluid definition of sexuality. A recent study by the University of Essex found that women responded identically when shown erotic images of either gender — suggesting that women can be gay or bisexual but never totally straight.

And according to a YouGov study released in August, 49 per cent of the British 18-24-year-olds polled do not identify as entirely straight. Among this group, 43 per cent identified as neither entirely straight not entirely gay, according to the Kinsey scale, which measures heterosexuality and homosexuality on a scale of 0 to 6 — 0 being heterosexual, 6 homosexual.

The Kinsey metric is a blunt measure. It dates from the Forties, so it might not account for new findings in the fields of sexuality and psychology. However, it is certainly not redundant. Young people are disinterested in labels.

The lawlessness applies to both sexuality and relationships. Young people are going off monogamy, preferring open set-ups, uncommitted hook-ups. “It’s complicated” used to impel a “u OK hun?” from friends. Now it’s a normal state of affairs.

Today, Tinder’s parent company, Match Group, makes its initial public offering (IPO) but perhaps the dating app’s format is outdated.

 49 per cent of the British 18-24-year-olds polled do not identify as entirely straight
Getty

“Sexual mores are no longer dictated to us,” says Dimo Trifonov, founder of 3nder or “Tinder for threesomes”. “Millennials have grown up with the internet, they have formed their opinions in a more open world.” He suggests that what 3nder offers is consistent with this openness, and young people’s disinterest in labels.

And where youth goes, money men follow. Last month 3nder was awarded $500,000 (about £327,000) in seed funding from two “experienced unnamed tech angels”. The app was launched in the UK in July 2014 and has more than 700,000 users (though it does not clarify if they are active). In October the company promised it has 17,000 new downloads a week.

The app is designed for singles and couples. Like Tinder, it verifies you’re a real person using Facebook. Unlike Tinder, you can create an imaginary name and hide from Facebook friends.

You can invite friends to join, anonymously, by texting them an invite. It’s currently available for iOS, though an Android version of the app is coming in December. Investors praised the “beautiful design and usability”. It doesn’t look seedy.

You can invite friends to join 3inder, anonymously, by texting them an invite
Alamy

Trifonov says calling 3nder “Tinder for threesomes” was “purely a marketing game” that worked dreamily well. He imagines that he will rebrand at some point, calling it an “open-minded community, of which threesomes are just a part”.

However, like most start-up pioneers, especially those peddling something “risqué”, he is sincere and zealous, convinced his vision can change the world. “I thought we could create something with a nice branding, a nice mission, and change the whole way of looking at things. There isn’t currently a product that appeals to the open-minded.”

He wants to repurpose the threesome, taking it away from pornography. He wants to give a “new name” to the liberated sexual landscape. He says that he was “disturbed by the offerings” that target young men with images of sexy women and says “people like Ashley Madison are abusing their market, abusing their users”.

Trifonov is contradictory at points, insisting that the world is an open one but also suggesting that taboos prevail: “An open relationship is like being gay 15 years ago — society judges you.”

However, largely he is convinced and convincing, insisting that a threesome is “something everyone has in their mind at some point”.

Of course, it’s one thing to claim liberation and openness, quite another to do the deed if an opportunity arises. The new sexual landscape refuses rules but lawlessness can be dangerous (emotionally and physically).

For example, one thirtysomething had a threesome with her ex-boyfriend and a colleague of his. Unfortunately, it turned out that the colleague and the ex were having a “thing on the side” anyway — she “basically just watched them have an affair” while she was naked. “It would be tragic if it weren’t so, so funny,” she says.

Couple plus fit mate is the missionary of threesomes, the one that happens when the party’s winding down and you’re taking it in turns to take a swill of Red Stripe. This way many perils lie: perhaps the girlfriend sees the way her boyfriend looks at the guest star, ruining her relationship with both. Perhaps the guy gets into it with one girl and the other sticks her hand awkwardly on a breast for something to do, flagging up the weirdness of the whole thing. Everyone stops.

Or perhaps the guest star falls in love with the boyfriend or, as happened to one twentysomething couple, falls in love with the girlfriend. They start an affair. On the guest’s hen night, preparing to marry someone else, she weeps that she’s still in love with girlfriend. Perhaps the make-up is two boys and a girl. The girl should be well catered for, except one boy loses his erection when he sees his mate naked.

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One educated twentysomething has never wanted to have a threesome because she “read the Unbearable Lightness of Being at too impressionable an age”. The book opens with a man realising a long-term fantasy: sleeping with his wife and mistress simultaneously. “And it’s a diplomatic nightmare,” points out the twenty-something. “Every time he puts a hand on a breast or gives one woman a kiss he has to do the same to the other, or risk being accused of favouritism. So that always put me off.”

There are the threesomes extinguished when it becomes all too clear that two parties just want to cop off with each other. There are those where someone gets really freaked out midway through and puts their clothes on in a frenzy.

So the conditions of liberation still suggest rules are necessary. Essentially, the cardinal rule is avoid couples or anyone you’ve ever had a crush on. In fact, avoid people you know too well. Things get complicated, people get hurt or freaked out.

Look for strangers instead. If you’re getting involved you have to do so; you can’t just sit at the side like a voyeur waiting for a crack at one party: it’s called a threesome for a reason. If you’re a couple and you want to expand your numbers, make sure you’re certain both parties are (really) happy about it.

“We are opening up to more gender identities,” points out Trifonov. “The ultimate goal is not to have labels at all. Remove labels and we are all equal.” Perhaps announcing his brave new world is premature — philosophically we are open but when it comes to sex’s squishy, squelchy reality it is comforting to rely on norms.

However, it’s easier to recognise a sexual revolution in hindsight. Perhaps this is the start of something special.

Follow Phoebe on Twitter: @phoebeluckhurst

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