Sex and Grief: No one grieves in the same way

Bima Loxley shares her experience of grief to mark Grief Awareness Week (2 – 8 December 2021)

Two things that I am passionate about and am not-so-coincidentally trained in are sex and grief.

What is a coincidence, however, is that the one year anniversary of the death of my sister falls within this year’s National Grief Awareness Week.

Only 3 weeks after her death, I felt compelled to hop straight back onto my sex education social media page and post about what I had learned so far with regards to sex, relationships and grief. It seemed so apt to help others who must be asking the same questions I was because after all, we are never taught about these topics and if we were, they were never spoken about together.

I love to bust myths, break taboos and I love to normalise what society says isn’t normal! So what was my main takeaway from her death?

How you grieve, however long it takes and whatever you need to do to help yourself, this is all normal! Grief is not rational, nor is it linear.

So, how can we relate grief to your sex and relationships and how to help ourselves?

Listen to your body and listen to your mind.

Some people’s arousal and desire completely switch off and others’ are amplified. Yes, that’s correct, death can make us horny, and no, that doesn’t make you a bad person. In death we seek life; we have the urge to live for the life that is lost, we don’t want to waste another minute and we want to feel good when all we feel is bad, so it makes complete sense if our bodies desire the endorphin kicking activity that is sex.

If there is any way that we can have a grief reprieve, even for a moment, we should take it and not feel guilty for it. It doesn’t mean we’re not bereaved, it just means we’re taking care of our mental and physical health.

But of course, we can also go the other way; we can turn in on ourselves and even feel repulsed at the idea of sex. Some might even turn away from their relationships, romantic or platonic, and cause ruptures. This also makes sense for folk to do, simply because death can and does isolate us.

Bereavement is subjective and we all grieve in our own way, so when others around us look like they’re doing OK, this can be a turnoff. It could make us feel sad or angry or guilty or jealous, a whole world of confusing emotions.

When we lose someone, the impact of death envelopes us.

I certainly became very confused and couldn’t comprehend the loss of someone who was in her prime, but death also smacked me in the face and said, “Hey! Don’t stop now, you have your own life!”

This of course was just my personal experience and was quite the opposite for other family members.

At first, I thought something was wrong with me, but with grief counselling and my own training I started to feel self-compassion; I remembered that no one grieves in the same way and I shouldn’t feel guilty for my reactions, so neither should anyone else.

But what if I don’t like my body’s natural reaction to death?

My first question would be, why do you not like it? Is this because of a societal message or is this simply affecting your life negatively?

As a trainee sex and relationship therapist, I was taught that no amount of sex or solo sex can do us harm unless of course, it is negatively affecting our daily life.

For example, if you cannot get on with work, daily commitments or social activities (however that looks for you in a pandemic) then maybe you need to temper down your sexual activity a bit, which of course if you need help with this then you can look for a sex and relationship therapist.

If your reaction to death is the opposite, however, in that you cannot love, you cannot connect, you cannot be intimate, know that this is also OK.

We cannot pressure our bodies and minds into doing something we do not want; consent and boundaries don’t just go outwards, they go inwards too. Bereavement can be traumatic and we do not want to add further trauma by putting ourselves through something as vulnerable as sex.

So maybe we have to look a little deeper and look into why we don’t want to have sex or put our all into a relationship, old or new.

• Is it because of the grief?
• Is it because we just are not that into them anymore?
• Is it because we want to be alone and prioritise ourselves for once?

Whatever your reason, this is something you could discuss with your journal, a good friend or, of course, a good therapist.

I want to add, however, that sometimes asking these questions to ourselves may not get a clear answer. This may be because it’s still too early.

How do we know if it’s too early?

We do not.

There is no timeline, no numbers, no ticking clock telling us that we need to come out of the fog that is death and grief.

So be kind to yourself in this journey, do not allow internal or external pressure to hurry things up, to get back to “normal”. But know this, the time will come, you will see the light and you will find yourself again.

It may be a different you, but that is OK.

Grief never leaves us, we just learn to live with it. So embrace it, let it envelop you and if you feel able, learn from it as I did.

A final note for you, my dear readers who are grieving, is to reach out to someone. It can be whoever you feel most comfortable with, but sometimes we have to make the first move.

People never know what to do or say with those who are grieving, so they tend to say nothing at all. It is not because they don’t care; it is because they don’t want to hurt you. What they don’t know is that we need normality and we don’t want to always talk about the loss.

To those who know someone who is grieving; be patient, don’t take things personally, reach out, tell them you’re there, ask what they need and listen!