Breakup sex refers to having sex with a lover who was once in love. A study of 17-24 year olds found that 27% of participants reported having sex with each other within two years of ending a relationship. Often after an acrimonious breakup, you want to ease the pain and keep having flashbacks of how good it was when you were together to the point where it hurts so much that you want to get the other person back and can't bear to end the relationship. Of course, everyone's breakup sex experience may be different, depending on their reasons for having breakup sex and the experience they want to have.
What is breakup sex?
Breakup sex is when you have sex with someone you were once in a relationship with, and it's almost commonplace for both young and old to have breakup sex. If you're having breakup sex, it's a sign that the romantic spark or emotional connection you had in a relationship is gone, or that one of you doesn't want to end the relationship and draw the line just yet. Another study has shown that people who initiate a breakup are just as likely to have post-breakup sex as those who are broken up with. Indicating that the reasons for breakup sex occurring are complex and may have multiple causes.
What are the reasons for breakup sex?
1. Emotions are still warm
Even if you decide to break up, the once deep bond is not so easy to disappear in a short period of time. People usually feel sadness and pain after a breakup, and the negative emotions can make you reflect on whether you really want to end the relationship or not, and if you are not very determined, you may reach out to your ex again. Whereas continuing to communicate and engage with your ex helps to alleviate this negativity, you may not want to end the relationship easily, and the continuation of this emotion may then lead to a sexual relationship. If you put more into the relationship, the less you will want to end it, which is called a "sunk cost" in psychology.
2. Satisfying physiological needs
Additionally, for many people, sex brings fun and pleasure and is a normal biological need, and even if there is an emotional breakup, the physical attraction between you can still lead to impulsive sexual relations. And as you want to fulfill this physical need, you subconsciously look for familiarity that will make you feel safer and more secure, which leads to a much higher chance that you will have sex with your ex and be more likely to have breakup sex.
3. Filling the psychological void
If you're used to having a partner around, it's inevitable that you'll feel lost and lonely when you come home to an empty room after a breakup and see that all the familiar things have been moved out. Although these feelings will fade with time and wait until you get involved with someone new later on, which will more than likely take you out of your last relationship, until then, lost sex will give you a psychological relief by reducing your feelings of loneliness and emptiness psychologically.
4. Fear of the future and reluctance to let go of the past
After falling out of love, some people will be afraid of the uncertainty of the future emotional life, thus hoping to get some security through the breakup sex. Or perhaps they have experienced a failed relationship, resulting in a lack of confidence in their future selves, and gain affirmation of themselves through breakup sex. It could also be that you are obsessed and unrequited about the relationship, that you were once deeply in love with the other person, and that the other person used to be the most important part of your life, so you don't want to lose the other person, and you want to salvage or reaffirm the relationship through intimacy.
The benefits of breakup sex
There are two sides to everything, just like there are two sides to a coin, and lost love sex is no exception, and we should learn to look at it correctly. Let's start with what benefits breakup sex can bring?
Lost love sex can help you get out of the shadow of lost love faster and start a new relationship again. It takes time to end a relationship, it is not possible to cut it off, people usually need time to adapt to the sadness and loss in the phase of lost love, and breakup sex can release dopamine, oxytocin and other good hormones in the body, which can bring us a pleasant, euphoric feeling, reduce the sadness and other negative emotions, relieve the pressure, and help us feel better. In addition, breakup sex can help us affirm the good parts of our emotions, at least your relationship wasn't particularly bad, and the physical relationship wasn't the main reason you ended it, and you might be a little more confident and less self-consuming.
The downside of breakup sex
Of course, there are good sides to breakup sex and there are bad sides. Breakup sex may have bad effects both physically and psychologically, causing the relationship to become worse.
For example, having breakup sex may require that both of you should have basically the same motives and thoughts, otherwise it could lead to misunderstandings and hurt, and if one partner wants to get back together and the other only wants to have physical contact, it could create conflicts and clashes that could be painful for one or both partners. There is also the risk that if you are in regular contact and engagement with your ex for post-breakup sexual activity, it could lead to you becoming re-affiliated with the other person, which in turn is not conducive to you coming out of the relationship and not being able to face the issues between you straight away as you would want to start the relationship all over again. In addition, there are health risks. Having breakup sex without appropriate protection may also lead to contracting infectious diseases, which can seriously threaten the physical health of both parties, while women also run the risk of unwanted pregnancies, and abortions not only affect their physical health, but also cause psychological trauma.
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