When we think about having mind-blowing orgasms or opening up our relationships into ethical non-monogamy/polyamory, we don’t often think about all the grief we’re going to have to move through in order to get there.
We often only talk about grief when it comes to the death of a loved one (or a complicated one). But grief arises with any experience of loss: a breakup, a change in our identity or body, a shift in our sexual desire or fantasies, a broken healthcare system… these are just some examples of how grief can impact our sex lives.
Grief can be as frequent and fleeting an emotion as happiness or anger. Like all other emotions, the more we resist them the loud, stronger, and longer they get; the more we cling to them the harder it is to relinquish enough control to slip into the flow of the moment. Grief can be particularly tricky because it can be hard to believe it can be transformed when it feels so painful.
In my experience of sex therapy, grief requires acceptance of loss before we can make space for bringing in something new. Acceptance of loss does not mean we will never feel the grief again or that we are “okay” with the loss that has occurred. It means we acknowledge that something is gone and cannot return (or in some cases, it may return, but it is not present now).
Ritual can be a powerful way to help us accept the loss and feel a sense of closure or at least a gentle pause on the suffering of that loss. When someone dies, many people hold a service, funeral, or celebration of life to mark the end of that person’s life. When the loss is more abstract like the loss of an identity related to sexuality, gender, the body, or something else, we may need to be creative but ritual is still available to us. Sometimes the simple ritual of tears is enough.
Sometimes we will feel overwhelmed with grief during a joyful experience. For example, I have worked with many people who upon discovering their authentic sexual self feel immense grief for having lived their life until that point disconnected from their bodies. Or someone may feel deep compersion for their partner’s new found love while grieving the end of an era of quiet and comfortable monogamy. Grief and the loss it signals does not mean what you are gaining is bad or wrong, it simply means life is continuing– ever evolving and changing.
The best news is the more we grieve the more we grow our capacity for being in the moment. Presence is one of the greatest predictors of sexual satisfaction (as described in Peggy Kleinplatz’s research on extraordinary lovers). I think this happens because as we learn to accept the inevitability of loss from fleeting moments of happiness to more profound losses of loved ones, we can soften our grip on what we long to cling to (i.e., an orgasm, intimate gaze, or sensual caress) and begin to trust that these extraordinary moments of embodied pleasure will come and go, come and go, again and again and again.
tynan rhea 