Two people have a coffee in a downtown bar. Meanwhile, the following conversation arises:
We’re done, and it’s final. We were both going crazy.
Friend, you just told me that you were together last night.
Yes, but it was just sex, nothing more…
Having sex again with an ex-partner after the breakup of the relationship seems to be a fairly common practice. It could even be one of the experiences that are expected to happen. It is even striking why if it is “just sex” many people turn to their exes having so many possibilities at their fingertips, for example through dating applications.
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A team of researchers examined the motivational factors and emotional consequences of post-breakup sexual activity among university students (Moran et al., 2020), something widely talked about and disseminated in popular media, but which has not been as studied in the field. scientific field.
They focused specifically on breakup sexual relationships, that is, those that occur in the immediate period following breakups. Because? Compared to sexual relationships that can occur between people who have been separated for 6 months or a year, relationships that occur after a breakup have different emotional components, especially considering that breakups can be very distressing.
Methodology
The researchers first asked 212 college students who had had “breakup” sex to report how they felt about their relationship before and after the event. Participants also reported how they felt about themselves after breakup sex and predicted how they would feel if they had breakup sex again in the future.
Findings
Moran and her colleagues found no significant differences between females and males when it came to the quality of their relationship before breakup sex, having breakup sex while still in love with their partner, and having sexual intercourse. breakup “to show the other person what they are missing.”
But the researchers also found that men tended to be more receptive to sex after a breakup compared to women, regardless of their partner’s attractiveness or who initiated the breakup. Additionally, women were more likely than men to report feeling worse after having sex after the breakup.
Why do people reoffend?
Subsequently, to better understand the motivations behind engaging in a sexual breakup, the researchers asked another 92 college students to think about the reasons why a person would have sex with a former romantic partner. After the responses were independently reviewed, a list of 52 reasons was compiled.
Next, a separate sample of 585 college students reported how often each of the 52 reasons had led them to have breakup sex in the past. Compared to women, men were more likely to report having breakup sex for hedonistic or ambivalent reasons, such as because they missed sexual activity, because they were bored, or “to tell people they did it.”
Deciding to have breakup sex is a difficult time in the relationship and can disproportionately benefit men, the researchers said.
There is still much to learn about breakup sex. This approach to the topic from the scientific field had the limitation that the participants were mainly young white adults.
Understanding how participation in breakup sex affects each individual, whether this represents a challenge when establishing a new relationship, and how other people outside the relationship perceive such practices or behaviors are just some of the questions that arise. They emerge after this research and open the way to new studies on the subject.
Bibliographic reference: Moran, J.B., Wade, T.J., & Murray, D.R. (2020). The psychology of breakup sex: Exploring the motivational factors and affective consequences of post-breakup sexual activity. Evolutionary Psychology: An International Journal of Evolutionary Approaches to Psychology and Behavior, 18(3), 1474704920936916. https://doi.org/
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