Group Sex Poll

Group Sex Survey

  • Are you Male/Female/Intersex/anything else you feel comfortable with

    Votes: 9 100.0%
  • Have you ever been involved in Group Sex?

    Votes: 6 66.7%
  • If so, with how many people.

    Votes: 6 66.7%
  • Did you participate in the act of sex or just watched?

    Votes: 6 66.7%
  • How many times have you participated in groupsex?

    Votes: 6 66.7%

  • Total voters
    9
I also think this poll is in the wrong forum. If anything, I would wager that polyfolk participate LESS in group sex, for the simple reason that they are allowed to have meaningful relationships with other people and have one-on-one sex with those people, so they don't need to rely on the insecurity-based "You can have sex with other people, but only if I'm there and doing it too" mentality.

And in the last thread I was asked about the background of this poll and here it is. I am a College college student. I am doing a presentation in my Sociology of Sexuality class on Group Sex. The goal of this poll is to understand who is involved in group sex and if it's healthy for a relationship. I chose this website because the poly community heavily participates in the act of group sex and I thought it was a good place to get some information.

Thank you for answering the questions. :)

Problem 1
By targeting any specific group of people, your results are statistically insignificant. This makes it impossible to answer "who is involved in group sex" because any positive responses you get will not be indicative of the general population, but only a small, targeted subset.

Example, it's like walking into a gay bar and asking "Who here is gay?" and then when 95% of people put up their hands, you walk out and conclude that 95% of the general population is gay, which is obviously not true. Not to imply this is analogous to polyamory and group sex, because as you've seen it's not, but since that was what you were expecting when you asked the question, it definitely applies to your methodology.

Even if you did come here and find that we were all group-sex-maniacs, the fact that we're poly and actively working to live open, honest, and communicative relationships could mean that we're all really good at having group sex without negatively affecting the health of our relationships. But this would not answer whether or not, for the general population, group sex affects the health of relationships.

Problem 2
None of your questions will give significant insight into whether or not group sex is "healthy" for a relationship. The closest is 9 and 10, but these are subjective and require people to accurately self-assess the health of their relationship and to identify the specific cause of these problems, which is generally difficult for the average population.

Example, if you have a manipulative, controlling boyfriend who gets to the point of pressuring you to have group sex, then is it the group sex that hurts the relationship? Or the manipulation and control from the boyfriend?

If a couple with poor communication skills mutually decide to have group sex and are unable to talk about and deal with the emotions brought on by this activity, is it the group sex or their poor communication that hurts the relationship?

You have not identified or referred to any recognized meters of health in a relationship nor how they apply to group sex. I suggest you get online and read some respected journals, or at least open your textbook.

Problem 3 (regarding #6)
I believe the earlier objection to this question wasn't "what about more than two" but rather "what about one of each, or one tranny and one male, or one non-gender-identified person and a female, or no preference I just love group sex with anyone?"

Obviously in a threesome, unless all three participants are the same gender, then two of the participants will be involved with "one of each." So simple statistics says that roughly 2/3 of participants in threesomes are with neither two men or two women.

Problem 4 (regarding #7)
You really should do your homework for this so-called sexuality class. If you opened your textbook, you would know that there is much much more than just straight/gay, and that "etc" is a big fucking category that you are lumping together, which I find offensive. By analogy, answer me this: What is your research experience? (None/Minimal/etc.)

Conclusion
I just find this whole poll offensive and worse, unscientific. I mean, I can deal with being offended, I do it all the time. But as a scientist, I am much more disturbed by your research methodology. First you start with an assumption, admitting that you know assumptions are dangerous but ignoring that fact and following through with it regardless. That is not a way to do science, even social science which is soft at best.

I guarantee, a number of respected researchers have done very thorough surveys of these exact topics, using proper sampling techniques, respected meters of relationship health, and proper statistical analysis. They published their results, and if you're in a college or university then you should have access to those journals. Try talking to your professor about how you can access these results. Because if your reference list includes "I asked some people on the internet" then you'll probably lose marks, but if your reference list includes "Kinseley, A. 'Sex Behavior in the Human Animal.'" then you might do a bit better.

For the record...

1. Male/Female/Intersex
Female

2. Have you ever been involved in group sex?
No

3. How many people did you engage in group sex with? (Ex: 3,4,5...)
n/a

4. Did you participate in the act of sex or did you watch?
n/a

5. How many times have you participated in group sex?
n/a

6. Do you prefer 2 women or 2 men?
n/a

7. What is your sexual orientation? (Straight/Gay/etc.)
etc.

8. Are you in a relationship? (Married/BF,GF)
Married

9. Does this hurt your relationship?
n/a

10. Is this what you prefer or are you making a sacrifice for you partner?
n/a
 
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Conclusion
I just find this whole poll offensive and worse, unscientific. I mean, I can deal with being offended, I do it all the time. But as a scientist, I am much more disturbed by your research methodology. First you start with an assumption, admitting that you know assumptions are dangerous but ignoring that fact and following through with it regardless. That is not a way to do science, even social science which is soft at best.

I guarantee, a number of respected researchers have done very thorough surveys of these exact topics, using proper sampling techniques, respected meters of relationship health, and proper statistical analysis. They published their results, and if you're in a college or university then you should have access to those journals. Try talking to your professor about how you can access these results. Because if your reference list includes "I asked some people on the internet" then you'll probably lose marks, but if your reference list includes "Kinseley, A. 'Sex Behavior in the Human Animal.'" then you might do a bit better.

