ABC: Three-Way, Alone, It's All Okay
Quick, what are two things that you didn't want to know -- ever?
How about that porn gets Joy Behar “going” and that 23 percent of Americans have had a three-way sexual experience?
These tidbits are now common knowledge, thanks to ABC's The View.
During the January 14 broadcast, View moderator Whoopi Goldberg brought up a survey that indicated 23 percent of Americans had participated in threesomes. The conversation quickly turned into a version of Truth or Dare (without the dare) when the women asked each other and audience members if they fell into the 23 percent mentioned in the survey. For the record, the women of The View say they have not participated in three-ways.
Barbara Walters pointed out to her co-hosts that “also these people watch porn movies, as I recall, with their mate,” which gave Behar the opportunity to reveal she watches pornography alone because she's “too shy to watch it with someone” and “it's embarrassing.”
Apparently it's not so embarrassing that she can't talk about on national television.
The ladies never discussed the moral implications of watching porn or engaging in three-ways, effectively condoning both behaviors as perfectly acceptable forms of sexual expression.
Here's the transcript:
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Moving along, so now we were looking at a survey that says 23 percent of Americans have had a three-way.
BARBARA WALTERS: A ménage a trois?
GOLDBERG: Yes, A ménage a trois. A three-way.
ELISABETH HASSELBECK: By the way…
WALTERS: A quarter of the country?
GOLDBERG: 23 percent of Americans have been in some sort of three-way.
WALTERS: Can we take an informal poll right here?
JOY BEHAR: Ask the audience…
SHERRI SHEPHERD: Have you had a three-way, Barbara?
WALTERS: Thank you Sherri. See that's why I love Joy. She goes to the audience 'cause she doesn't want to answer the question.
SHEPHERD: You didn't answer the question.
WALTERS: Let's do the audience first.
WHOOPI: Who is gonna tell us really? There is nobody…
SHEPHERD: I had a three-way. I did! Not me. I'm imitating you guys.
UNDETERMINED: They're not going to tell us.
HASSELBECK: I can tell who has.
WALTERS: Will anybody in the audience admit it? Nobody in this audience…
SHEPHERD: If you can tell, Barbara looks like she may have.
HASSELBECK: This guy right here, he's got a three-way face. That lady up there – with the blue scarf.
SHEPHERD: What's a three-way face?
GOLDBERG: I'm scared to ask.
HASSELBECK: She looked a little guilty of a three-way.
WALTERS: Has anybody here on this panel had a three-way?
BEHAR: I have not because I'm not going to fake it for two people. One is enough.
[Applause]
SHEPHERD: But now, Whoopi – don't point to me. I wanted to ask Whoopi because you're always saying you know you're good and you know, when you have --
WHOOPI: I do believe I told you I'm a one-person person --
SHEPHERD: You did say you were a one-person person.
GOLDBERG: -- so that question is irrelevant for me. Moving on.
WALTERS: How about you?
SHEPHERD: I want to ask Elisabeth.
HASSELBECK: I'm in the 80 percent that has not.
WALTERS: Okay, we're down to you Sherri.
SHEPHERD: I have never had a three-way.
BEHAR: So Barbara, you say you have not? I don't remember what you said.
WALTERS: No.
SHEPHERD: All those men you talk about? You've never had a three-way?
WALTERS: What do you mean, all these men?
SHEPHERD: You've dated a lot of really big men.
WALTERS: I've been around a long time but that doesn't mean—You've had more experience in your short years probably than I have.
SHEPHERD: Oh, no. I don't know, Barbara.
GOLDBERG: This one was locked up.
HASSELBECK: You guys are just having your own conversation completely.
GOLDBERG: Isn't it kind of crazy though, it means people that you --
WALTERS: We'll have lunch. We'll do lunch.
GOLDBERG: Not each other. But the interesting thing is that you know, 51 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats have actually done this, according to this.
UNDETERMINED: Really?
GOLDBERG: Yep.
WALTERS: They've watched porn movies.
BEHAR: You mean out of the 23 percent?
GOLDBERG: Yes. These are the byproducts of everything else.
WALTERS: But also these people watch porn movies, as I recall, with their mate.
GOLDBERG: And more than half of the people --
BEHAR: That's ok.
HASSELBECK: I don't like that.
GOLDBERG: -- who attend church consider themselves sexually adventurous.
HASSELBECK: Does porn really help women though? Because I feel like it just sets up this like, bizarre expectation, I don't know I never --
BEHAR: What is that they have the whole warm-up and foreplay and you go out to dinner and you talk, you light candles --
GOLDBERG: That's only in sitcoms.
BEHAR: Not the ones where it's a gynecological test pattern. That's what -- men love those.
WALTERS: So you've watched these with Steve?
BEHAR: Well I watch them alone. I'm too shy to watch it with someone. It's embarrassing. But by myself, it gets you going and then you say come on in!
Colleen Raezler is a research assistant at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the
