When you break-up with a person, it doesn’t necessarily mean you never want to have sex with them again. In a lot of cases, you continue to consider that person pretty hot in the sack or a convenient way to get your needs met without having to jump back into the dating pool. There are actually a lot of reasons that people fall back in bed together after bringing their romantic relationship to a halt. But despite breakup sex often being better than makeup sex, current wisdom advises people to avoid backsliding.
Which sucks because, again, post-dating sex is hot.
Well thank god for science because proof now shows that standpoint isn’t entirely accurate. A study published in Springer’s journal Archives of Sexual Behavior shows that sex with an ex doesn’t impair the process of moving on, even if a person is still aching for their former partner. So folks who hold off because they worry it will lead to greater heartache may be missing out on a chance to fuck the pain away.
Researchers from Wayne State University, Western University, and the University of Toronto Mississauga conducted two separate studies. The first analyzed the daily experiences of 113 people who were dealing with a recent breakup. Then, two months later, those participants completed another online survey. The questions asked whether participants had any physical contact their former beloveds, how attached they remained to those people, and how they felt at the close of each day. In the second study, 372 people reported on their actual and attempted sexual contact with an ex and whether they were emotionally tied to them.
The survey findings did not show that hooking up with an ex prevented recovery from a break up on a daily basis or over the course of a two-month period. Most of the people surveyed had enough game to hit it again after pursuing an ex, and doing so did not influence how they got over the relationship. People who still pined for their exes were seen to seek out sex more often than others, possibly because they needed a connection or hoped to foster closeness. But even in these situations, resuming sex didn’t leave them in a state of depression or distress them. It actually led them to feel more positive.
“This research suggests that societal handwringing regarding trying to have sex with an ex may not be warranted,” says lead author Stephanie Spielmann of Wayne State University. “The fact that sex with an ex is found to be most eagerly pursued by those having difficulty moving on, suggests that we should perhaps instead more critically evaluate people’s motivations behind pursuing sex with an ex.”
Spielman acknowledges these findings to be exploratory and argues the need to study breakups over a longer period of time. Given what a huge impact severing a relationship can have on a person, the consequences to mental health are important and should be looked into fully.We are all in favor of increased research, but for now, we will take this recent study and show it to our exes…well, the ones we still want to get wild with anyway.
