Ex Sex is especially popular with the college crowd, as former significant others roam the country, returning home for breaks better-looking and/or more desperate, at which point you—who are obviously ridiculously good looking but not desperate at all—make the Ex Sex Break Booty Call.  You just want to see how they’re doing!  To reconnect!  To get ass!

Oh sure, you know that you “shouldn’t.”  But why not?  You broke up for emotional reasons, not physical. Maybe it’s been two weeks … three months … almost a year … four whole years!  You have to try it out!  After all, you already know what to expect. It’s familiar, comfortable.  Best of all, it won’t increase your number.  Yes, that number.

Depending upon the former flame, Ex Sex can be surprising, upsetting, fun, complicated or downright bad. Maybe she’s the Ex That Got Good Looking … or He’s the Ex That Gained Weight.  Perhaps he’s the Peter Pan Ex—he hasn’t changed at all and you dated him 8 years ago.  Maybe she’s the Ex You Finally Realized You Had Absolutely Nothing In Common With.

Worst of all, he might be the Stubborn Ex and steadfastly refuse to hook up with you—even when you beg!  I seem to have a lot of Stubborn Exes.  (I prefer not to think much about what that means.)

Of course, participants in Ex Sex have differing motivations as well as varied levels of enthusiasm for the act.

The hesitant are frequently convinced only by alcoholic consumption. They repent the next morning, and say things like “regret” and “bad” and “I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-I-was-thinking-this-can-never-happen-again-we-are-SO-over.”

Sure, you’re over.  Until the next time you both down seven shots of Captain Morgan’s.

The enthusiasts are significantly more fervent in their support for the activity—swearing that Ex Sex is the best thing they’ve discovered since … well, sex! These fans explain how “it’s only natural,” “it’s easy,” and “it’s familiar,” often accompanied by a Cheshire-cat like grin.  The grin is to emphasize the fact that they’ve gotten action and you—you who wait for an actual current partner—have not.

One Ex Sex aficionado explained his addiction with a reference most women can understand. “Let’s say Snickers is your favorite chocolate—you know the taste and you’ve had it before and it’s what you like best. One day you get a craving that just won’t go away, and you realize you have to have Snickers or you won’t get any sleep for the next week. And so you have the Snickers, even though you know it’s bad for you. But you definitely enjoy it while it lasts.”

Mmm … chocolate.

But be forewarned.  Not all Ex Sex is straightforward.  Take the case of my friend “John.”  After ending a problematic relationship last August, he referred to his ex only as “The Devil.”  (Some of his friends actually forgot the poor girl’s real name.)  Just last week, she called him out of the blue.  He promptly drove over to her place and slept with her.  Did the intimate event change things?

“No,” said John. “She’s still a bitch.”

Classy.  John is probably not a winning candidate for Ex Sex.

Still, many Ex Sex buffs would dismiss this case as an exception.  A friend of mine—a veritable “Ex Collector”—makes it a point to hook up with at least one old boyfriend during every break.  She says it “keeps her game fresh” and allows her to have guilt-free, safe and predictable hook ups during her “dry spells”—or heck, whenever she’s bored.  To her credit, the girl maintains impressively long friendships with nearly all of her former flames, a track record many would envy.

Another friend of mine recently hooked up with an old flame whom she hadn’t seen since high school. She remembered their liaisons as awkward petting sessions in parked cars, filled with bad-breath and braces.  Seeing her ex over New Years she was shocked—gone were the braces!  Gone was the bad breath!  Here was a New and Improved version, ready to go!

“It was just fun,” she says of their hook up.  “Satisfying and uncomplicated.  If only my boyfriend were as good!”

Of course, for every Ex Sex advocate, there’s a critic, ready to remind us all that “there is no such thing as ‘no-strings-attached-sex.’”  After all, there is a reason you’re exes … right??

In fact, “chances are,” one of my guy friends vehemently insists, “one person—and only one person—will still have feelings.”  Especially for recent break-ups, the danger is imminent—boundaries will become blurred, old wounds reopened, you both may wonder “what the difference is” between what you have now and what you had then, and it will definitely cause some sort of emotional strife.

A particularly clear-headed friend of mine reasoned that this sort of Ex Sex is generally a bad idea “because it holds you back and messes with your emotions—you completely forget why you broke up.”  She hooked up with her former boyfriend that very evening.

Another friend made the bad decision of hooking up with her ex before she had fully gotten over him.  At the time, she thought to herself, “How can this possibly be a good idea? There’s no way.”

“6 years later we’re still not talking,” she admits.

Obviously it depends on the ex and what your relationship was—and is.

Ex Sex - The Best Sex? Guidelines:

If you’re not totally over him, forget it.
If you really want get rid of her for good, forget it.
If you would describe your current relationship as “a huge complicated mess,” forget it.
If he’s prone to stalking, forget it.

If you know that there’s no way you’ll get back together, go for it.
If you live in opposite corners of the world, go for it.
If you want to make sure he really is that bad in bed … well, it’s your call.  But have some Captain Morgan's on hand just in case.