Sex After Grief : Navigating Your Sexuality After Losing Your Beloved

Sex is complicated enough when it’s easy—but when we’re in grief, it’s especially mysterious and confusing. How do we nurture ourselves as sexual beings when we’re grieving the death of a partner? Why does taking care of ourselves sexually even matter at a time when we’d rather hide under the covers and wail? What do we do with those sexual feelings that arise despite our misery? What about guilt? How do we know when it’s time to open ourselves to a new sexual relationship, whether it’s a friend with benefits or a new love connection? And how do we do it?

A warm, candid approach to hard challenges

There are many books about grief, but they almost never mention sex, and if they do, they just skim the surface, and usually in a negative way. Sex After Grief is the first book to address sex and grief together and treat sex as a normal, positive, life-affirming part of emerging from grief.

Everyone’s experience with sex and grief is different. Some jump into a new relationship quickly while others withdraw from intimacy. Sex after Grief debunks hurtful myths about sex and dating and helps you discover how to reclaim your sexuality in your own way, on your own timeline.

A revolutionary, sex-positive grief book

Originally published in 2019, Joan Price, the top expert on senior sex, describes her own experiences as a widow since 2008, when she lost the love of her life to cancer. She shares her own raw grief journey, her sexual reawakening (and the many stumbles along the way), her attempts to dip back into the dating pool, along with excellent advice on how to handle each step.

Joan Price’s revelatory approach to sex after loss includes excerpts from many other grievers’ personal stories. These narratives from folks of all genders and orientations who have grieved have much in common, yet also much that’s different. Some jumped into sex quickly. Some took years. Some withdrew from sexual possibility. Some shared their bodies but not their hearts. As these people open their private lives and thoughts, you’ll come away realizing that no one is wrong, and no choice is defective or shameful.

Special bonus: Purchase the newly updated 2024 edition of Sex After Grief and, by request, I’ll include a free copy of the 2019 edition to donate to a library, grief counselor, or therapist, for example.