THREE ON THREE

Are recent on-screen representations finally opening wholesomeness of a threesome? our society up to the

- PRATIKSHA ACHARYA

Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers gave us a great many things. A stellar press tour: Check. Two new internet boyfriends in the form of Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist: Check. A killer soundtrack that made us feel like we were sweating in a nightclub in Ibiza: Check. The one thing that it promised and fell short of giving us, though, was the threesome between the three lead characters, which we all fell for hook, line, and sinker, thanks to the racy trailer.

It’s no lie that sex sells, but it wasn’t just the glimpse of a threeway between three ludicrously hot people that got people into the theatres to watch this movie. While they might not have gone all the way in the film, their sexual tension was so palpable that you could probably cut it with a knife. What it also was, was surprisingly realistic. Unlike the hypersexual portrayal of a threesome as seen in porn, there was a certain amount of ease in it that went from awkward to remarkably loving, culminating into a tinge of power play with O’Connor and Faist really getting into that kiss as Zendaya watches. While the movie establishes the fact to a certain extent that both the male characters have no qualms about being intimate with someone of the same sex, there is just something so freeing about two guys actively participating with each other in a setting such as this. This begs the question: Are we as a society finally opening up to the idea of destigmatising threesomes from being a kink to something commonplace?

DON’T KISS AND TELL