I’ve never had sex with an ex. This experience seems to be common, and being as sentimental and stubborn as I am, it seems like something I would do – but I never really have. Apart from one ill-advised encounter with an ex-FWB in a sweaty closet at a Pride party, I’ve never gone back to once again fuck someone I had previously decided I wasn’t going to fuck anymore.
Oh, I’ve certainly thought about it. Whenever someone dumps me, I walk around in a haze of regret for at least a few weeks, daydreaming about running into my ex in public while looking absolutely scintillating, and earning an invitation back to their place for comfortingly familiar sex that will inevitably lead us back into a comfortingly familiar relationship. But this never happens, and in the long run, I never really want it to.
Having sex with your ex is playing with fire. If you broke up, there was always a reason – and if you feel the desire to find ’em and fuck ’em again, it’s worth pondering: what was the reason you broke up, and is that reason still relevant?
It may not be. For example, I’ve broken up with people because I was in love with someone else and it was messing up my relationship, or because they were dating someone who decided they didn’t want to be polyamorous. Both of these are circumstantial roadblocks: they posed a problem at the time but may well have melted away in the intervening months or years. These are people with whom I might be tempted to rekindle things if I ever bumped into them on the subway or at a party, because – why not? If the attraction and compatibility are still there but the problems aren’t, what’s stopping us from giving it another go?
But that’s not why most breakups happen. Most breakups happen because you came up against some kind of fundamental incompatibility, or there was a big betrayal, or you just weren’t feelin’ it anymore. In those situations, it’d be tougher to justify a redo. Sure, your ex’s body and mind might still thrill you, or inspire a nostalgic frisson, but pursuing that half-extinguished spark is often more trouble than it’s worth.
Of my 30 lifetime sexual partners, 28 are people I’m no longer sleeping with. Of those 28, 10 are people I would happily fuck again if the opportunity presented itself – but that’s unlikely to happen. 5 are people I would consider fucking again, but we would have to have some heavy discussions and one or both of us would need to make some serious amends before I would feel comfortable jumping back into things with them. The remaining 13 are people I just don’t have any desire to be intimate with ever again – either because they hurt me too badly, or I’ve lost all attraction I once felt for them, or we just aren’t sexually compatible, or all of the above. I’d be curious to know what your ratio is, if you feel like sharing!
So, is sex with an ex a good idea? I think it’s a situation where you’d have to have a lot more pros than cons to justify even attempting it. Sex with someone who knows your body, who you feel comfortable around, and who you don’t have to explain yourself to is very tempting – but I think, in most cases, it’s not worth the complications and tricky feelings it could bring up. Whether I dumped them or they dumped me, I’d be verrrry hesitant to get back in bed with an ex. That’s not to say you should never do it, but be careful with your heart, okay?
This post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.