Sex and Grief
by Laura
I don’t have to ask if there’s a relationship between sex and grief. There is, in the same way it affects other appetites (Some people have to force themselves to eat after experiencing a loss, while others can’t seem to stop themselves. Some turn to alcohol, while others completely abstain.) It’s not surprising, if you think about it. But who would want to? It’s an uncomfortable topic, one I wasn’t sure I’d ever address. But it’s there.
I’ve seen it in movies. High Fidelity comes to mind, where an estranged couple reunites, at least physically, after the woman’s father dies. I’ve seen it on the internet, mostly from shy younger adults asking Yahoo Answers if they’re normal or weird because they’ve been banging like bunnies after their favorite relative died. And I’ve seen it in my own life. Sex and grief, while uncomfortable, hush-hush subjects, are intertwined.
For some, death puts the drive on hold. Maybe they think their loved one is watching them. Perhaps the thought of having fun, of experiencing pleasure when someone has recently died, is upsetting. Others seem to want to creep forward while barely living at all, taking no joy in food or sex or any other basic part of life. They’re stuck, temporarily, in the grave. None of these reactions seems odd to me.
And for others, death kicks the drive into high gear. This response also makes complete sense. In fact, there are probably too many justifications than are possible to list here. They may seek distraction, to escape. They may crave pleasure and comfort. There can be an urge to get as much out of life as possible, to get it while you can. They may want to make a connection with someone and hold on for dear life in a fragile world. There could also be a subconscious desire to repopulate the earth, a lose-one-make-one mentality. Still others may choose to engage in reckless behavior, even going so far as to cheat or have unprotected sex, because life seems short and meaningless, so who cares. It all makes perfect sense.
And it doesn’t even have to go one way or the other. Grief may affect you one way at one time in your life and differently at another. Your age and the loved one in question probably make a difference. I doubt anyone has studied these things, but they probably should. I wonder, for instance, if there is an actual spike in fertility associated with grieving. I would guess there is, but I’m not a scientist. The fact that, after 7 years of infertility, I was knocked up within 6 months of my father in law’s death makes me wonder. Even though stress is supposed to hinder fertility, it would make sense to me if the opposite were true in the case of grief. Again, the lose-one-make-one theory.
I can’t find any studies on the subject. If you google “grief” and “fertility,” you’ll find a lot of sites discussing the feeling of grief that comes with infertility. But mostly what you’ll find if you delve into the two subjects are sites talking about healthy and unhealthy ways to deal with grief (lay off the drugs and the reckless one night stands) and how to support your grieving partner (don’t push for sex). Frankly, I wouldn’t bother searching for info on the subject, if you haven’t already. There are lots of posts by women who’ve lost their cat, slept with their neighbor and are wondering if they’re slutty (kinda, yeah).
The main point here is that your sex life may be affected by grief, and that’s to be expected. Whether you want to or don’t want to, you’re probably very normal, so don’t beat yourself up over it. Just like with eating, if you aren’t doing it, try to nibble here and there until your appetite comes back, and if you’re doing entirely too much of it, slow down, focus on smaller portions and better quality ingredients. Things will return to normal eventually.
For more information about sex and grief and why you’re normal, click here… Even More Sex And Grief And Why You’re Normal
I had grief sex when I was 14. It was the most intense sex I ever had in my life. Unfortunately, it was with my 16 year-old brother at the time.
My brother and I were raised by a single mother who suffered from depression. When I was 13, she hanged herself in the parking garage of our apartment. My brother and I went to live with our aunt who was much older than our mother. She had married late in life to a man older than her and neither of them had kids. We were a major intrusion in their lives and they only grudgingly took us in. We lived in a bungalow that they had been renting out in their backyard away from the main house that we moved into. We learned to stay out of the main house as much as possible and keep out of the way of our uncle. We ate before he got home and did chores when he wasn’t around. We could literally go weeks without seeing or speaking to him. They were not bad or abusive people, but my brother and I knew that if the situation became intolerable for them, we would go into foster care and be separated. So we tiptoed around them and kept as unintrusive as possible.
