Faced with an incurable cancer diagnosis, Molly Kochan decided she wasn't going to spend her final years trapped in misery. Instead, she made sure things ended on her terms.
Molly, from California, broke free from what she described as a "loveless marriage" after more than 15 years — and embarked on a bold, unapologetic journey of sexual liberation, one that saw her sleep with around 200 men before her passing in March 2019.
Her story inspired the hit memoir Screw Cancer: Becoming Whole, a popular podcast Dying For Sex co-hosted with her best friend Nikki Boyer, and a new Disney+ series dramatizing her journey. Actor Michelle Williams pays Molly, with Jenny Slate portraying Nikki.
For Molly, her diagnosis wasn't the end. It was a catalyst.
In 2005, she first discovered a lump in her breast, but doctors dismissed her concerns, telling her she was “too young” for cancer. Six years later, she was finally diagnosed.
By 2015, the cancer had metastasized. The prognosis was terminal.
Faced with limited time, she made a radical choice: she left her husband, dove headfirst into a world of online dating and hookups, and lived life on her own terms.
Molly explained on the Dying For Sex podcast: “I wanted to hump everything and everyone.” Her hormone treatment, which typically suppresses libido, had the opposite effect. “I was horny all of the time,” she said.
Reflecting on her marriage, she admitted: “For a long time with sex — and this is why I had a problem in my marriage — I was really, really, really good at figuring out what other people liked and then I could simulate that like an actor for them. But I never really knew what I liked.”
There was no bitterness toward her ex-husband. “I don’t blame him,” Molly said. When she told him about her plans to explore her sexuality, his reaction was surprisingly supportive: “Good for you,” he told her.
What followed was a flurry of adventure, vulnerability, and wild encounters — including one man who asked her to kick him in the groin. “It was like an amusement park built for me with one ride, and that was the ride, and there was no line, so I’m going to do it again and again,” she joked.
As her body weakened, her spirit only seemed to strengthen. In her final months, Molly posted a raw and powerful message about her journey toward acceptance.
“As I come to accept my own death and as my attachment to this life gets less intense, the bonds I have with my body, my moments and paradoxically even to this life get stronger,” she wrote. “I feel more plugged into it but less concerned with outcomes. The grand outcome is the same no matter what path I travel.”
She was honest about her desires. “There are still things I desire before I drop this body. I’m not above vanity or wanting to feel liked and successful. I have moments driven by Facebook or Instagram likes. That’s all part of being a person today. There are a handful of experiences I hope to have before I die. But when I think of what those experiences are, beating cancer is not on that list.”
Molly was fully aware that her time was running out — but she refused to let fear dominate her final days.
“I would love nothing more than to no longer have evidence of this disease in my body. I would give anything to have an easier path to the end and to be able to meter any future loss. But those things seem like empty focuses and nothing more than wishes or prayers. Because they are totally out of my control,” she reflected.
“What is in my control is how I put one foot in front of the other towards the goals I have, how I take in each footstep, how I acknowledge the people around me at any given time. And, of course, keeping my medical appointments and continuing to make the best health decisions with the information I have. The rest of it – whether I reach my desired goals or ‘beat’ this disease – well that’s that stuff of surrender.”
Shortly after she passed away, a prewritten article went live titled simply: “I have died.”
Through her journey, Molly Kochan left a legacy that challenged conventional ideas about mortality, sexuality, and the pursuit of joy in the face of death. As her friend Nikki Boyer summed it up: “Sex felt like the antithesis to death.” It became, she said, “a great distraction from being sick.”
Six episodes of Dying For Sex have since been streamed over five million times — ensuring that Molly’s voice, humor, and fierce love for life endure far beyond her final days.