Question about sex
- Thread starter Mimino
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Well, put it this way. I used to be a man who felt awful every time i had sex. Now i'm a woman who doesn't feel awful after sex.
I'm not saying it proves you're trans, but it suggests there's some aspect to it that grates against something inside you, something that feels wrong about it. I guess it would be worth examining what your feelings are about the kinds of sexual encounters you're having. Maybe if something about it makes you feel...i'm not sure how to phrase it...."Seen on such an intimate level without actually being seen"? in the same way i was.
I'm not saying it proves you're trans, but it suggests there's some aspect to it that grates against something inside you, something that feels wrong about it. I guess it would be worth examining what your feelings are about the kinds of sexual encounters you're having. Maybe if something about it makes you feel...i'm not sure how to phrase it...."Seen on such an intimate level without actually being seen"? in the same way i was.
I don't exactly know what's going on in your situation so I don't exactly know why you specifically feel sad after. But I can say that having sex with someone that you know in your heart doesn't love you does feel meaningless and not all that great to be honest. I could go deeper into that but that's what I'll say for now.
In case you haven't done so yet, I googled your issue and got: "Post-orgasmic depression, also known as postcoital dysphoria (PCD), is a condition where individuals experience feelings of sadness, anxiety, or irritability after sexual intercourse, regardless of whether an orgasm occurred. It's often described as "post-sex blues" and can last from a few minutes to a couple of hours."
For what it's worth mine lasts for days
For what it's worth mine lasts for days
You might be using sex to avoid (intentionally or not, subconsciously or not) feeling something like sadness or loneliness and when the sex is over that avoidance isn't there anymore, cue feelings. Or could be sex is the only way you know to connect with someone and when the sex is over you're stuck with not being connected in the way you really want.
Food for thought. Hard to say without more context.
Food for thought. Hard to say without more context.
I think both, but it's not in a hedonistic way. I think I use it as avoidence, yes to use the good feelings, but more because physical intimacy of any kind is the only way I know how to express love. But strangely enough I despise seeing public displays of affection and I don't like touching people as much as possible. I don't know maybe I just hold this love thing jealously. Also I'm a man, and I know its a stereotype, but I really don't express much emotion to those around me. I don't feeling anything deeply, except for depression.
The sadness is very powerful. I'm also a man and have struggled with expressing emotions and resulting depression. It helps me sometimes to think of depression as "oppression of other feelings." The cure for depression is to find safe ways to let your feelings out -- finding people that are okay with men expressing their feelings. It's a struggle for sure.
When I hear you talk about physical intimacy being the only way you know how to express love, and despising seeing public displays of affection, that also brings me back to cultural norms around men expressing feelings. Men wanting sex is a societal expectation. But soft touch is not the norm for men. Could be you're jealous, or could be you're resentful of other people having something you want. Could be you've internalized that message around soft touch being shameful. Whatever it is, it's real. Just because societal norms are unhelpful doesn't mean we don't feel pressured by them.
I don't know if this will help or not but I stumbled across it a few months ago and it came to mind just now. Necessary context -- this was written by a woman.
When I hear you talk about physical intimacy being the only way you know how to express love, and despising seeing public displays of affection, that also brings me back to cultural norms around men expressing feelings. Men wanting sex is a societal expectation. But soft touch is not the norm for men. Could be you're jealous, or could be you're resentful of other people having something you want. Could be you've internalized that message around soft touch being shameful. Whatever it is, it's real. Just because societal norms are unhelpful doesn't mean we don't feel pressured by them.
I don't know if this will help or not but I stumbled across it a few months ago and it came to mind just now. Necessary context -- this was written by a woman.
To heal, men must learn to feel again. They must learn to break the silence, to speak the pain. Often men, to speak the pain, first turn to the women in their lives and are refused a hearing. In many ways women have bought into the patriarchal masculine mystique. Asked to witness a male expressing feelings, to listen to those feelings and respond, they may simply turn away. There was a time when I would often ask the man in my life to tell me his feelings. And yet when he began to speak, I would either interrupt or silence him by crying, sending him the message that his feelings were too heavy for anyone to bear, so it was best if he kept them to himself. [...] women are fearful of hearing men voice feelings. I did not want to hear the pain of my male partner because hearing it required that I surrender my investment in the patriarchal ideal of the male as protector of the wounded. If he was wounded, then how could he protect me?
