(Stillness in the Storm Editor) Why do we experience shame, embarrassment or regret? Usually, because something we identify with, have done, or talk about we think is unacceptable. What happens when you act out in class? The teacher usually shames you. We know that whatever we do that we don’t love fully accept and love, we’ll regret later. With sex, the same basic mechanism is at work, but with so much confusion around sex, this can often be difficult to make sense of.
Wilhelm Reich is arguably the best expert to look for understanding this situation.
Regret after sexual activity, whether it’s with another person, masturbation, or simply a fantasy, is very common in the modern age. Despite the fact we live in a “post-sexual revolution” world.
Some spiritualists, looking to Eastern thought, suggest that the reason people experience various energy drains, regret, and even deep triggering from sex, is because vital energy is lost during orgasm, particularly ejaculation.
This seems to have merit, as vital energy of the body, known as prana or chi, can be drained from sexual activity. But these schools of thought don’t always consider the way sex is defined by the individual who experiences these ill effects.
Wilhelm Reich is one of the only mainstream scientists and psychologists to acknowledge the vital energy of the body. So it’s not like he didn’t recognize the same energy Eastern thinkers talk about. But he took it a step further, by all accounts.
His work focused on the psychological effect of sexual activity. He reviewed hundreds of cases and successfully demonstrated that the way we think about sex is the primary factor for what is experienced during the act.
Reich showed that cultural influence plays a huge role in determining sexual health. But, since much of this influence happens when were small children, most of us don’t remember or are unaware of these toxic cultural views about sex.
There’s much to understand insofar as science and psychology at work. I’ll explain it in terms of the inner child.
The inner child is effectively the body-mind, as it is influenced by our choices and cultural beliefs. The instincts and hardwired needs of the body become the foundational values of the inner child. This means, your need for physical intimacy, both platonically and romantically, is hardwired into your body.
The inner child is the feeling part of you, in all respects. It’s the part of you that feels uncomfortable when you need to pee. It’s the part of you that feels amazing when you’re holding your newborn baby. It’s that part of you that floods your body with joy sensations as you think about something you’re looking forward to. And it’s that part of you that feels shame or discomfort after having sex—if it has a conflict within it.
But the reason why is that the beliefs of the mind don’t agree with the needs of the body. In this sense, think about your conscious mind (the soul) as the governor of a community, which is the body itself. Another analogy is that of parent to child, wherein you are the parent and your body is the child.
What would happen if you told your child that going to the bathroom was a disgusting shameful activity? Every time your child goes to the bathroom they’ll feel shameful. The same is true for ourselves. If we don’t work to create a personal belief system that embraces all the realities of sex, most especially the “dirty” animal bits, like scents, body fluids, and how we feel in response, then there’s a divergence or conflict. This conflict is effectively that the inner child has been shamed, by the conscious mind, and as such feels bad after sex.
Now I’m using hyperbolic examples to highlight the general principle. I don’t literally mean that the only reason one can feel strange after sex is that they consciously think sex is bad. The programming we receive in life often bypasses the conscious mind.
The point is that Reich and others have proved that in almost all cases, less than ideal sexual experiences, insofar as personal shame, energy drain, and the like, is due to internal conflicts about sex. Resolving these conflicts restores healthy sexual function.
And Reich also demonstrated that restoring healthy sexual function literally changes the way energy moves through the mind and body, healing blockages and restoring rational and holistic thinking.
For more, see the following
Book The Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich [Discoverer of Orgone Energy]
by
For most people, sex is fun. Whether you engage in it with a partner or by yourself, sexual activity usually results in feelings of satisfaction and positive feelings (Sadock & Sadock, 2008).
But some people feel sad after sexual activity. Researchers call these kinds of negative feelings “postcoital dysphoria” or just postcoital symptoms. A new study sheds further light on these symptoms.
Postcoital dysphoria is characterized by “inexplicable feelings of tearfulness, sadness, and/or irritability” according to the new research (Burri & Hilpert, in press). According to prior research, men appear to experience these feelings more regularly than women — 3-4% of men say they feel sad or irritable after sex, compared to 2% of women (Bird et al., 2001; Schweitzer et al., 2015).
A significant minority of men and women have experienced such feelings at least once in their life. Forty-one percent of men have reported such feelings at least once, and just over 46% of women, according to previous research into this topic (Bird et al., 2001; Schweitzer et al., 2015).