My brother and I were both still grieving and stressed out. I lost my virginity to a boy because I wanted to feel loved by someone. He just used me for sex, then dumped me. I lashed out at my brother a lot because I was emotionally a mess, but still had to keep it together. He just took it. He always just took it. He was always very quiet and shy. He had a lot of pimples and was bullied on a lot. Sometimes I think I yelled at him because otherwise, he would just read a book and wouldn’t talk to me.
Then one night, I heard him crying softly in his bed and I just exploded at him. I don’t know why. His crying just enraged me. I was telling him to shut up when he suddenly grabbed me and started slamming my head into his mattress, telling me over and over to shut up. I thought he was going to kill me. Then we were both crying and hugging each other. It was like a switch got thrown and then we were having sex. I think it was his first time because I know he never had a girlfriend.
He didn’t rape me. Sometimes, I think it would have been easier to deal with if he had. But I was just as lost in it as he was. The entire time we were doing it, I never thought, what am I doing? That just never kicked in. It wasn’t like I had forgotten who he was. The lights were on and I could see who he was. I wasn’t attracted to him and I wasn’t all that pretty myself, my being overweight and kind of plain. It went on for a long time. One of us wold leave to go to the bathroom, then come back to bed and we would have sex again. I could have ended it by going back to my own bed instead of his. I don’t know why I didn’t.
Anyway, we woke up the next morning and had no idea what to say to each other. I took a shower and he washed the sheets. I went out when he was in the shower and went to a coffee shop. My mind felt like a snow-globe that someone had shaken and I felt that if I stayed very still and didn’t think, then things would become clear again. Then after about three cups of coffee, I went to the bathroom and there was a pay phone by the door which had a phone book. I looked up planned parenthood and called them to say I had unprotected sex and needed a prescription for the morning after pill. I went to their clinic talked to a councilor (whom I did not tell any details), got a prescription, filled it a pharmacy and that was that.
After that, my brother avoided me. He wouldn’t look directly at me or talk to me much. He enrolled in community college and got a part-time job to pay for it, so he was rarely around. I started seeing my uncle more than him. I was apprehensive that he was going to try to have sex with me again and I didn’t know how I was going to handle it if he did. I thought he might try to rape me for real if I turned him down, but he never tried to physically touch me again after that night. He enrolled full-time at the community college during the summer and I later found out that he was going to community college to get 15 college level credits so he could enlist in the Navy when he turned 17 without a high school diploma. He had been talking to a recruiter for months without anyone knowing about it. My aunt and uncle were quite happy when I told them he wanted to enlist. No suggestions about him finishing high school first. He took his oath in September and went off to Great Lakes for his training. He never came home and I haven’t seen him since.
That was over 20 years ago. I’ve never told anyone about this.
What a powerful story. So understandable, well written. One thing that immediately came to my mind as I read this was: What do girls in such a position do now in states where Planned Parenthood clinics have been eradicated? What would our “conservative establishment” advise this 14 year old girl that you were today? Deal with it?
I have never read anything like this..anywhere.
The abandonment you have suffered is immense..have you someone to tell this to that can help you deal with what happened in your young life?
I would like to note that I did try to reach the original poster, but my email bounced. After doing some research, it appears this kind of inappropriate relationship is the most common form of incest, and is often found in situations of serious parental neglect or abuse. If violence is not involved, it is not considered as damaging as I would have expected it to be, and apparently, many people go on to lead very satisfying lives. Still, I hope that Martina has spoken with someone about it, so she can be reassured that what happened had very little to do with sex, and everything to do with attempting to satisfy unmet emotional needs. A very sad situation.
Pretty sure she made a throw-away email account for this.
[…] topic of sex and grief was mentioned in a previous post (https://thegrievingatheist.com/2013/05/28/sex-and-grief/), but because it’s one of the most popular posts on the site, I thought it might be time to […]
Thanks for writing this, it helped. I 100% agree with this quote: “focus on smaller portions and better quality ingredients”
Since my brother past away in November 2014 I’ve went off sex
While it hasn’t even been a month since my brother died, I can’t bring myself to masturbate. I felt somehow uncomfortable being naked for the first few days–for any reason. I didn’t shower.
