One of the most accurate expressions inherited from Roman culture is that of post coitum omne animal triste est ( “after intercourse, every animal is sad” ). Today science has baptized that languor that occurs after an orgasm as postcoital dysphoria . On certain occasions, the emotional downturn after intercourse can be taken as an alarm signal. When it occurs often and in different circumstances, it may be due to a feeling of guilt for certain sexual taboos or a relationship crisis that leads to questioning the relationship once the rush of erotic euphoria passes.
But, in general, postcoital dysphoria is a common feeling in all human beings, for psychological and biological causes. Among the first, there is what the British psychiatrist Anthony Stone calls loss of sense: all the conversations, glances, insinuations and frictions prior to the sexual exchange are aimed at one goal: to get copulated. Once the climax is reached, the central objective is lost.
That is why it is so important during the after party , to feel trust and affection with the bed partner . After orgasm, the relationship must find another meaning. As for the physical reasons for dysphoria, psychiatrist Richard Friedman believes that the amygdala – the part of the brain that regulates anxiety and restlessness – stops working during intercourse. When this is over, it reminds us again that the problems are still there. Postcoital dysphoria would be, for Friedman, a side effect of the return to natural biological reality after the wonderful impasse of sex.
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