Totally alien to me, but then i am a cuddler after sex. ?

Can't relate to that, my feelings are a mix of euphoria, comfort, natural high, warmness, cuddliness. All pretty positive things really!

I don't recall ever feeling that way after sex. Right now l am having trouble recalling sex.

I never feel sad. Hungry and tired but not sad.

I must belong to the 59% ??

These guys are either doing it wrong or having sex with the wrong women

I'm just sad it's over, at least for 10-20 min until I can rehydrate!

Ha, quite the opposite! I always wanted to cuddle and chat! Keeping my wife awake long enough to do that was a problem! LOL. Even with ED, as long as my partner was satisfied, I was content as well if we canoodled!

Why is this news? It is far from limited to or predominantly experienced by men.

This isn't even uncommon; especially in earlier years. Causes are many, both psychological and subsequently physiological. Too many adults in our time and place in the world consider lack of fulfillment just part of 'what happens'; what sex is.

People begin engaging in coitus with strangers, flings with acquaintances, with regular 'F buddies' playing roles as fantasy people for one another, with mechanical, lifeless toys, with artificial images etc. in a compulsive, interactive pretend world cavalcade of assisted gratification. When they achieve varying degrees, sometimes zero degrees of genitally focused and experienced energy discharge it is called 'orgasm'... They thank or pay each other in various ways for making the experience possible and go about their own lonely ways; feeling emptier sometimes than they started; feeling ashamed or guilty in amounts proportionate to early damage.

These things and more account for why so many of us willingly subscribe to and propagate the notion that 'relationships' (marriages) require lots of work and sacrifice. A Naturally occurring, loving bond actually requires little. It is easy and comfortable. Thoughts are shared and known without even having to exchange a word. A mere glance suffices. One person can almost, if not actually, finish the other's sentences. Coitus isn't an 'end' but a part of a means. Sex isn't given or taken, but shared in full surrender; a process in which Nature, selfless love and life energy have a guiding, fully participating hand. It is something we don't possess as individuals and is therefore impossible for one person to give to another. The best any of us can and sometimes do, is to intensely apply a fantasy world for ourselves, sometimes assisted by others, to simulate the condition. Our cravings for it are strong and instinctive.

The problem with succeeding with a substitute is, though we may believe in it's reality, our instinctual selves still absorb it as aritficial; as some degree of substitute. If there is anything we can 'hang our hats on' about substitutes it is that they must be acquired in increasing amounts and there is never enough. It is at the root of what we call addiction. (another discussion)

If we cannot take the time and share the amount of love for one another to reach a foundational state of KNOWING one another completely; to reach a state of complete mental and emotional nakedness, artifice has to fill-in those gaps in order to furnish an artificial foundation upon which we can pretend the vital elements of respect, trust, admiration and surrender in acceptance.

There is no end to the forms of artifice we employ. Not the least of them is marriage; especially premature marriage. Humans contrive their canon and Nature establishes hers. It is not a contest. Nature's laws will be enforced and ours will be, like all artifice, never satisfying, enduring or enough.

I have not had this specific experience, but it does not surprise me that it exists. And given that men are taught to repress / deny what they feel, it is no surprise that it is late being discovered.

While "dopamine rebound effect" is a hypothesis, I think it's more likely to do with all the hopes / dreams / aspirations that go into sex, only to find it's not that satisfying after all, particularly if your partner wasn't that into it. It's like the post-Christmas letdown that tends to fill the offices of head doctors after the first of the year.

Some of the replies here are talking about something longer-lasting than just the immediate post-coitus time frame -- spilling into the next day.

You could set your clock by the fact that sometime in the 48 hours post-coitus (or really post anything intimate, like a good romantic date night) my previous wife would pick some kind of fight over something she observed that proved to her I didn't really care / love her. In her case it was pretty clearly abandonment issues. Her father abandoned her and her mother when she was 11, just snuck off without comment in the night and was never heard from again (eventually traced to Alaska, about as far away as one could get without leaving the country). Every time there was good intimacy with a man, she would pull away from it because she couldn't trust it. And she was searching for signs of abandonment, which she probably was doing ever since her Dad surprised her by leaving. Despite that I stayed strong with her through a terrible illness, this sense that I might abandon her at any moment never really left her. It's a sad commentary on what lasting harm a parent can do to a child. And yet her father wasn't much of a throat to choke, by all indications he was just a victim of PTSD, courtesy of the Korean war. He died alone of COPD somewhere out in the tundra, so I guess life "punished" him sufficiently.

Amazing how life can sometimes transform even the transcendent into a source of suffering ...

Reminds me of the words of Neil Diamond’s song” You don’t bring me Flowers”........”After loving me late at night.....you just reach over and turn out the light”! it is sad. If you don’t lie in each other’s arms afterwards it can often feel like a rejection and can seem almost like an abandonment to many after such an intimate act. I know many women feel this and so it is not entirely surprising that men can have these feelings too.

Guess I'm 59%

yes, communication is a great aid towards understanding & emphasizing with the other - always.

It makes sense from a psychological viewpoint, after the high comes a low.

"Sacerdotis et solum risu DiCaprius asinum Vincunt"--(Anon.). Only the Priest and the Ass laugh after coitus

I sometimes experience great sadness after orgasm (even with a partner). This has nothing to do with how bonded I feel with my partner.

When sex is good (and it often is), I feel more alive than I can imagine feeling at normal times. Full, like a brand-new car with a full tank of gas. It's like I can feel every tendril of my nervous system like a glowing tree inside my body. Strong, like steel, the surface tension stretching my skin. And I see colors, deep rich colors like amber turning into red, then purple, then glowing white-hot as if the colors themselves are on fire.

And just so, just when I am able to palpably feel what it is to be divine-then it is gone. It is a time of extreme vulnerability for me, and often sadness rushes in to fill the void, and brings me to tears.

And this, THIS, is what I have always needed my lovers to understand-that joy and sorrow, anger and love are mixed together forever in an intractable knot in my heart. Some have, some haven't.

I don't fit that description at all. For me, the act is just as important as the afterglow. I was under the impression most females enjoyed post sex attention so taught myself to do just that. Why engage in sex if you aren't committed to the other enjoying it as much as possible?

That seems like a rather sad statistic. I'd be curious what percentage of women feel the same, and is it possible this is really more indicative of how many aren't with partners with whom they truly, deeply, connect on every level?

In French, orgasm is called la petite mort (the small/little death)... probably comes from somewhere.

I've had some form of this. Nothing extreme. It's been a very mild feeling. It's probably just coming back down to "reality". You have all that feeling and endorphins running through your body and then after the climax, there's only one place to go, and that's down. You kind of feel "dirty". Even after masturbation. I haven't felt that way in a long time though, and it's not every time you have sex either. I don't know why.

...and as someone alluded to, I don't think it has anything to do with the partner or how you feel about them. It's a totally different feeling. I have felt both lol

I have had sex with women I didn't want to "bond" with, and I felt fine after having sex.

It's also nothing to do with religion for me. I have never been religious. Never read the bible. Never gave a shit about the limitations people have wanted to put on other people as a whole when it comes to what they want because of their religion.

Stop reading about sex from religious books!

They are not doing it right then

I want a sandwich.

I hate myself to no end for not being able to keep up with this kinky, rough goth chick last month. Don't know if that's similar?