Postcoital dysphoria: How do you feel after orgasm?

Dysphoria is a disorder of emotional experience. If it occurs after orgasm, experts call it postcoital dysphoria. Strictly speaking, postcoital means “after sexual intercourse”, that is, “after sexual intercourse”. According to Bösch, these negative emotions can also occur after masturbation. Those affected are often sad, tearful, irritable, or have little energy. This may be due to unfulfilled desires, but it may also be due to other reasons, such as a sexual assault someone experienced in childhood.

Bösch says postcoital dysphoria has been little studied to date. Many factors are assumed to play a role. During orgasm, various hormones are secreted in the brain and neurotransmitters are particularly active. Neurotransmitters are biochemical substances that transmit, amplify, or otherwise adapt impulses from one nerve cell to another nerve cell or cells. For a long time, post-coital dysphoria was thought to primarily affect women, says Bösch. Current research results show that this phenomenon also affects men.

If sex isn’t what you want, you can work with the help of a professional to improve the experience for both of you, says Bösch. Often people at some point get the feeling that they can have sex now. “For example, they know how to touch their vulva or penis to achieve their goals, and they think that’s the only way to get pleasure.” Sometimes this doesn’t happen in the partner encounter as rehearsed. “But the feeling of pleasure is a lifelong process that you can influence yourself.”