The Joy of Group Sex


My name is Alexander Cheves. My nickname is Beastly. I write about sex.

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I have read your blog and found it very useful in my sexual life. I am 47 and have had a fantasy of group sex for a while. I’ve had some experiences but they weren’t quite what I anticipated or what I was ready for. I’m wondering how you plan and initiate a group sex session and what’s involved? Do you have to establish trust with some people or is it something randomly planned? I’ve learned that many people are unsure of what they want in these situations so I just wanted to know how I get started planning a group session.

Hi friend,

Groups are planned in any number of ways. You asked if groups are done by “establishing trust with some people” or “randomly planned,” which I presume means “done with strangers, people you don’t know.” The answer is both.

There are endless kinds of sex groups. There are threesomes, which are hard to do well (the best groups, in my opinion, have a minimum of four people). Sometimes some couples come together and play — they may even call this a date. Sometimes a few friends come together and play. Sometimes guys meet up in someone’s apartment, get high, and invite over hot strangers all night to fuck (this has been my experience with PnP, or party and play). All these are sex groups, and all are generally done in private residences. There are, however, more official, professionally-organized sex parties that are often ticketed and usually fairly expensive, and may have body/dress code requirements to get in. These are fairly common in New York City where I live, and I go to several sex parties like these, too. The joy of going to a sex club or professionally-organized sex party is that I’ll undoubtedly meet new people there, which is exciting, but I’m not required to fuck everyone there, which would be impossible (and this is different from most smaller, private gatherings, like sex parties in someone’s apartment, where one is generally expected to have sex with everyone present).

Asking how to plan and initiate groups is a broad question because there are so many kinds of groups. I don’t know how to form a business or organization that throws ticketed, professional sex parties, so I’m going to set those aside and give my advice for organizing small (or smallish) groups in your house or apartment.

At its simplest, a gay sex party needs two horny guys and a hookup app or website. Log on, look around, and invite anyone over. But if fucking strangers is not something you’re into, you will have to plan in advance and ask some friends and lovers if they want to come over Friday night for a fun little group. Be honest about your intention of making group sex happen. Nothing feels more uncomfortable (or coercive) than showing up somewhere expecting dinner and some laughs and finding everyone naked. Also, be explicit if you are planning, say, a bareback sex group, or want certain drugs there but not others (ecstasy is fine but no meth, or meth is fine but no needles). People want to know these details ahead of time so they don’t walk into a party where their preferences are not welcome.

My policy is this: no matter the size of the gathering, no one has the right to know who else will be in attendance beforehand. Telling someone the attendees list not only betrays your guests’ privacy but also gets difficult and messy. Once you allow someone to know ahead of time who will be present, everyone will want to know, and then you’ll be herding cats. Keep the guest list private. Some invitees will push you on this and say they must know who is going or they won’t come. Kindly tell them “That’s too bad, but I can’t betray their privacy” and move on. If any attendee doesn’t like someone else there, they should politely say thanks and leave.

I find that if I really want a group, I have to make it happen, either at my place or someone else’s, and that’s my primary advice. I have spent hours looking on the apps (Scruff, Grindr) to join a group to no avail, and doing so is a frustrating and fruitless enterprise, particularly since I’m not usually wanting to do meth. So don’t look for a group to join — make your own happen. If you have particular needs or requirements (no drugs or only people you find attractive) you should do it in a place you can control — your home.

What you say in your question is true: many guys are uncertain of what they want in these situations. This is why clarity and decisiveness are so important. The guys who make fisting parties happen are the ones who a) have the space for it and b) decide, decisively, to make a fisting party happen. If you know what you want, let that be your North Star and others will follow; don’t be afraid to lead or initiate. This means: be bold and ask guys you either already have an intimate relationship with — or would like to have an intimate relationship with — if they would like to come to a group. Some might say no and you’ll have to kindly say “no worries!” and move on, and some will say “hell yes!” and think it’s hot that you asked so boldly and bluntly. Be the guy who knows what he wants and makes it happen.

