When faced with death, some women don’t seek comfort - they seek desire

Molly Kochan has just found out she has cancer. But what she does next turns the usual narrative about terminal illness on its head. Instead of gathering those closest to her even closer, she leaves her husband and plans a spate of sexual adventures with strangers.

Society would have us believe her response; the subject matter of the new Disney+ show, Dying For Sex, starring Michelle Williams, beggars belief. But experts claim it is a scenario that is very much based in fact.

In Dying for Sex, Michelle Williams plays a woman who, on discovering she has terminal cancer, pursues sexual adventure.Credit: Disney+

Indeed, the show is based on the final months of the real life of Molly Kochan. And Australian clinical psychologists, oncology therapists and sexologists hope it will start a serious discussion around the taboo subject of sex and cancer and, more specifically, female sexuality.

“There are so many constraints around women and sexuality – and I know there’s a whole sex-positive movement now – but there’s still a lot of cultural discourse around women who do this being condemned as sluts,” says Jane Ussher, professor of women’s health psychology at Western Sydney University. “This (Dying for Sex) is showing a woman who, because she has cancer, can let all that go and not be bothered by those constraints anymore.

“She’s not doing it to prove a point to anyone else; she’s doing it because she really wants to have sex. And that’s a really positive image because she’s in control of it.”

The eight-part series, released last week, opens with Molly in couples therapy with husband Steve, who has not touched his wife sexually in three years following a breast cancer diagnosis, which is in remission. But when she receives a phone call telling her the cancer is back and it has metastasised throughout her body, she has an awakening.

“I’ve never even had an orgasm with another person, and now I’m going to die,” she wails to her best friend.

The show was developed from the hit podcast of the same name, which Molly started with her best friend, Nikki Boyer, played by Jenny Slate after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2015. The podcast, which was downloaded more than 5 million times, was not aired until a year after Molly’s death in 2019, aged 45.

Michelle Williams (left) as Molly and Jenny Slate as Nikki in the comedy Dying for Sex, which is based on the podcast of the same name.

Anisa Varasteh, a clinical sexologist at Relate in Adelaide, says she has seen many clients who feel just like Molly, although not all of them choose to blow up their lives like this.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a common response, but it does exist,” she says. “Women leaving their partners does happen, but for many women, it’s more about having conversations with their current partners about what sex means to them or shifting the focus or the dynamic of the relationship from something that is usually male-orientated to something that is for her pleasure as well.

“Sexual exploration within the boundaries of their relationship is something that brings people to see me; they may want to explore their sexual identity as well as their sexual repertoire with their partners.”

Ussher says the taboos around female sexuality and sex and illness have long kept this topic off bounds.

Her team has conducted extensive research into sex and cancer, including a 2014 paper titled Feeling well and talking about sex: Psychosocial predictors of sexual functioning after cancer which concluded that simply talking about sex often predicted positive outcomes for patients.

Her team’s research has informed patient guidelines around cancer and sex for Cancer Council Australia, which resulted in an 80-page booklet called Sexuality, Intimacy and Cancer, which is now available in every Cancer Council clinic and hospital around Australia.

She hopes this television series will add to this important public discourse.

“Historically, talk around sex and cancer has been focused on a biomedical view of sex and sex in terms of functioning, like can you get an erection, do you have vaginal dryness, or a low libido,” Ussher says.

“It seemed to objectify sex in quite a mechanical way and a very heterosexual, coital way. It was a very narrow view of sex.

Christine Rafe, a sex and relationship expert at Good Vibes clinic in Surry Hills, says she has a client who is currently undergoing treatment.

“A lot of people describe a complete loss of desire when they’re undergoing treatment, which is understandable,” says Rafe.

“Even if this show is not reflective of most people going through treatment, it’s awesome that it will start the conversation. There may be people who see this and think ‘maybe I’m not a freak or a weirdo for having desire while I’m undergoing cancer treatment’.”

Questions around relationships and body image are far more common than sexual desire during treatment for Dr Toni Lindsay, senior clinical psychologist at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, whose patients are predominantly young adults.

“On occasion, I have absolutely had patients where the cancer diagnosis is a real circuit breaker, where they bring that evaluative lens to questions like ‘Where am I in life?’ and, “Is this where I thought I would be?’ but it’s more often focused around relationships.

“Often that pop culture reference around people getting diagnosed and quitting their jobs and leaving relationships – I almost never see that. Most of the time, people with cancer settle into the stuff that’s routine and comforting and familiar.”

Dying for Sex is now streaming on Disney+

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