I used to take pride in orchestrating threesomes. It seems almost absurd to me now in retrospect, because I’m a shy, ace-spectrum, submissive-leaning wallflower (or at least, that’s how I often see myself), but it’s true – I was instrumental in setting up the first threesome I ever had in 2015, as well as the handful of subsequent threesomes I had the following year. Sometimes I even called myself the Threesome Fairy, a magical conjurer of sexual chaos.

I think it thrilled me to imagine gifting someone an experience they’d always been curious about but had never gotten to try. And I did indeed usually think of it as a gift I was giving someone else, rather than something I was pursuing out of my own intrinsic desire.

Because, truth be told, I’d rather have one-on-one sex pretty much all the time. I’m kinky, but I don’t thrive on constant sexual novelty like some of my kinky friends do – I have a Taurean need for stability and familiarity, so mostly my sex life is like ordering from the charmingly well-worn menu of a beloved restaurant, rather than seeking out new cuisines every weekend. I’m not trying to cast aspersions on people who do frequently seek sexual novelty – in many ways, I wish I was more like them! But I’m just not, or at least not to the same extent as many of my friends and colleagues.

So I’d sort of figured my threesome days were behind me. Many of those encounters struck me, in retrospect, as a desperate attempt to please or impress someone by arranging a fun group-sex dalliance for them/us. It felt like an act of love akin to throwing someone a surprise party. And just like when throwing a surprise party, I often found myself feeling stressed out by the “hostess” role, even though I’d enthusiastically signed up for it. I felt a constant obligation to ensure that everyone else was having a good time, often at the expense of my own pleasure. (Ye olde sex spreadsheets tell me that I only orgasmed in half of those threesomes in my twenties, which is way below my batting average!)