5 reasons your threesome will be way better if you don’t use this stupid app

Deep in the night, you’re looking for some fun. Just don’t look for it with 3nder.

This bit of flotsam bobbed over our news desk this morning. It’s an app to help you get double-laid via a happy, sexy threesome.

Seriously, people. Seriously. You’re going to negotiate one of the most emotionally complicated sexual maneuvers of modernity with an app.

Not this app:

It’s got great design and features, and it’s in the same vein as one-on-one hookup apps like Tinder and Grindr, so maybe there’s a market for this kind of app. But 3nder is not a viable business (in this writer’s opinion). Trying to create great threesomes with a mobile app is like trying to sequence DNA with a selfie.

Why, you ask? For the threesome-uninitiated, let’s walk this through.

1)  If you need an app to experience a threesome, you do not deserve a threesome.

Initiating a threesome requires some pretty advanced social skills. You have to have manners, tact, and a basic understanding of etiquette. You need to have cultivated a large measure of charm, wit, and emotional intelligence. And lesbionest, you also need to have practiced and near-perfected your sexual technique. 3nder proposes to let you skip all that and get down to the good stuff.

But how good can it be if you don’t have those social skills to begin with? If you’re awkward and shy in real life — the kind of person who has to use an app to circumvent all human interaction — what makes you think you’ll be anything but awkward and shy in a menage a trois situation? And naked awkward is so much more painful than clothed awkward.

Get real with yourself: If you can’t land a threesome on your own, you haven’t attained threesomeworthiness. Read lots of Emily Post and Dan Savage, and try again next year.

2)  Chemistry is hard.

Sex between two people requires chemistry — that elemental spark of fire in your gut, the cherub on your shoulder that whispers, “You should definitely bone this person.”

Sex among three (or more) people requires alchemy. You have to have pretty much equal amounts of “chemistry” with Person A and Person B. And they have to have parity of attraction with each other and you.

Think you not? The lamest, most awkward threesomes are the ones wherein two people really want to bone and the other person feels left out. Or the kind where two people want to bone and the third person wants to bone one of the others but not the third.

And you absolutely not create, ensure, or inspire that kind of chemistry with an app.

3)  STDs.

Condoms are great, right? But what about STDs that spread through non-penetration acts?

Really — girlfriend gets a papercut, and unless you have a finger cot, your night and/or your peace of mind are toast.

And don’t even pretend you’re using condoms or dental dams for oral.

This is one case where monogamy and selective non-monogamous activities trump humping with randos. When you know as much as you can about your partner’s history and proclivities, you have some assurance, whether actual or perceived, that you will not be having a sad clinic visit in six months.

And unless it calls for an upload of a clean bill of health (3nder doesn’t), you can’t get that with an app.

4)  This is where banging with friends is actually a good idea.

In the experience of your humble correspondent, the best threesomes are between friends with mutual trust and respect. Not strangers you meet via an app.

You’ve pretty much got the chemistry puzzle figured out. You know who they’ve been with. You can all decide ahead of time how much or little you want this encounter to mean. You can trust this person to be in your home, to be cool about any weirdness that comes up, and even to stay for breakfast.

Another VB writer offers this perspective:

The best threesomes between friends? I’m sure that works out sometimes, but I know a few people who have significantly complicated their social lives — and ruined relationships — by combining their social circles with their sexual exploits. Who says a single or a couple can’t meet others with the express desire to have an adventurous sexual experience outside their preformed social connections? If you’re going to be intimate with someone — as part of a threesome or otherwise — you should obviously develop some mutual trust and respect first. But I don’t see why you can’t meet someone with that express desire. It’s certainly less complicated socially — if it doesn’t work out, you can cut it off without compromising your existing social relationships.

This applies mostly if all your friends are socially awkward buttheads with communication issues, I imagine.

5) Oh, the humanity.

I am possibly the most sex-positive person on our team, but I think using technology for a situation as delicate as a threesome just zaps the humanity right out of it — as well as the mystery — rendering the whole experience less pleasurable for all parties involved.

A scenario for your adult reading pleasure:

You are dating Dave, and you’re both close friends with Meg. You’ve all talked about hooking up at some point over the past couple months, but the timing hasn’t been right — you’re waiting for that magic moment. Tonight, you go to a low-key bar to meet up with a group of friends, and not only is Meg looking extra cute — she seems to be in a frisky mood! After a couple drinks, you exchange some high-voltage whispers and leave together.

[Threesome goes here.]

Afterward, you, Dave, and Meg go to Denny’s because — hey, why not? You laugh, eat, gossip about your other friends, talk about maybe hooking up again later.

The next time you see Meg at the bar with your other friends, you get a twinkle in your eye. You share something special, but your relationship is still basically the same — close friends, but a little bit better.

And that, my friends, is the perfect the threesome. It’s delicate. It involves chemistry and trust. It’s tender and uninhibited and based on more than just a fleeting attraction to a thumbnail avatar.

Call me old-fashioned, but know this, my young, horny friends: You cannot get that from an app.

Unfortunately, I am a bit old-fashioned, and 3nder will probably get some sloppy traction from sex-starved nerds. Also, the founder is trying to raise $200,000 on a $3 million valuation.

But if you’ve read to this point in the op/ed, you already know: the perfect threesome is priceless.