Why some women feel depressed straight after sex
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You'd think that most people would feel happy after sex . You'd hope so, anyway, but there's an infliction that causes some women to suffer an immense sadness after intercourse.
We're not talking about anything untoward. The sex will be consensual, and yet some women endure something called post-coital dysphoria, or tristesse.
The condition means women might feel sad, anxious, aggressive, agitated, or simply melancholic immediately after having sex – even if the sex was particularly good (in fact, it's even more likely in this case). It can be a lonely and frightening experience for women.
(Image: Getty)
The issue has been explored by Sophie Saint Thomas in Mic . She spoke to Jerilyn, 27, about the affliction.
"Even when I was single, the post-sex depression morphed into a different shade of empty. I always attributed it to the fear of being abandoned,” Jerilyn, who only gave her surname, said.
"I started to wonder if something was being taken from me every time I had sex, even though I enjoyed the act itself."
A recently study into the condition found that 46 per cent of the 230 female participants experienced post-coital dysphoria more than you think – "a few times" in the month prior to the research.
Importantly, researchers found that intimacy or the significance of the relationship didn't seem to matter. It's not just brought on by 'one night stands' as you might assume.
Another study from 2011 revealed similar results. Around a third of women said they felt depressed after sex – even when it was "satisfactory".
(Image: Getty)
Sex therapist and counsellor at relationships charity Relate Denise Knowles told The Independent : "It’s not uncommon to feel sad after sex.
"It’s not necessarily due to a trauma or because they’re regretful: it doesn’t have to mean anything sinister is going on."
Denise said that it could be down to the explosion of hormones in the body that are prompted after sex, including endorphins, oxytocin, and prolactin.
"Having sex is a hugely intimate act and an orgasm releases lots of wonderful feel-good bonding hormones," she said.
"Those hormones drop following the peak of an orgasm, and as you separate from the closeness that brought it about, a sense of sadness can follow.
"You go from absolute joy and pleasure to being separated. That in its own way can cause women, and some men, to feel a bit sad. But it’s an organic biological function which happens to a greater or lesser extent to many people."
Scientists think this could be an evolutionary function – something to keep people together so that they're more likely to have sex again, and therefore reproduce. But there's a lot more to discover.