How to know you’re having revenge sex

Washington - In a very non-scientific study, experts have tried to find out what constitutes revenge sex, why we indulge in it, and how to identify when your latest tryst is in all or in part about seeking payback.

When going through heartbreak, seducing one’s ex and giving him or her a taste of the past seems to be the best idea, as it puts you in a position of power.

But a broken heart is blind, and revenge sex will not resolve your issues with your ex, it will only enmesh you with the person all over again.

“When going through a break-up, sometimes you just have to let go of the questions: why did this happen? You just have to accept it’s over and move on,” the Huffington Post quoted Amelia, an advertising exec, as saying.

“Physical distance from the person is pretty crucial -- you really want to keep that. Sex will only entangle you with the person again, and make it that much harder to move on,” she said.

In many cases, people have revenge sex to express their anger. In certain situations, instead of telling someone you’re angry with them, it’s tempting to hurt them emotionally by exploiting their sexual attraction to you.

The truth is, sometimes people do mean or insensitive things to the people they're attracted to. Rather than informing the person straight up that he or she has hurt your feelings, you might feel the urge to exact revenge by sleeping with him or her, giving the brief impression that you feel the attraction, too, then walking away.

“What a mistake,” Tara, a publicist who took this tack, said.

“I felt so bad during it, and now I feel like I messed up something that could have been a relationship down the line. The whole time we were doing it, I just kept thinking how mad I was at him for being such a jerk to me. It was a total turn-off. And now he thinks I'm bad in bed,” she said.

Someone cheated on you, so you pay that experience forward. Feeling wronged can be traumatic, there’s no denying that, but living through the emotions rather than trying to turn the tables is a faster way to heal.

“I went through a brutal breakup where I was convinced I’d literally been dumped like trash,” Genevieve, a fashion trendcaster, said.

“I felt run over. There was a point when I couldn’t cry any more. I was numb. Then there was this boy, and I mean boy, because he was ten years younger than me. He was actually begging to come home with me. So I did it hoping that sleeping with him would snap me out of my coma,” she said.

Genevieve’s revenge sex was her reaction to the emotional beating she took during her break-up.

“I used this boy to get back at the men who hurt me. I was actually was thinking in the back of my head about how I was literally using him – I’ll go as far to say that I belittled him. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing, but for two days after, I was euphoric,” Genevieve said.

The thing with revenge sex Is that even when it’s the wrong thing to do, it doesn’t always feel like it; it can also make you feel like you’re floating above all the toxicity that you’ve been experiencing in your life. Just know that eventually, you come down.