One study showed that nearly 50% of women experience sadness after sex. This denotes the crash that can take place immediately following orgasm. You’ve probably heard of the post-orgasmic afterglow, right? How after you’re finished having sex (whatever kind of sex), you sort of lie there in each other’s arms and feel super blissed out? This happens because our bodies are awash with a chemical cocktail of feel-good hormones like dopamine and oxytocin.īut there is a counter-state that doesn’t get very much airtime in the mainstream media that requires acknowledgement: The post-orgasmic (or post-coital) blues (also known as post-coital dysphoria). Let’s get into the nitty gritty of post-orgasmic shame, why it happens, and where we go from here. “Our brain isn’t the best at determining why it’s in a heightened state (aka feeling arousal), but it could be due to a host of factors, including fear, disgust, and fascination with the taboo,” she tells TheBody. Pam Shaffer, LMFT, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says that it’s totally normal to be aroused by something we’d otherwise find disgusting because of the complex nature of arousal itself. Well, maybe you do (no judgement), but the majority of people require their minds and bodies to be in a sexually aroused state for these things to be hot and not off-putting. You wouldn’t want someone to spit on you in the grocery store, or have your partner pee on you while you’re cooking dinner. In the context of everyday life, these things probably aren’t appealing to you. This is why people enjoy things like spanking, spitting, water-sports (when you pee on someone) and rimming.
Things that we may register as gross, scary, or weird when we’re in a resting state take on erotic meaning once we’re turned on. When we’re turned on, the part of our brain that registers disgust and fear tends to switch off.