Everyone knows the power of makeup sex to sand down the remaining rough edges and offer a soothing balm of acceptance after painful breaks in relationships.

Yet, rarely do we consider sexual intimacy as the transformative healing force in dealing with the overwhelming grief that comes with death.

It hadn’t really occurred to me until recently when I was lost in the grievous regrets upon my father’s death and found myself reticent to tap into my own libido. Many of us are not skilled in the grieving process, and it can seem incompatible with sexual desire, even disrespectful of the loss itself. And yet, there is something deeply primeval in the connection between making love and death, as though all the procreative forces that have ever been contained in the act come together as a shield, protecting us from death’s promise while holding us firmly to the ground of life.

In fact, the raw emotional content of grieving death is some of the most powerful fuel you can offer to your sexual fire. Grief strips away pretense, so arriving at the naked vulnerability that passionate sex is steeped in is close at hand.

We fall more deeply into the body’s hunger and experience feeling as a visceral truth, not a mental exercise.   Tapping into our sexuality at times of extreme grief strengthens our connection between the body and time itself. We can feel our mortality on a cellular level because we connect intimately.

As I have written about previously, inviting sound out of our sexuality is powerful and healing, but nowhere more so, than at this juncture of sexually healing our grief.

Allowing the moans and cries that are held inside to be released with pleasure is profoundly healing and balances our grief with gratitude.

Sadness, anger, fear and depression are all normal responses to death, but it is easy for those emotional energies to dominate our entire view of life. Sexual pleasure affirms life in the most essential of ways—knowing that even in our deepest sadness, there is the light of release and pleasure living inside us.

This past week, when I was bringing food over to some friends deep in the throes of grieving the death of their beautiful daughter, I had an urge to include some Good Clean Love oil and lubricant in the bag. I didn’t because I was afraid they would feel, as I had, that encouraging sexuality would somehow disrespect their loss. But now I wish I had risked it, because loving each other deeply and viscerally is the cure to what breaks our heart.

Grief heals through the body and nowhere more deeply than in the courageous act of making love.

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Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Bryan Brenneman/Flickr