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The researchers set out to better understand these negative after-sex symptoms, so conducted an online survey of 299 men (25%) and women (75%). This was a convenience — not a randomized — sample, meaning that the sample was biased by how the researchers advertised for the study. Since the researchers advertised at “different hospitals and universities across Switzerland and Germany and via the internet” it’s like the sample is not reflective of the general population.
A large minority of the sample also self-reported being diagnosed for clinical depression — 21% of men and nearly 19% of women. This characteristic of the sample may also bias the researchers’ findings.
The researchers conducted an exploratory study to determine if postcoital dysphoria might be more complex than just a feeling of sadness or irritability. So they identified 21 potential symptoms they wanted to see may be associated with postcoital dysphoria and placed them in a questionnaire they had participants answer. These symptoms include:
- Regret
- Sadness
- Symptoms of depression
- Mood swings
- Worthlessness
- Unhappiness
- Frustration
- Low self-esteem
- Hopelessness
- Irritability
- Agitation
- Psychomotor agitation
- Restlessness
- Reduced energy
- Fatigue
- Headache
- Feverish
- Cold
- Shivering
- Dizziness/Vertigo
- Difficulty concentrating
They grouped these symptoms into four potential problem areas: (1) depressed mood, (2) agitation, (3) lethargy, and (4) flu-like symptoms.
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Many Experience Postcoital Symptoms
Keeping in mind the researchers had a biased convenience sample and were using an unvalidated questionnaire, here’s what the researchers found:
Most (73.5%) participants experienced postcoital symptoms after consensual sexual intercourse, but a considerable proportion of participants said that the symptoms also manifested after general sexual activity (41.9%). Similarly, almost half of participants said that they also experienced postcoital symptoms after masturbation (46.6%).
These numbers are far larger than what previous research has suggested. This is due to the fact the researchers greatly expanded the definition of what postcoital symptoms might be, and the use of a convenience sample that seemed to be heavily populated by people with depression.
Significantly more women reported at least some sort of postcoital symptom over the past 4 weeks than men. Women also reported more lifelong “depressive mood” and “flu-like” symptoms, as well as any lifelong postcoital symptom than men.
The sample size was biased toward women, so this may be an artifact of the small sample size with respect to men participants. It also disagrees with the previous research into this concern, which has generally found that it appears more in men than women.
Book Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
All in all it was interesting to learn that the researchers find far more people than previously thought experience postcoital symptoms. This finding may not hold up with further research with larger, randomized samples. However, feelings of sadness, agitation and lethargy after sex may be more common than previously understood. It may be a more common occurrence in people who are already coping with an existing mental health concern.
And if you’re one of the people who feel this way after sexual activity, know that you’re not alone. Like many things regarding sex, it’s just one of those things that most people don’t feel comfortable talking about.
My thanks to ScienceDirect and Elsevier B.V. for access to this article.
References
Burri, A. & Hilpert, P. (In press, 2020). Postcoital Symptoms in a Convenience Sample of Men and Women. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, In press.
Bird B, Schweitzer R, Strassberg D. (2001). The prevalence and correlates of postcoital dysphoria in women. Sex Health, 23, 14-25.
Sadock BJ & Sadock VA. (2008). Kaplan & Sadock’s concise textbook of clinical psychiatry. 3rd ed. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Schweitzer RD, O’Brien J, & Burri A. (2015). Postcoital Dysphoria: Prevalence and Psychological Correlates. Sex Med, 5, 235-243.
Stillness in the Storm Editor: Why did we post this?
Psychology is the study of the nature of mind. Philosophy is the use of that mind in life. Both are critically important to gain an understanding of as they are aspects of the self. All you do and experience will pass through these gateways of being. The preceding information provides an overview of this self-knowledge, offering points to consider that people often don’t take the time to contemplate. With the choice to gain self-awareness, one can begin to see how their being works. With the wisdom of self-awareness, one has the tools to master their being and life in general, bringing order to chaos through navigating the challenges with the capacity for right action.
– Justin
Not sure how to make sense of this? Want to learn how to discern like a pro? Read this essential guide to discernment, analysis of claims, and understanding the truth in a world of deception: 4 Key Steps of Discernment – Advanced Truth-Seeking Tools.
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Source:
https://psychcentral.com/blog/feeling-sad-after-sex-postcoital-dysphoria-symptoms/
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