Essays

November 14, 2024

In Praise of Post-Divorce Sex

Photo by Sonja Lekovic

By: Amelia Edelman

The first time I had sex during the strange year of my marriage ending, it was with a woman whom I’ll call Annie (all names have been changed in this piece to protect the havers of good, bad, mind-blowing, and mediocre sex alike). She and I met at an iconic queer bar in my then-new hometown of Nashville. She was a beautiful, witty, tough preacher’s kid — a “PK,” she rattled off blithely, my Yankee brain having zero clue what that meant. We talked, we laughed, and in her bed later on, she held me down and told me when to come. I was smitten, to say the least. 

I had been honest with Annie about my marital situation from the get-go, but it wasn’t until the end of our second night together that I blurted, “I’m a mom; I have a toddler.” She grinned and said, “I know.” I was immediately terrified that the reason she knew this was somehow because of my vagina — that it was forever marred in some way by birth and stitches two years prior. But she drew me closer and whispered, “I Googled you.” Well then. We kept going, and my thankfully non-mauled vagina has never been the same.

I’m far from alone in finding something remarkable — like a new lease on life — within a post-divorce sexual experience. In fact, a relatively unscientific poll of my 5.5K Instagram followers showed 76 percent of women reporting post-divorce sex as more satisfying than the sex they were having during their marriage.

“When my ex blew up our marriage, it was sudden and heartbreaking,” says Mary, a writer and mother who has been through one divorce and one annulment. “I had a good friend at the time who kept coming over to check on me. I had never thought of him romantically. But the one night he kissed me, it was like, crazy fireworks. And then we couldn’t get enough — like three times a day for months,” says Mary, who was living in the Midwest at the time. “I had never been insatiable before,” she says of her sex drive post-divorce. 

Similarly, Frances, a writer based in Los Angeles, says the thing that surprised her most about post-divorce sex was “that I wanted to have it!” This was a stark contrast to her previous marriage; she had assumed she didn’t like having sex and had zero libido. “I was wrong,” Frances says. Post-divorce sex helped her realize that “given the autonomy to actively choose a sexual partner, I can experience attraction, excitement, and joy from sex.”

For Rebecca, a small business owner in Tennessee, post-divorce sex was just…easier. She saw it as “a fresh start,” she says, where she could “actually say what I want and ask for what I want without all the baggage.” This also reflects the experiences of Tara, a writer based in Connecticut, who says post-divorce sex “was less performative, and more about pleasure.” 

Satisfying sex can be so many different things. It can be beyond our wildest dreams, or it can be just enough and nothing more.

Emma, from Florida, says that for her, sex after divorce was “like going back to college. But it is so much better because everyone knows what they’re doing. It’s like everyone shows off their skills.” Her advice to divorced folks: “Enjoy the buffet!”

There’s actually science behind post-divorce sexual awakening, with research showing that especially for older women, divorce can be a catalyst for sexual empowerment. Tara Suwinyattichaiporn, PhD, is both a divorced woman and an expert on this subject: She’s a Kinsey-certified sexologist. Her own divorce “was an intense, emotional rollercoaster,” she says, so she started focusing more on herself to start some sense of healing. “Masturbation is a great self-care practice to boost your sexual self-esteem!” Dr. Suwinyattichaiporn says. She began “pleasure mapping” to learn what she did and didn’t like. This is when you “massage different parts of your erogenous zones and note down what feels good and what doesn’t to create your own ‘Yes, no, maybe’ list,” Dr. Suwinyattichaiporn explains.

She had a great deal of success with this, and over time was able to learn enough about herself and her sexual desires that she found a much more fitting partner long-term. “The post-divorce era is like a rebirth,” Dr. Suwinyattichaiporn adds. “So it’s good to try new things, like being more verbal about your boundaries, consent, desires, and expectations.”

Of course, post-divorce sex isn’t all sunshine and multiple orgasms. “Give yourself grace when having sex with a new partner, because it may or may not be pleasurable,” says Dr. Suwinyattichaiporn. That dichotomy is normal and okay. After all, there are both major and minor pitfalls when it comes to having sex when you’re no longer tethered to a relationship. 

Sarah, a mom of one who works in nonprofit program management, says that her post-divorce sex life has, so far, been “about absolutely no emotional ties. I’ve felt nothing during it and just used it as a way to feel close to someone briefly.” She adds that it’s been “pretty unsatisfying for the most part,” but is hopeful that will change.

If there’s one through-line that’s for certain when it comes to post-divorce sex, it’s that the emotions surrounding it are real and wide-ranging. The week after I met and slept with Annie, I was headed to a writer’s residency to finalize a collection of older poems. Instead, I spent the whole time writing new poems — all about her. I had it bad. To her credit, Annie never ghosted me; she only gently but firmly drifted away, making it clear she wasn’t about to get tied down. And thank goodness, because I — a newly single mom in the midst of a dramatic custody battle with my ex — was in no position to be a reliable or even reciprocal partner at the time either. 

The first time I had sex after my divorce was actually finalized, it was in the parking garage of the courthouse where I got divorced. This was an unrelated coincidence; the courthouse is a central point in downtown Nashville and happened to be where my Tinder date had parked. He was far too young for me (this was prior to my learning the nuances of Tinder age-range settings) but I had swiped right on him for his James McAvoy lookalike profile pic and the interesting fact that he worked as a welder.

The conversation part of the date was a dud, and I was ready to call it. But when it came to parking garage sex in his truck, we were surprisingly well-matched. He was rough with me and I went home feeling deeply satisfied and free. It was entirely unlike my first time with Annie, when I had gone home floating, flustered, and short of breath. I couldn’t wait to see her again. I didn’t want to see this guy again, and I never did.

The unforgettable sexual experiences of my divorce year (and there were many) were two sides of the same coin. They were reminders of something I had completely forgotten during my marriage: that satisfying sex can be so many different things. It can be beyond our wildest dreams, or it can be just enough and nothing more. It can be a catalyst for something major, for Big Feelings. It can plant the mental seeds for a radical new type of relationship we’re not even remotely ready for yet. Or, it can just be a damn good time in a truck.

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