Jul 2, 2023
Americans are often considered sexual prudes compared to their typically more uninhibited European counterparts. But there's one kink that Americans seem to enjoy much more than those overseas: cuckolding, where one partner watches while their partner has sex with another person.
On a recent episode of the podcast "Sex and Psychology," hosted by the Kinsey Institute sex researcher Justin Lehmiller, Mariëlle de Goede shared findings from her sexual-fantasy research in the Netherlands and Belgium. It involved conducting 400 interviews about people's sexual fantasies between 2018 and 2021.
When de Goede cross-referenced her European findings with previous research of Lehmiller's on Americans' fantasies, she found that most kinks, like submission, domination, and exhibitionism, were a "perfect match" between the regions. But when it came to cuckolding, the kink, which is different than a threesome, didn't come up at all in de Goede's European interviews, she told Lehmiller.
This is likely because the idea of sexually sharing your partner with someone else isn't considered taboo in Europe, but it is in the US. "The forbidden is incredibly arousing to most people," de Goede said.
On the podcast, de Goede and Lehmiller explained how sexual fantasies often come with a cultural subtext that makes them more erotic to the people who are part of that culture. Whatever is considered taboo in a person's particular culture is more likely to turn them on, de Goede said.
When Lehmiller did research for his 2018 book on sexual fantasies, called "Tell Me What You Want," he found that around 45% of men sexually fantasize about watching their female partners with other men.
When it comes to cuckolding, it flies in the face of the male-centered and monogamous American cultural norms, Lehmiller said. So, a man sexually sharing his wife with another man through cuckolding often comes with a negative connotation in the US. For some, that forbidden feeling can be a major turn-on, Lehmiller explained.
In fact, when Lehmiller conducted his own sexual-fantasy research for his book "Tell Me What You Want," he found that politically conservative men cite cuckolding as a sexual fantasy more often than their liberal counterparts, despite these men using "cuck" as a derogatory term for a weak man or sellout.
In the Netherlands and Belgium though, society is thought to be more "egalitarian," with fewer assumed gender roles, de Goede said. Since strict adherence to gender roles is considered taboo there, de Goede found domination and submission fantasies were more popular among her European study participants than Americans.
Additionally, people in the Netherlands and Belgium are more open to non-monogamous relationships like polyamory, where they have multiple sexual or romantic partners at one time, than Americans are, according to de Goede. As a result, they don't typically find the idea of group sex as erotic as an American might.
Outside of taboos, someone could be into cuckolding — or fantasize about it — because they could enjoy BDSM sexual dynamics, Lehmiller said on the podcast. Others may find pleasure in seeing their partner experience pleasure, a phenomenon known as compersion, Lehmiller explained.