Go a little easy here. A lot of this is on the instructor, and on the OP's program of study.

If the OP is an undergraduate who is not being trained as a social scientist but just taking a one-off elective or even a one-off social science requirement, it's unlikely he's expected to master anything like rigorous empirical methodology (or, for that matter, research ethics protocols).

(I'm not a social scientist myself, but I teach in a program in which students at all levels are required to take a full, semester-length course in research design, and in which undergraduates take a year-long capstone course in which they conduct research for clients. So, I have some sense of what a rigorous curriculum looks like.)

Most likely, this is a lazy sort of assignment on the instructor's part, asking students to take on a sort of toy project, to go out and collect data like pebbles on a beach, and do somethingorother with their collection for class credit.

So, no, it's not good science, not even good social science. (Some of my social scientist colleagues would rankle at this. Some of them are quite excruciatingly rigorous in their methodology, it's just the object of their study that is "soft" . . . ) But it's meant to be "a learning experience."

If I'm right about this, I'm sure the OP is learning quite a lot from this forum, though perhaps not what he expected to learn!

So, Thisguy, am I right in thinking you're doing this project for an undergraduate course? Is it a one-off elective? Did the course include any kind of training in empirical methodology for this kind of thing, or were you just turned loose to figure it out for yourself?
 
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Anyway, here's another pebble for your collection:

1. Male/Female/Intersex
male

2. Have you ever been involved in group sex?
no

3. How many people did you engage in group sex with? (Ex: 3,4,5...)
n/a

4. Did you participate in the act of sex or did you watch?
n/a

5. How many times have you participated in group sex?
zero

6. Do you prefer 2 women or 2 men?
n/a

7. What is your sexual orientation? (Straight/Gay/etc.)
Terribly, terribly straight

8. Are you in a relationship? (Married/BF,GF)
Married

9. Does this hurt your relationship?
Not engaging in group sex does not hurt my relationship.

10. Is this what you prefer or are you making a sacrifice for you partner?
I prefer not to engage in group sex.
 
go out and collect data like pebbles on a beach

Love this!

Setting aside the OP, I think it's kinda cool just to see where we all are on the subject.
 
1. Male/Female/Intersex. Female

2. Have you ever been involved in group sex? No

3. How many people did you engage in group sex with? (Ex: 3,4,5...) 0

4. Did you participate in the act of sex or did you watch? N/A

5. How many times have you participated in group sex? N/A

6. Do you prefer 2 women or 2 men? N/A

7. What is your sexual orientation? (Straight/Gay/etc.) Bisexual

8. Are you in a relationship? (Married/BF,GF) No, currently single.

9. Does this hurt your relationship? No

10. Is this what you prefer or are you making a sacrifice for you partner? No
 
1. Male/Female/Intersex. Cisgendered female, ID as genderqueer.

2. Have you ever been involved in group sex? Yes

3. How many people did you engage in group sex with? (Ex: 3,4,5...) Several 3somes and one 4some

4. Did you participate in the act of sex or did you watch? Participated

5. How many times have you participated in group sex? 5 or 6

6. Do you prefer 2 women or 2 men? I don't know... I've never been with 2 men at once. It's more about the people than their gender.

7. What is your sexual orientation? (Straight/Gay/etc.) My sexual preference knows no gender, I am pansexual.

8. Are you in a relationship? (Married/BF,GF) Partnered, with one primary and new relationships happening now as well.

9. Does this hurt your relationship? The second 3some I participated in in my late teens hurt my then primary relationship, but that is because I cheated, not because of the group sex aspect.

10. Is this what you prefer or are you making a sacrifice for you partner? Every time I participated in group sex, it was my own choice for my own pleasure.
 
more data

1. Male/Female/Intersex: male

2. Have you ever been involved in group sex?: no

3. How many people did you engage in group sex with? (Ex: 3,4,5...): n/a

4. Did you participate in the act of sex or did you watch?: n/a

5. How many times have you participated in group sex?: zero

6. Do you prefer 2 women or 2 men? Either, though it's still fantasy for me

7. What is your sexual orientation? (Straight/Gay/etc.): Bi

8. Are you in a relationship? (Married/BF,GF): Married

9. Does this hurt your relationship?: We are currently only talking about this for future opportunities. But we are both happy and optimistic

10. Is this what you prefer or are you making a sacrifice for you partner?
Not quite sure yet.
 
Go a little easy here. A lot of this is on the instructor, and on the OP's program of study.

If the OP is an undergraduate who is not being trained as a social scientist but just taking a one-off elective or even a one-off social science requirement, it's unlikely he's expected to master anything like rigorous empirical methodology (or, for that matter, research ethics protocols).

Fair enough. But I find it difficult to believe that any professor would send kids out on a research project where they're expected to conduct surveys and polls, without giving them at least a basic lesson in proper survey and poll procedures for research.

I still stick to my assumption that the professor's goal here was to get the students looking through published results, not to conduct their own surveys with meaningless conclusions due to faulty research methods...

Anecdotely, I have to say it's interesting to see how far his assumption was blown out of the water. Clearly, the poly community does not heavily participate in the act of group sex...
 
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