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Was bedeutet ihm Sexualität mit Ihnen?

Google translates this as

What does sexuality mean to you?

but it skips the meaning of "ihm".

I have an idea that this sentence means something like

To him, what does sexuality mean with them?

What do you think?

Sentence is taken from the article Wie kann ich meinen Freund zu einem Dreier überreden? in the Zeit magazine.

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Was bedeutet ihm Sexualität mit Ihnen?

What does (having) sex with you mean to him?.

Was – subject

bedeutet – predicate

ihm – dative object

Sexualität – predicative (nominative object)

mit Ihnen – prepositional object: mit+dative

Google translate stumbled across the two datives, it does not know about prepositions which take the dative, it seems. You stumbled across Ihnen, which is a formal you, not them. You can tell by the caps I.

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  • The problem (not with your answer, but with the original sentence) is that Sexualität does not mean Geschlechtsverkehr, nor does sexuality mean sexual intercourse.
    – fdb
    Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 18:48
  • It's an euphemism, and often used this way.
    – Janka
    Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 19:23
  • I would call it a barbarism, but maybe I have read too much Foucault.
    – fdb
    Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 19:26

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