Is break-up sex all it’s made out to be?

Although post-relationship sex is often portrayed in film and TV as the hot and heavy, rip-your-clothes-off type sex that’ll leave your room looking like a hurricane has torn through it, the reality is often exceptionally less dramatic, and dramatically more depressing. Even as some sort of masochistic bid for feeling, the end result is just a self-destructive mess.

Here’s the thing: the sex itself might be passionate and exciting, but it’s the reasons we’re doing it and the psychological consequences that make things complicated. 

A 2020 study examined the effect that break-up sex had on its participants and why we’re all doing it in the first place. It determined that the three main motivating factors are relationship maintenance, hedonism, and ambivalence. As in: keeping things going, feeling real good and feeling uncertain. 

The study suggested, maybe unsurprisingly, that women tend to feel worse about themselves afterwards, while men just feel stoked to be having sex – with men more likely to be in the “hedonistic and ambivalent” category. 

One of the harder to admit reasons we sometimes get down and dirty with an ex-in-the-making is to prove our own desirability. In fact, a break-up can feel like the best time to prove yourself and fulfil your ex’s fantasies. Sometimes this is because it helps you both buy into the excitement of being together again. You might hope that if you show your ex that you’re the best sex they’re gonna get that maybe they’ll stick around – but this can leave you feeling humiliated and used if you’ve played all your sexual cards only to get folded in the end.

And that’s the crux of it. Even if the sex is good, and you feel wanted or fulfilled in the moment, there’s a whole horde of shitty feelings ready to chase you down afterwards. Regret, embarrassment, rejection and loneliness are just a few of the feelings that might hit you hard in the aftermath. 

You never need to feel shame or guilt for your sex life, but in the particular case of a break-up – a time that is already raw, messy and emotionally complicated – that one moment of pleasure often isn’t worth how it makes you feel afterwards.