There’s Been a Sexual Revolution. Where’s Ours?
A sapphic couple looking for a +1
Published on October 7th, 2026
Sexual liberation, hookup apps, the conversation around modern desire still tends to heavily center relationships involving cis men while sapphic couples are left figuring it out on their own: how to explore together, how to find a +1 without feeling predatory, how to even bring it up in the first place?
I talked to Leo* and Joe*, a sapphic couple from Berlin about wanting to explore threesomes as a couple. Leo is non-binary and identifies as a lesbian, using they/them pronouns; Joe is a cis woman identifying as a lesbian, using she/her pronouns.
Leo is introverted, describes themselves as more of a creative, artistic person. Joe is the extrovert of the two, with what she calls a pretty classic life and job. They met at a queer event, introduced through mutual friends, and defined things as a couple fast, moving in together after a year, their version of an emotional U-Haul.
So tell me about your relationship format?
“We’re a monogamous couple,” they say, “but since the beginning we agreed we’d always talk about it if one of us had urges.” Crushes aren’t off limits between them, they talk about who they find hot, and they always said they’d tell each other if they ever felt like dating someone else.
For Joe, that’s a shift from what she knew before. “In my past monogamous relationships, this kind of feeling was forbidden or looked down on. I used to have crushes but didn’t felt comfortable saying anything. It made me feel like I wasn’t normal for even having those desires. With Leo I feel like I can actually share these things.”
Sapphic couples get boxed into clichés, U-Hauling, moving in fast, becoming best friends, cozy monogamy forever. Where do you fit into that, and where don’t you?
They laugh, because some of it is just true for them. They moved fast, and they’re as much best friends as partners, that part they don’t fight. But they’re still careful about the time spent together. Over their first year together, they built their own system around it: two to four nights a week sleeping at their own places, so the closeness doesn’t turn into just merging into one person. “We like being a team, we just didn’t want to lose ourselves as individuals along the way.”
So let’s get into it, we’re here to talk about sex with multiple people. How did that conversation actually start between you two?
It wasn’t a new idea for either of them, it was something they’d each wanted to explore on their own, long before they ever talked about it as a couple. Joe already had multiple threesome experiences: these moments happened spontaneously as she was single and she is now keen to have this again as part of her couple sex life.
Discussing about it as a couple came up naturally, in a conversation somewhere in the middle of actually having sex.
And did you feel like finding a +1 as a sapphic couple, was easy to do?
Not really, and that gap between wanting it and knowing how to get there is exactly where they’re stuck right now.
“We would love for things to happen naturally ideally, meeting someone who wants the same thing and who we’re both drawn to.” They tell me about a party where someone kept catching their eye across the room. They made out in front of her, could feel there was something there, but never found the courage to actually go talk to her. Part of the hesitation is about not wanting to become like that straight couple, the one that circles a third person like they’re hunting.
That fear is familiar to a lot of sapphic people. We've spent our lives being the ones who were approached, assessed, hunted. We've been on the receiving end of the predatory gaze long enough to know exactly what it feels like and the last thing we want is to reproduce it. But that caution, as justified as it is, can also become a cage. It makes us hesitate when we actually want something to happen. It makes us doubt our own desire. It makes us wonder if wanting is predatory. “We don’t know the right way to approach someone without coming across as creepy. So yeah we’re a bit stuck with our desire.”
What about the apps, have you tried?
They tried. They went on a dating app known to be more sex-postive to see who was around, listed themselves as a queer couple, and mostly found straight couples looking for a third, or girls looking for a threesome with MM or MF couples as if there's almost no space built for exploring desire outside of cis-men-centered dynamics. They figured it just wasn’t the right place to look.
More classical dating apps felt even further off. “People are there to find love, and we don’t want to show up as a couple already, or make people think our relationship is struggling. The whole intent of the app isn’t for that.”
The deeper issue, though, isn’t really the apps themselves. It’s that sapphic couples don’t have dedicated spaces where their desire is treated as legitimate. Gay men have fuck spaces, cruising culture, hookup apps built for them, codified rituals of consent and approach. Straight couples have swinger scenes and a whole industry built around their fantasies. Sapphic couples have... what, exactly?
“That’s one of the reason we’re super excited about Pulp. We feel like having a space that has been thought by a queer person for queer people and that is more direct with the intentions people have will make things way easier for us.”
Berlin has FLINTA and sapphic sex parties popping up. Are you tempted by that scene to explore together ?
Joe had been before on her own. She told Leo about the experience and that’s what pushed them to actually go as a couple. Leo went without much of an idea of what to expect or whether they’d even like it.
Going there together turned out to be the interesting part for them. They ended up spending the whole evening having sex only together. This context genuinely reshaped their sex life since. “A year in, it’s normal for things to get a little less wild at home, more routine than the early days. The party brought some of that back. The days after this party were wild.”
Leo remembers walking around thinking it was even better than expected. “It’s fun, everyone’s doing their own thing. I was scared it would be too intense, but it wasn’t.”
What made it work, more than anything, was the absence of cis-het energy in the room. “It made me feel safer, I felt more drawn to explore. Everything felt consensual. We don’t want some random straight guy getting off on us. If it were another queer person, we’d be most likely into it.”
That first party was mostly about exploring something together as a couple. For the next one, they’re hoping to explore more with other people.
“We liked this opportunity but we would also love to be able to explore with a +1 outside of a party context.” Joe is sober and explains to me “Being sober sometimes adds a layer of difficulty. If everyone around me is not on the same page chemically, the gap widens fast. That’s why we also think that having the possibility to meet someone outside of a party, somewhere with more room to actually talk first, might work better. And not every party is a sex party either, so the intention isn’t always shared just because the setting looks similar.”
What would you say to another sapphic couple who wants to explore?
“I mean we’re still looking for this +1 experience so who are we to give advice ahah. But to a couple that hasn’t talked about it yet: we’d say it’s worth starting the conversation, even just for what it can add to a relationship. It can help you grow together and be a great addition to your sex life just to start communicating about it.” Joe has been on the other side of that silence before. “I’ve been in a relationship where the other person shut down the second I mentioned other desires. Of course you don’t want to hurt your partner, but this can also become a new safe space to build together.”
Leo puts it more directly. “Worst case, it pushes your partner away. But if there’s no room in your relationship to talk about your desires, that might say something about the relationship itself. Suppressing those thoughts and feelings isn’t the healthy option. Sharing doesn’t mean you’re going to act on it, you can figure it out together.”
And to a sapphic person who wants to approach a couple?
“Queer people are already nervous about making the first move as it is, so it’s understandably even more intimidating when there are two people to talk to instead of one but we’d say, trust your read. When you feel like you’re being flirted with in queer spaces, you’re usually right, you’re not the creep. Worst case, you flatter a couple and start a conversation between them.”
And yeah, this is an open call: Leo and Joe are still on the lookout in Berlin 👀