As I matured, as my feminist consciousness developed to include the recognition of patriarchal abuse of men, I could hear male pain. I could see men as comrades and fellow travelers on the journey of life and not as existing merely to provide instrumental support. Since men have yet to organize a feminist men’s movement that would proclaim the rights of men to emotional awareness and expression, we will not know how many men have indeed tried to express feelings, only to have the women in their lives tune out or be turned off. Talking with men, I have been stunned when individual males would confess to sharing intense feelings with a male buddy, only to have that buddy either interrupt to silence the sharing, offer no response, or distance himself. Men of all ages who want to talk about feelings usually learn not to go to other men. And if they are heterosexual, they are far more likely to try sharing with women they have been sexually intimate with. Women talk about the fact that intimate conversation with males often takes place in the brief moments before and after sex. And of course our mass media provide the image again and again of the man who goes to a sex worker to share his feelings because there is no intimacy in that relationship and therefore no real emotional risk.
Anyway. I can't magically find those people for you in your life, who will hold space for you to have your feelings. But you can always post here. I'll listen.You're right, I think I would perfer just to be held rather than having sex. Sex these days means nothing much. Sex as a man seems kind of gross and violent in a way, no, I want someone to tightly embrace me. Though, thats not really possible, I'm pretty tall and aloof, both physically and emotionally distant. I don't think I could show weakness like that. And besides I HAVE cried in front of others at my very lowest in public, and none comforted me in those times I wept. I think I despise them for it, a man wanting nothing more than to end it all, yet nobody cared. God, I hated them. I also went to the only woman I trusted and knew. But she was also no help, she cried, she talked about herself, she didn't listen. I don't think I'd ever cry in front of a woman, I don't trust the ones I see. For the "emotional sex" many of them are quite uncaring. I wish I could get married. Its said that when God made woman, she was a rescue for the man's lonliness, a helpmate. I wish relationships for young people were about love again, it'd make my cold heart melt if a women was ever actually that sweet. Sorry if your a women who read this, I don't mean to be offensive.
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Thanks for sharing, Mimino. I'm sympathetic to how rough things have been for you. You deserve people in your life -- women and men -- who will respond with empathy and care when you're feeling down. I believe there are those people out there. We just have to find them.
You didn't share much about how you go from meeting someone to having sex with them, just that you are often sad after sex. I wonder what it would be like to try being vulnerable with someone before having sex with them. Maybe even hold off on sex for a few dates until you feel that closeness you really want. I believe there are people out there -- including women -- who would find that desire to be vulnerable attractive. But if you skip the vulnerability and go straight to sex, you're probably missing out on those opportunities, maybe inadvertently filtering those people out. I'm making a lot of assumptions here so maybe your situation is different.
You didn't share much about how you go from meeting someone to having sex with them, just that you are often sad after sex. I wonder what it would be like to try being vulnerable with someone before having sex with them. Maybe even hold off on sex for a few dates until you feel that closeness you really want. I believe there are people out there -- including women -- who would find that desire to be vulnerable attractive. But if you skip the vulnerability and go straight to sex, you're probably missing out on those opportunities, maybe inadvertently filtering those people out. I'm making a lot of assumptions here so maybe your situation is different.
My experience has typically been that when people are intimate before being vulnerable, it is more difficult to be vulnerable, or vulnerability is less "allowed" in those relationships. If people are skipping over vulnerability for intimacy, chances are, it's because sex is easy for them and vulnerability is difficult. If taking it slow kills the mood, maybe that's not someone you want to have sex with.
If you want relationships you can be vulnerable in, at the very least I would encourage you to be a little vulnerable before being intimate. Your whole life story? Maybe not. But for me, and some folks I have met: slow is sexy. Vulnerability is sexy. Helping each other feel safe in being vulnerable? That's the sexiest thing there is.
Slow. Burn.
If you want relationships you can be vulnerable in, at the very least I would encourage you to be a little vulnerable before being intimate. Your whole life story? Maybe not. But for me, and some folks I have met: slow is sexy. Vulnerability is sexy. Helping each other feel safe in being vulnerable? That's the sexiest thing there is.
Slow. Burn.