Stuff: Let's talk about (funeral) sex.

I don’t know which is weirder: funeral sex or a magazine dedicated to all things funerary. Mercifully, I no longer have to choose.

The latest issue of Obit magazine features an article on funeral sex:

On a Yelp message board, the question “where to flirt” in San Francisco provoked a vigorous online debate. Jason D. ranked funerals as the fifth-best flirting hot spot, beating out bars and nightclubs. “Whoa, whoa, back up,” objected Jordan M. “People flirt at funerals? Really? Huh. I'm not sure I could pull that off.” That prompted Grace M. to note that “the first three letters of funeral is FUN.”

The author discusses his own morticopulatory adventures – sealing a "busty strawberry blonde" at his friend's mother's shiva and, years later, having hot married sex after an open-casket viewing of his wife's friend who died of cancer – and then quotes sex advice writer Alison Tyler, author of Never Have the Same Sex Twice:

Post-funeral sex is totally natural. You need something to cling to -- why not your spouse, your lover or that hunky pallbearer? Post-funeral sex can be life-affirming in a refreshing way you just can’t get with a cold shower or zesty soap.

Now personally, my philosophy always been when it's right, it's right – but I understand some might not be quite ready to do the horizontal wake shake. Not yet convinced that a little after-doom delight is for you? Here comes the "science":

According to Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University and author of the new book Why Him, Why Her (Henry Holt), the neurotransmitter dopamine may play a role in boosting the libido of funeral-goers. "Real novelty drives up dopamine in the brain and nothing is more unusual than death.... Dopamine then triggers testosterone, the hormone of sexual desire in men and women."

"It's adaptive, Darwinian," argues Fisher, who regrets that desire after the death of a loved one remains verboten. "It's almost like adultery. We in the West marry for love and expect to stay in love not just until death but forever. This is sacrosanct. Society tells us to remain faithful during the appropriate mourning period, but our brain is saying something else. Our brain says: 'I've got to get on with things.'"