The Encyclopedia Of Smut: The Group Sex Appendix

Recently, a kind individual wrote to us and had a question about gangbangs and group sex and how they reflect the idea of sperm competition. In the pursuit for answers, we thought a lot about the pornographic representation of threesomes, foursomes, and larger arrangements of bodies, so we thought we'd pass along these musings to you.

The Original Question

What the gentleman wrote was:

So my buddy and I just finished reading "Sex At Dawn." In it, they argue that sperm competition clearly evolved to be one of the ways mates are chosen, and that evidence of this is that there is a lot more porn with multiple males than there is porn with multiple females. My friend disagrees with this claim, but we didn't see a very good way to look this up. There's not really a solid database that shows the popularity of different matchups within porn, and so I realized you're probably the best available resource we have. So: is there more porn with multiple women, or multiple men? This is assumedly referring to hetero, mainstream porn.

We Fleshbot folk had a brief debate about it; some said there were more hetero scenes with multiple women (since hetero porn is all about showing the ladies) and some said it's more common to see multiple dudes. Then the ever-brilliant Gram Ponante chimed in with this:

Unless it is "porn lesbian" sex aimed at straight men, in which a sorority full of oiled women vadge it up, or a specific threesome or group scene, I'd say that multiples in my experience favor men. Why?

1. Because women in porn are paid more, and many guys would do that work for free.
2. Because gangbangs are popular. Many of my porn-aware female friends like the gangbang fantasy, and many of my porn-aware loser male friends have no problem getting sloppy sevenths. Everyone wins, even the losers! Even Tom Petty! Especially Tom Petty!

I think demand sways toward one woman taking on multiple dudes, and that suits parsimonious studios and lonely male performers fine.

Indeed, economically-speaking, it's easier to have many guys in a scene than it is many gals. And yes, gangbangs are indeed popular, but why is it that we want to see one woman get with scores of men?

[Above: one of our favorite gangbang scenes as well as one of our favorite Bobbi Starr scenes, via "Gang Banged"]

What Makes Group Sex Groovy?

Why is group sex so appealing? Well, it's definitely subjective, and it certainly depends on the type of grouping, but there are some threads that run throughout all forms and configurations.

· The Ancient and Mystical: We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the orgies that took place in the name of Dionysos and Bacchus. Such revelry and unbridled pleasure-seeking was done in order to break down the barriers between the participants and the divine; the ego transcended the individual and became part of the group (with the help of booze and group sex), and once you've lost your identity to a circle bodies, it's not too hard to feel immersed in the spirit of an eternal being. From this we can also draw...
· Anonymity: Even those who aren't looking to lose themselves in the presence of a god or goddess can enjoy the feeling of being overwhelmed by flesh until it's hard to tell who owns what part. The abandonment of the moment is intoxicating, and even if you're just having a threesome, you can lose track of yourself and those around you, feeling nothing but the press of bodies, realizing that your excitement is a single cog in the machine around you.
· Taboo: The ancients worked with it, we work with it, and everybody secretly loves it. Group sex challenges everything we know about monogamy and the two-parent vision of procreation, and that shit makes us hot (say it like "hawt" and you'll know what we mean). Consider the position of a woman at the center of a many-manned gangbang: even in cases when she is in control of the action (such as Bobbi Starr is in the previous clip) she is still, to some extent, being controlled by the men around her. And let's not forget how often gangbangs get divided by race--the porn world likes to mythologize the sexuality of black males, and part of the mythology is that their enormous cocks will ravage a single white woman right before your eyes in ways that you can't imagine or reproduce.

[Above: this doesn't look like a nightmare to us, but still it's called "Nightmare On Black Street"]

Some Notable Methods

Normally this is where we steer you towards places to find porn relevant to the topic, but we feel like throwing out some positions at you. Why? Because sex positions are fun to talk about, and also because Wikipedia has an amazing collection of group sex set-ups and methods that's making us want to call up five or six of our closest friends.

· Lucky Pierre: Being anally penetrated while engaging in penetrative anal or vaginal sex.
· Daisy Chain: A bunch of people orally pleasuring each other in a circle (or triangle or square, depending on the number of participants).
· 369: Two people engage in oral sex in the 69 position while a third person positions himself to penetrate one of the others; usually a man engaging in sex doggie-style with the woman on top in the 69 position
· 469: The same as above, plus penetration on either end. We've never seen this before, but if you have three friends and you want to try this, please tell us how it goes.

[Above: the lovely and generous Sabrina Deep in "Fan Bang With Sabrina Deep." All clips courtesy of AEBN Porn Pay Per View Network and Video On Demand (theater.aebn.net)]

[At top: Sasha Grey in a gangbang? How retro. Via Cover My Face (freepornofreeporn.com)]