SEX With An EX: Watch Out For Repeating OLD Mistakes

By E.J. Gordon

A friend once said to me: “You’re not truly done with a boyfriend until you’ve hooked up once post-break up.”

Of course, this is a ridiculous rule with a million examples of it not being true, but you have to admit, the moment you read that, an ex/sex episode popped up in your head. And the memory very likely had an ending with you saying to yourself: “What the fuck did I just do??”

What is it about sex with an ex that’s so appealing? Why do we go back to the scene of the crime? Why can’t we just trust ourselves and know that the relationship ended for a good reason? And most importantly, why is EX/SEX so hot?

To begin with, there are two sides to this conversation: HIS and HERS.

HIS: When I discussed this topic with a few men, I received VASTLY different responses than when I spoke to women. The male responses fell into two categories:

1. Naughty:  One man pulled out a camera with an ex and asked if he could take pictures. Another man had some very lusty comments, but it came down to this:

“Since they are exes, I know I don’t want to date them, so I can be super dirty and not really care what she will think about me afterward or if I’ll scare her away.”

2. Convenience: “I got her into bed before, so I figured I could do it again.”

HERS: The women’s reasons were completely different:

1. Nostalgia:  So many emotions are attached to sex, and sleeping with an ex, especially one that you were really in love with or lost your virginity to, can feel like coming home again.

“I ran into my high school boyfriend when I moved back home after college. It was only one night, but it brought back so many memories, and we laughed and reminisced.”

2. Romance:  Woman have movies in their heads about their relationships.

Every EX-pericence has a story with a beginning, middle, and end. If a relationship didn’t end well, they will happily figure out a way to change the story.

“I dated this guy for two years in college. We had a nasty break-up and didn’t speak or look at each other for a year. At the end of senior year, he called me to say good luck and good-bye. He’d heard that I was headed to New York.  He told me that he was staying in the Midwest, and he wanted to mend fences and see me one more time before the end of the school year. We went out and wound up in bed, of course. Then we said good-bye. It was a perfect ending.”

3. Wanting Him Back: Women have a habit of using sex as a weapon to get what they want. In marriage, it sometimes manifests itself as a sexual embargo. With an ex, it’s used as bait.

“He ended it, and I was not happy. I called him late night once to see what he was doing. I asked him if he wanted to come over, and he did. We had a great night, and I was hoping it meant he wanted to be with me again, but aside from calling me sometimes late at night, we never did get back together.”

4. Control: One woman talked about how she wanted to end things on her terms.

“I wanted to be the one to NOT call him afterwards.”

5. Needing to Get Some without Racking up Her Numbers: In the movie “What’s Your Number?” — Anna Faris’s character realizes that if she gets to #20 on her sex partner list, she’ll have to admit she’s a slutty little whore, and she’ll never get married or be happy. So, she revisits each partner hoping one of them will turn out to be “The One” so she can head off to marital bliss with only 19 sexual partners. Now, most of us don’t take a number limit that seriously or go to those lengths to avoid them, but every woman has concerns about her number. I’ve never heard anyone flaunt her number, unless it was a married woman with a list of only ONE.

“I was sooooo needing some company, and since we’d already had done it, I knew I could be with him without adding to my list, you know?”

6. Being Drunk: We all know what alcohol does to our judgment.

“I was at an after-hours …”  (Enough said. Does anything good ever happen after 2 a.m. — aside from childbirth…)

With all of the men and women in the above examples, the EX–capades were all B.M. (Before Marriage). However, when you factor in divorce, you’re dealing with a totally different beast. Exposure to the kids and giving them unwarranted hope can be very tricky.

When it comes to divorce, break-ups are way more complicated, so EX-SEX could have a much worse consequence then just waking up with a bang-over.

But as for EX-SEX in general, it’s concerning how different the men and the women viewed their past, because for all of these women, there was probably a man who was falling in the Naughty or Convenience category. It certainly makes me look at my past post break-up hook-ups with a different perspective.

My husband said to me once: “We have such great sex. Don’t you think if we ever got divorced, we would still do it sometimes?”

I told him that for me to want to divorce him, things would have to end so badly, that I would probably hate him too much for me to have sex with him again. Unless, maybe, I ran into him at an after-hours …