SexsomniaThat's Sleepwalking SexIs Real and Thousands of Women Have It

May 2024 · 3 minute read

After five years together, Grace,* 37, and her then partner were struggling to make their relationship work. There was almost no physical intimacy between them—until they started having sex in their sleep. When she felt his touch, Grace would begin to dream that she was sleeping with someone else. Of course, once she woke up, she realized it must have been her boyfriend, but it was as if the need for closeness that went unaddressed in real life was being realized in their sleep. They'd discuss it in the morning, and while they both vaguely remembered having sex, neither had intentionally initiated it.

Elizabeth*, 36, and her then partner also began having sex in their sleep when they'd stopped doing it during waking hours. "While we knew the relationship was ending, we were still living together," she explains. "We still wanted it, just not necessarily with each other," she says. "Since we were still living together and, at that point, still sleeping in the same bed, it manifested subconsciously." She's aware it happened only because she would sometimes wake up in the middle of it. Elizabeth also experienced this with another, shorter-term partner the first time she slept at his place.

The experience they're describing is called sexsomnia, a sleep disorder similar to sleepwalking except, instead of getting up and moving around, sufferers have sex or masturbate while asleep. One Toronto Western Hospital study found that 11 percent of male sleep-center patients and 4 percent of female patients experienced the condition, but W. Christopher Winter, M.D., president of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and medical director of Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center, believes many more people have had sex in their sleep at some point. The most common cause of sexsomnia, he says, is Ambien or other sleeping pills. Many times sexsomnia stops occurring once his patients stop taking these drugs. Alcohol, sleep deprivation, restless leg syndrome, sleep apnea, nocturnal seizures, and sleeping in new environments can make it manifest as well.

As Grace's and Elizabeth's stories show, the cause can also be psychological: Sexomniacs enact desires in their sleep that they're unable or reluctant to fulfill in real life. Dr. Winter had one patient who yelled, "If you don't f-ck me, I'll find someone who will!" at her husband while asleep. While awake, he says, she "wouldn't even say the word sex without whispering it."

Despite the aggression with which many sexsomniacs initiate sex, some are unclear as to whether they've even consented. Dr. Winter's patient was upset that her husband had sex with her as she slept. Meanwhile, her husband said he felt pressured into sex by her.

"A sleepwalking person or an unconscious person or a person with dementia or Alzheimer’s or a person with sexsomnia cannot give consent, even if the partner were to ask," says couples and sex therapist Stephen Duclos, LMFT. "If the partner were to ask, and no conversation was possible, this might be an indication that something was wrong." Usually, once the sexsomnia sufferer's partner realizes their partner has been sleeping during sex, they stop doing it to avoid any violation of boundaries.

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