Widows’ fire: A qualitative exploration of sexuality and mourning in young widows.
AbstractWidows’ fire—widows’ intense, unbidden sexual desire post-loss—is underexplored, despite its impact on meaning-making and identity. Using an existential-phenomenological design and thematic analysis, this study applied a meaning reconstruction lens to explore how 21 young widows (aged 45 or...
| Publicado en: | Death Studies pp. 1 - 13 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
| Formato: | Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Oct2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=188490871&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 188490871 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 07481187 DEA jtl: Death Studies issn: 07481187 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2025 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania artinfo: ui: 188490871 10.1080/07481187.2025.2566075 188490871 ppf: 1 ppct: 12 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Widows’ fire: A qualitative exploration of sexuality and mourning in young widows. aug: au: Barros-Lane, Liza Vollmann, Sarah Yang, Fei Allen, Austin Sanchez, Lucas affil: Department of Criminal Justice and Social Work, University of Houston-Downtown sug: ab: AbstractWidows’ fire—widows’ intense, unbidden sexual desire post-loss—is underexplored, despite its impact on meaning-making and identity. Using an existential-phenomenological design and thematic analysis, this study applied a meaning reconstruction lens to explore how 21 young widows (aged 45 or younger) made sense of widows’ fire. Three themes emerged: (1) Widows’ fire is a bodily grief response, rooted in trauma regulation, yearning, and vitality-seeking; (2) Widows’ fire is a catalyst for identity reconstruction, disrupting prior sexual scripts, grief expectations, and connections to the deceased partner; and (3) Widows’ fire prompts a nonlinear navigation, marked by experimentation, avoidance, and compulsion that often precede meaning-making. Findings reveal that widows’ fire is a central, embodied grief process. These findings extend the meaning reconstruction model, illuminating that pre-reflective experiences, like widows’ fire, can shift grieving trajectories and catalyze meaning-making. This study underscores the need for grief models that include sexual bereavement and its repercussions. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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