I lost the love of my life after a 3 year relationship. She was my first love and it was so clear she didn’t love me. Somehow she convinced herself I didn’t love her either. I went to visit her one day after not seeing her for months and she was a glowing beacon. We touched arms, were intimate, and was as if we were a couple. It turns out she had a boyfriend and I immediately went into a deep, and sometimes suicidal bout of grief. How can a woman so easily brush aside a 3 year relationship? She tells me she owes everything she has to me, and says I wasn’t a bad person and sometimes she treated me unfairly. The problem was she hasn’t had any confidence and finally got a new job. I thought we would continue to grow together and be happy. Had I known my goal to give her confidence would’ve resulted in her leaving me entirely, I may have reconsidered my deep love for her and worked on the premise of friends. I spent countless hours on her resumes, language skills, being assertive in regular daily life. It pangs to think that a job is what makes a person so replaceable. Our entire history a simple stepping stone to make her “happy” with some guy who has no idea the amount of progress we’ve made together.
She used me on multiple levels, and it hurts so much I cry randomly, can’t sleep, and not eating. The last 3 days I’ve eaten only french fries and my stomach churns in hunger. It feels like complete loneliness. My kindred spirit gone, any hopes of us vanished. What I would give to have her back. I’ve been going through this agony for about a week now and have had strong sexual desires for her. So much so to the point of a regular picture of her causing extreme sexual attraction to the point of masturbation. Sex is one of my love languages, as is deep care and to provide. If I do not feel my significant other is genuinely interested in sex, it is very difficult to want to have sex with them. The best time we had sex she was genuinely interested in it, and we went a long time. She squirted and got embarrassed, but I loved every second of it. We loved each other then, even if hers was only superficial.
A word of advice for women, do not assume your man does not love you. If he shows you loving affection and you just sit there and do not reciprocate, it shows him you are not on the same level. Even if you are not in the mood, give even a slight gesture that you appreciate his act of love. Do not ever assume it is fake until actual proof supports that assumption. It got to the point she would lay there as I kissed her, and would push me away trying to make sexual advances. Some men, like myself, wont waste their time with a woman who isn’t reciprocating love. This means women who are just wanting sex to keep their partner entertained, or the false belief that men need sex in order to function regularly. These women may have dated a guy who used them for sex. In my case, my ex told me her previous boyfriend only wanted sex. But do not use that relationship as a gauge for all men in a relationship. Whenever I was upset with my ex she would make sexual advances, but what I really wanted was for her to tell me she loved me.
I’m in a later phase of grief, it’s been about one week but heavily researching, consulting those I trust, and seeing counseling. I encourage anyone going through grief with strong sexual desires to just let it happen. When feeling the urge, just masturbate and be very conscious about what is going on in your mind. Do not feel guilty. Realize sex is probably one of your love languages and it is your way of coping to find hope. Part of the issue with grief is considering all the things you could have and should have done. The truth is likely the one you grief over also cares about you. I believe grief is a very core feeling that often reflects your own self worth. As someone highly motivated by someone I love, missing that is causing me to reconsider how I found motivation. As a career-pursuing educator, I am motivated by those around me on a regular basis. While you will never get back the relationship you had with the loved one that has been lost, you will discover new things in others you meet. I am stronger after my first love, and as much as I would easily take her back, I need to go out with confidence and meet someone who deserves reciprocated love.
To conclude, always communicate with your partner. Clarify that you understand each other well and if something changes, to address that change. As uncomfortable as it is, talk about previous relationships. Get down to the very core of who this person is based on their previous relationships. It is hard because your angel is only for you, but the fact is, especially dating older people, there may be emotional trauma effecting your partner and relationship in a negative way. You should understand the one you love, especially if they’ve been loved before, is affected by their previous relationship as are you. Learn about each other and establish a deep connection.
Fellow genuine, strong, human spirits in grief, I wish you the strongest love imaginable.