Love, Beastly

Hello Alexander,
I was reading your texts about group sex. I felt you can help me or share some advice. E.g. you tackled the topic of feeling comfortable pressure-free in sex parties. I am versatile and take equal pleasure in this when 1-1, but at the sex parties I think I get nervous and cannot have a satisfactory erection. Although I tried many times, and like the atmosphere of sex parties, friendliness, and hotness of guys, I seem not to have a proper erection to be top, so I become total bottom (being very good in it). I assume it is fear of being judged or expectations or simply cannot relax. I tried different drugs but seems even worse. I see my friends at such parties really enjoying being both bottoms and tops and I envy them while being also happy for them of course. But, this is something I want to change in myself and try to get to the core of this problem and I believe it does not require therapy or something or maybe it does. Maybe I simply think about it too much or is an issue of self-acceptance or something. My friends could not verbalize and tell me something useful. So, I thought perhaps you can tell me something useful here, I would very much appreciate it, or refer me to something to resolve this issue or maybe even therapy….I would really like to enjoy in groups sex being equally good top as well. Thank you in advance for your time 🙂 Marco

Hi Marco,

Truth be told, it’s hard for me to maintain my erection in group settings too. Group sex and public sex are intimidating spaces to have a boner because they are, effectively, audiences — you’re not just fucking the one guy, you’re fucking him with others watching and participating. I don’t think there are easy ways around E.D. issues and/or performance anxiety, and I think most of that dialogue should be had with a doctor. A therapist can help, sure, but the fact is, most men past their twenties find that erections don’t work as easily as they did before — I certainly have — and the solutions are often more medical than psychological.

I’m 29 and learned that I have low testosterone earlier this year, which explained the E.D. issues I’d been having for some time. I believed I was far too young to have low testosterone until my doc schooled me otherwise: some can have it as young as 20. Some are just born with it. Testosterone replacement therapy, or TRT, has helped me immensely. So, before consulting a therapist, consult a urologist and get your testosterone checked to see if something hormonal is at play.

But I still get performance anxiety in groups. TRT doesn’t fix everything. I find that, in public, I can only top in bursts — I can fuck someone I connect with for however long I can, then I need to recharge for a bit, during which time I usually bottom. I also can’t top anyone, only guys I click with, whereas I can get fucked by anyone and his brother. So I’ve learned to work around my dick issues in public spaces, and my dick has dictated how I do these events. I know I have to pull a guy I want to fuck off to the side into a darker or semi-private space. I know I want to be a little dominant. And I know that when I lose my erection, it’s lost for that session and it’s time for a recharge (bottoming period). I bottom more comfortably in front of an audience, but when the top fires flare up again, I need to “retreat,” pull someone away from the crowd to suck me in a corner or take my cock in the bathroom. In this way, I work within the parameters I can handle while still enjoying groups. The performance anxiety is assuaged by a degree of privacy that I create when I top, and my top side becomes an unseen, rare treat, something given exclusively to those I connect with. I don’t fuck bottoms who want an audience — I fuck bottoms who want me all to themselves.

It’s perfectly fine to combine a medical solution — TRT, E.D. pills like Viagra or Cialis, or even Trimix (injectable Viagra, basically) — with practice and trial-and-error, to work with your body’s limitations so that you stop seeing them as limitations and start seeing them as style. That’s what I’ve done. My top style is different from my bottoming style in groups, and I enjoy that. This makes groups more interesting, makes my topping bursts more rewarding, and makes my group sex experiences more diverse, less one-note, than if I was exclusively topping or bottoming. You need to find your style.

Various experts have tried to define style sartorially. Here I’ll attempt to define style sexually: it’s fully owning your greatest struggles and your deepest desires to reach a natural state of non-apology when you simply celebrate being you.

A therapist can always help, and if you have the ability to speak with one about this, seize it. A therapist will likely say that a key first step is self-acceptance — accepting the body as it is, this beautifully imperfect thing, this vessel of life we’re saddled with. I encourage you to go even beyond that: self-ownership, and self-worship. People achieve rapturous, agonizing pleasure through the body. I’ve seen people break with my fist and forearm inside them, watched them completely surrender, watched them fall into what might be the soul. This is a religious experience — all achieved through the body, the same thing that sometimes doesn’t look perfectly flattering in the mirror, with a dick that won’t always stay hard, or a brain that gets nervous and anxious. Own the power of the animal you’re living in and own its limitations. It is a faulty, miraculous thing. Only one species, through cunning and cruelty, has bested evolution to control the earth, and you’re a member of it.

Final note: most drugs inhibit boners, so trying to get hard in an intimidating space with booze or some other drug in your system will be difficult to pull off without the help of a Viagra or Cialis pill (and bear in mind that some drugs, when used with these pills, can dangerously drop your blood pressure, so talk to your doctor about drug interactions when doing both, or at least look up possible harmful interactions online). I know that if I really want to top in public, I have to be sober or mostly sober.

Best of luck, pig.

Love, Beastly

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