Why women feel worse after breakup sex

Why women feel worse after breakup sex

Canela Lopez 30.08.2020

Breakups come along with a flurry of emotions packed into a small period of time, which can be pretty confusing. It’s no surprise that a little breakup sex may occur in the heat of it all. But sometimes, it can really hard to pinpoint exactly why we do it.

A team of researchers put together a paper published in Evolutionary Psychology, which includes two studies on how men and women differ in their approach to breakup sex — which they defined as sex with your ex two weeks or less after breaking up — and how it makes them feel when everything is said and done.

They found that both genders have breakup sex for vastly different reasons.

The first study in the paper surveyed 212 college students in the Northeast, who were predominantly white and almost entirely heterosexual, and asked how they felt after having breakup sex.

Overall, women typically felt better about their relationship but worse about themselves after breakup sex, while men felt better about themselves.

“It is due to women being more likely than men to express regret over having a one-time sexual encounter as prior research by others has documented,” Dr. T. Joel Wade, Professor of Psychology at Bucknell University and coauthor of the paper, told Insider.

The second study asked a group of 292 college students, predominantly white and entirely heterosexual, to choose from a list of what motivated them to engage in breakup sex and rank the reasons.

According to Wade, men typically had breakup sex for “hedonistic reasons” — like “wanting to feel good, the opportunity occurred, missed having sex, and wanting to satisfy their needs.”

Women, on the other hand, tended to do so for more emotional and loving reasons.

The research hypothesizes there is an evolutionary aspect to why men and women differ in their decisions to have breakup sex. The evolutionary theories for breakup sex that were explored included doing so a mate-retention tool (way to entice your partner to stay) and as a mate-coping strategy (way to give the possible dissolution of your relationship).

While evolution was the main focus of this set of research, the authors said social factors like sexism could also play a role.

One limitation of the data was the sample groups used for the studies. Both groups were predominantly White and almost entirely heterosexual.“The data cannot speak to LGBTQ+ individuals. It is hard to say how queer people would engage,” Moran, lead author of the paper, told Insider. BUSINESS INSIDER.IN

GENDER DIFFERENCE: Men have breakup sex for hedonistic reasons, while women do so for emotional and loving reasons, a new study claims