“This is surprisingly wholesome!”
In which the Throbbers interrogate Sissel about her recent exciting sexual encounter. We are sexvestigators and we are here to report the news!
A Grim Anniversary
The Throbbers come to you sadly, Maisie-less-ly, and celebrating roughly a year of covid restrictions. Hooray. We recall one of our last social engagements before the end times, which was Sissel’s birthday party.
(Here we have a brief intermission from the sadness while Lucy’s demon cat hangs from the blinds.)
Hannah brings us quickly back to why we’re here: Recently, Sissel had an interesting sexual experience involving a foursome, and we all want to hear about it.
Is This An Orgy?
To answer this important question, we consult the best authority we could find: Bravo.tv.
This article, which was the first thing Hannah could find after asking Google what the difference is between a foursome and an orgy, actually begins by discussing sex trains.
What the fuck is a sex train, you might be asking. Well, so did we. (It’s essentially a gang bang but more whimsical-sounding.)
Next, the article discusses the difference between a threesome and an orgy. According to this Very Reliable Source, an orgy includes more than five people all doing sexual things at the same time. It lists threesomes as a different category of thing and as a common sexual fantasy for couples. (We’ll go ahead and apply the same rules to foursomes.)
Kelly asks the obviously pressing question: When you’re having sex, do you count as a person? (The answer is yes, unless you want to get really existential.)
What Does Sissel Think About All This?
Sissel agrees with the definition of foursome versus orgy, because she says when she thinks of an orgy, she imagines sexual things going on in different areas of the same location. Orgy is a party vibe. With a foursome, you all stay in the same room.
Sissel, How Did It Go?
Time to dive in to Sissel’s actual experience, which we Throbbers are hearing about for the first time.
Sissel’s first reaction is to say good experience, ten out of ten. But what are the mechanics? Who was doing what to whom?? We’re nosy and we want to know!
It’s Not All Fun And Games In A Pandemic
We start by discussing the sexiest topic, safety precautions. Sissel and her partner have done this sort of thing before, but were obviously hesitant for a good long while to have sex with any other people. Her partner suggested they try again recently, but only if they could find people who they could deem “safe.”
They used the app Feeld to swipe through potential participants and found a couple whose bio claimed that they were being covid conscious “because of the good, upstanding citizens we are.”
Sissel found this adorable, and they set up a socially distanced outdoor campfire meet-up (in the dead of midwestern winter, we should add). They did two of these initial hang-outs to get to know each other, and found out that the female partner in the couple got tested for covid every week as part of a study, and that the male partner was willing to get tested before the four of them got physical.
Sissel and her partner socially distanced the whole week before any sexy stuff happened, and got tested for covid two days before.
(Also, not to leave STIs out, they got tested for those, too.)
The way everybody was very up-front about their covid safety precautions made Sissel feel much better going in to the whole experience.
How Did This All Start?
With Sissel being the only one of us really versed in group sex, especially in an already established couple, we’re curious: How did Sissel and her partner decide to start doing this?
Sissel and her partner started out very casual and stayed that way for a long time, meaning that they were both dating other people if they felt like it. But as time went on, they transitioned into being a couple in an open relationship.
Sissel began to realize that she, as an attractive woman (she hesitates to say it, but you’re hot, Sissel, own it), has a much easier time finding partners on dating apps than your average straight man. And so they began exploring group sex as a way to still be with each other while also finding new partners.
She also found that the foursome partners reacted more positively to Sissel, a woman, initiating the meet-up than they would have if man suggested it, which tends to happen more often.
Earlier in the pandemic, Sissel and her partner met up with a different couple who they didn’t click with. This current couple seemed much more like potential friends! (That you have sex with.)
They were Satanists who hung Pride flags, so definitely cool.
Emily Post Never Mentioned Foursome Etiquette
Kelly wants to know: Would Sissel do this again? And the answer is a resounding yes.
But that comes with more questions. How do you set up a repeat foursome? What about if you want to “break up” with the other couple you’re having sex with? How soon is too soon to call them again????
Sissel is struggling with this, too, and says that she’s fighting her natural urges to bombard them with friendship, in an attempt to not scare them off.
The four of them now have a group chat that they talk on intermittently, and Sissel takes it as a good sign that each one of them seems to be participating equally in the conversation.
Apparently the foursome couple also has another couple they were friends with first and had sex with. What Sissel wants out of this experience is something similar: A cool friend couple for her and her partner to hang out with!
Let’s Get Physical
Gina is tired of this before/after the act talk. Let’s hear about the DURING! Who was touching who?? What was the lead-up? Gina thinks the mechanics seem difficult to coordinate.
Sissel says that she has discovered a #lifehack for this kind of thing: Get an app!
Apparently there are several apps for group sexy stuff, in which participants are asked to do different things as a sort of game. The one Sissel used was called Truth or Dare, and included commands like: “Person A puts penis in Person B for 30 seconds and then stops.”
One command even asked Sissel to suck a the other guy’s penis while he called a close friend on the phone. (Holy shit! Gina adds.)
Sissel found using the app really helped diffuse the awkwardness and took away the uncertainty of who should be doing what.
At the beginning of the evening, the four of them exchanged boundaries, but even so, it can sometimes be difficult to initiate something. (The four of them also put boundaries into the app at the beginning, which was nice.)
But It Was No Homo Right?
How gay was this experience? The Throbbers are curious mostly because of Sissel’s partner, who identifies as a straight man (who has apparently also kissed a lot of men), while the other man involved was bisexual.
Sissel says that her partner is very comfortable with being around other men in sexual scenarios, but doesn’t get anything out of doing sexual things with them. His only hard and fast (heh) rule was “don’t put anything in my butt pls.”
(Incidentally, this was also a rule of Sissel’s.)
Everybody (jokingly, but also incredibly seriously) agreed to absolutely no urethral sounding (aka, putting stuff in your urethra). The Throbbers do a collective cringe at that one.
Pet Break
The foursome couple had a cat that briefly visited in the midst of everything, which puts us on a pet detour.
Freya, Gina’s cat, loves to interrupt anything sexy with loud noises. Sissel’s baby ferret Nyla is very intrigued by anything sexual and wants to be in the vicinity (like mother like daughter).
Sissel’s Final Thoughts
Sissel closed by saying that it was nice to have a sort of new-sex-partner afterglow, one that involved wanting to talk to them more, stalk them on Instagram, the usual. Adorably, the couple were also very open about stalking them on Instagram, too.
We may have even found a new podcast fan in one of them?? (Shoutout, whatever your name is!)
We have some things to plug! Here are some better resources to look at than Bravo:
There’s Oh Joy Sex Toy, an awesome sex education site with fun comics, there’s Erika Moen on Instagram, who does sex education comics as well as sex toy reviews, and then there’s Let’s Talk, a teen guide book to sex and relationships also by Erika Moen.
These people do not need our plug, with our six whole listeners, but hey, what the hell. Listen to them for answers to your sex questions, not the Real Housewives of Orange County.
Thank You For Listening!
We are all able-bodied, cisgendered white women. We know our background and experiences only cover a percentage of those around us which is why we want to supplement this with guest speakers, research, and you. If you have opinions and experiences you’d like to share we would love to hear it! If, however, you just want to spew hate at us then we can’t stop you but instead we invite you to suck our collective clitorises. Hater. This podcast also contains mature sexual themes and swearing. No, clitoris isn’t a swear word.
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