Editor’s Note: This You Need Help contains mentions of suicidality.

Q:

I should start this off by saying, I have a therapist and he knows about my shame/guilt. Identify as a trans male, and when I was in middle school, pleasing myself was used against me. Ever since, I’ve had a hard time after I’m done. Sometimes I even try and end my life because of it. I know it’s normal to self please but I feel wrong doing it because of my past. Am I wrong?

A:

Feeling bad about masturbation is a remarkably normal thing, especially for people who were immersed (drowned) in shame from the beginning. But developing suicidal ideation as a result of masturbation? That’s really serious.

It’s also a sensitive topic and I’m going to angle my discussion toward trauma, recovery, and healing. Masturbation is an inciting event for you, but this could occur as the direct result of many other terrible experiences.

Post-nut something

Orgasm is an enormously complex neurological event that shocks the entire body. Biologically speaking, orgasm brings a hormone rush that feels intensely good. But a physiological response alone doesn’t account for the host of feelings that follow. Afterglow. Shame. Traumatic resurgence. Blank headspace. Each orgasm can swing a lot of feelings at us alongside enjoyment.

Men often talk about ‘post-nut clarity’, a burst of realization or mental clarity after an orgasm. There’s also cozy post-orgasmic bliss. The type people don’t talk about is post-coital tristesse or post-sex dysphoria. And since masturbation/solo sex usually takes a backseat to partnered sex, like nobody thinks about its effect after masturbation.

Post-sex dysphoria (under plenty of other names) is a generalized bad feeling that occurs after sex. It’s not a recognized mental health diagnosis and the definitions are vague because there’s not much investigation into the topic. But it does happen to many people. In diverse ways. Any explainer you read about it will broadly describe it as feelings of depression, anxiety, ‘blues’, ‘homesickness’, shame, or emotional disconnection after sex, especially if orgasm occurred.

A reasonable explanation for why it occurs is that some people are susceptible to negative feelings in the aftermath of an orgasmic hormone rush. This is supported by one of the only studies I could find on postcoital dysphoria in men and potential risk factors. Here, the authors had a hypothesis that this non-gendered form of dysphoria occurs more frequently if the person has existing psychological stress or trauma. Their hypothesis was loosely confirmed within the limits of that study. I think there’s an avenue of exploration here for you.

A story in three acts

The reason I’m discussing a named form of mental distress and linking it to the potential for trauma is that’s what your letter reads like. It’s one of the shortest I’ve ever responded to, but it’s also one of the most succinct narratives of a relationship between long-term trauma, sex, and distress I’ve seen in our inbox.

At risk of oversimplifying, what you shared was that you experienced a pattern of childhood trauma related to masturbation. I don’t know its shape. I don’t know if it was direct abuse, religious trauma, an expression of gender dysphoria, or any combination of these. But it happened, and its effects are long-term. Its effects are also intense because it takes a lot for people to feel suicidal after an orgasm. In chemical terms, orgasm is one of the most intensely pleasurable things we can access. People quite literally develop addictions to orgasms and the activities that lead up to it. For your mind to turn something biologically pleasurable into suicidal ideation — the antithesis of life — speaks to a devastating traumatic burden.

That trauma isn’t your fault, far from it. Whatever you experienced was deeply unjustified, if only because it led to harm that warps such a simple pleasure into distress. I don’t know the last time someone told you this, but any residual trauma that leaves you feeling worthless or wanting to die is serious and worth seeking support over, whether that support takes the shape of trusted friends, chosen family, pets, a therapist, etc. Your pain needs and deserves both outlet and recovery. I can’t provide the professional care you could probably benefit from, but I can address your last question.

No, you’re not in the wrong to want self-pleasure despite trauma. You’re also not in the wrong for seeking pleasure through masturbation. While it is possible to masturbate in risky or addictive ways, simply wanting to masturbate is never a point of failure. It’s no more than a desire for a simple pleasure we can provide for ourselves. To me, masturbation should be an act of solo comfort no different from hot chocolate or being flat in bed after a long day. Whatever faults people have dreamed up about masturbation have clearly caused you more harm than the act itself, to include suicidality. I can’t think of more reasons to see masturbation as sane and good in your position. Opposition to it has brought you so much strain with no betterment to show for it. You deserve a break from it all. The stress. The trauma. The isolation. I trust you’ll find it.

You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

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