How Does Consent Work In An Orgy?

There’s a big assumption built into the way most people talk about sexual consent, which is that sex is exclusively a two-person activity. While it’s true that sex most often occurs in pairs, it’s definitely not the case that sex only ever involves two people. Sometimes people have threesomes or participate in orgies or other group encounters. So how does consent work when you have more than two people involved?

This is the subject of my latest column over at Playboy. In it, I talk about the unique challenges that group sex scenarios pose when it comes to sexual consent. For example, the state of sensory overload that occurs during an orgy might disrupt the cognitive processes that would otherwise be required to notice an emergency taking place (such as a consent violation).

At the same time, I also talk about ways of ensuring that everything is safe and consensual in a group encounter by drawing on advice from two experts in this field, Drs. Kathryn Klement and Kate Frank. This includes starting with some background research (and maybe some observation, too), negotiating rules and boundaries with your partners in advance, and perhaps even thinking about establishing a safeword (just as BDSM practitioners often do) in order to indicate when consent has been revoked.

To learn more, check out the full article over at Playboy.

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for more from the blog or here to listen to the podcast. Follow Sex and Psychology on Facebook, Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

Image Credit: 123RF/Agata Gładykowska

You Might Also Like: