Why mutual hatred can turn to irresistible passion
With shattering consequences – as TV’s Dr Foster discovered
ACLIENT recently sat in front of me in floods of tears, consumed with guilt, shame and self-loathing. The source of her distress: that she had, the previous week, experienced the most passionate and physically fulfilling sex imaginable with her soon to be ex-husband, and couldn’t forgive herself for it.
So, if it had been so incredible, why the remorse? Because this was what i describe as hate sex, shared with the man who had left her a year ago for the woman he had just announced he intended to marry instead.
And however wild, hot and exciting it might have all felt in the heat of moment, this had been fuelled by a complicated mix of anger, betrayal and revenge — leaving behind an emotional hangover which she couldn’t see a cure for.
As a behavioural psychologist i have helped clients deal with the devastating fallout that often follows this kind of highly-charged encounter with someone they once loved.
And let’s be clear here — hate sex is not make-up sex, which is something that takes place within the boundaries of a still loving relationship following conflict, with the purpose of putting that argument behind you.
This is sex that’s about anger and revenge, not reconciliation.
hearing this woman — an attractive, 38-year-old solicitor — describe how she watched her ex swagger away from the encounter, clearly feeling more powerful than ever, was horribly familiar.
Sexually satisfied, and with his ego pulsating thanks to the proof that the woman he had betrayed was still attracted to him, how else would he have felt other than fantastic?
Meanwhile, she was left with the awful realisation that every painful step she had taken in previous months in her attempts to rebuild her life had been for nothing. She was right back where she started, feeling vulnerable, wretched and horribly out of control. Remind you of anyone? Viewers of the hit BBC show, Doctor Foster, will know my client’s real-life situation imitates the on-screen shenanigans of the show’s tortured heroine, Dr Gemma Foster. in this week’s episode, (aired on Tuesday) in a plot twist as old as the hills but perennially intriguing, Gemma shared a passionate, violent-at-times romp with ex, nasty Simon.
THIS was three minutes of television that became sexually charged in such a twisted way it made for uncomfortable viewing, to say the least.
At the start of the scene, Gemma clearly had sexual blackmail on her mind, attempting to film the encounter on her smartphone so she could send it to Simon’s new, much younger wife.
But when my client made arrangements to meet her ex, to discuss childcare arrangements for their four-year-old daughter, sex wasn’t faintly on the agenda.
it was only when her husband urged her to hurry up and sign legal papers that would bring their divorce to completion, revealing his engagement to the woman whose bed he now shared, that passions were ignited.
how on earth could that kind of dialogue end up with them tearing each other’s clothes off and thrashing around on the kitchen table where they used to eat as a family, you might well ask.
Easy. The two of them had been lovers for a decade — the chemistry that kept them attracted to each other for all that time didn’t just disappear after he ran off with someone else.
You can’t turn off fancying someone in the same way you flick a light switch; especially when you shared a healthy sex life, as they once did.
Understandably, his revelation about his engagement fired up every angry fibre of righteous indignation in my client’s being. in the ensuing row, the more infuriated they got with each other, the more aroused they also seemed to become.
in what felt like a nanosecond, she told me, her fury turned into a form of sexual excitement so intense that kissing each other suddenly seemed the most natural thing in the world.
her senses were so heightened by her emotions that the physical sensations she went on to experience while they had sex — during which she was only interested in satisfying her own sexual needs as she used him accordingly — were mind-blowing.
This kind of dangerous sexual liaison with an ex might seem unfathomable to anyone who has never experienced it. But for those who have, they will attest that, in the heat of the moment at least, common sense is completely overwhelmed.
And there is plenty of science to explain why that happens.
hate and love, as emotions, are inextricably linked — indeed, the same two parts of the brain, the putamen and the insula, are particularly active when either feeling is experienced.
Love and hate also light up the same part of the brain that is stimulated during sex. Sexual desire is ignited inside the temporal lobe in the brain, which sits behind our forehead — and in one area of it in particular, the amygdala, where our most powerful emotions are processed.
This, and another region, the hippocampus, which is also located in the temporal lobe, and is responsible for managing our memories, are the two areas that fire up when hate sex suddenly seems a good idea.
This heady brew of emotions and nostalgia compromises the ability of the frontal lobe to make rational decisions or show any self-control.
in other words, when faced with something you recognise you shouldn’t do — such as have sex with the man who betrayed you and is now in love with someone else — the overwhelming desire to go ahead and do it anyway gets even stronger.
And, should you cross that line, a whole cascade of powerful feelgood hormones — dopamine, oxytocin and adrenaline — are released, putting you on an emotional high. Now do you get it? But, of course, like any act committed in anger or revenge, as good as hate sex indisputably feels in the moment, it doesn’t actually resolve any issues — indeed, it runs the risk of spectacularly backfiring.
it’s like having a fantastic, booze-fuelled evening and then regretting it all the next day.
BUT unlike a heavy night on the Prosecco, the deflated feeling of shame you get after sex with someone you despise is something you’ll have to live with for much longer.
And while it’s more often the woman who is left crushed in the aftermath of hate sex, the balance can go the other way. it is possible for the man to come away feeling desperate to rekindle the relationship, and win back the woman who now seems to despise him even more.
So, how do you get over sex inspired by anger rather than love? The first thing you have to do is accept that it happened and work out why you ended up there. Therapy can be extremely helpful in this process as you explore the feelings you’re holding on to about the person you had hate sex with, and why you are struggling to let them go.
And of course the very best revenge in this kind of situation doesn’t involve sex at all — at least not with the person you hate. it’s all about making a new and happy life with someone who doesn’t trigger that destructive element in you that allowed the hate-filled sex to take place in the first place.