Welcome to “Ask Gloria,” an advice column for adults
coping with sex, gender or relationship issues.
Dear Gloria,
After I climax, I get freezing cold…. any idea as to why? Is this normal? Do other people get it? Or is there something wrong with me?
Frozen Princess
Dear FP,
It’s not common but you are certainly not alone. Feeling cold after sex is a known complaint from women, though since it’s just a quirky result of normal physiological functions, there’s not much medical advice about it either.
So here are some scientific reasons which could explain why you suddenly feel chilly after orgasm.
First, when you’re getting aroused, blood rushes into your reproductive system and the surrounding areas. The blood congests in those body parts for the duration of your excitement. That’s why female genitals get puffy and extended during sex and also why males get erections. The pooling of blood in our genitals changes how they look, function and feel, making them divinely sensitive.
But what flows in must flow out again. After the excitement ebbs, and particularly after orgasm, blood flows back into your core and returns to its usual job of regulating your core body temperature. And that may leave your arms and legs and entire genital/ass regions feeling oddly cold. Because they are — the hot blood’s ebbing back out. The difference between you and the next person is that you experience that ebb more keenly than they do.
There is even more going on. During arousal and orgasm our brains cheerfully pump a stream of sex chemicals and Adrenalin into our bloodstream. Most people get a satisfying little kick from this drug cocktail but some of us get an overwhelming body rush that electrifies our brains. After climax, the sex-drug party is over and, again, and those electrified folks are apt to suddenly freeze, or convulse, get restless or jittery legs, muscle spasms or headaches or cramps. Some adults get uncontrollably shaky legs after sex too. And most times it’s triggered by your brain’s reaction to the Adrenalin spike and crash. In fact, marathon runners experience similar symptoms after running.
If your coldness is the result of an Adrenalin crash, cutting down on coffee and other stimulants before sex might ease your symptoms. Quick tell: if your brain feels weirdly tired and your body is wiped out, it’s probably an Adrenalin crash. Other symptoms may include nausea and brain-fog.
On the other hand, if you just feel cold, it’s probably the blood flowing back to your core. In simpler times, we’d say you have a sensitive body. In modern times, I’m sure someone would love to give you a lot of needless tests. But really all you need to do for this is to pull the covers up and relax.
An interesting side note. Doctors have identified a condition in men called Postorgasmic illness syndrome (POIS). After orgasm, some guys get full-on episodes of convulsions and cognitive problems, among other disconcerting issues. In some cases, the symptoms last up to a week. The precise cause is unknown, and treatment is still in the experimental stage. But this disorder speaks volumes to just how amazingly weird and varied our bodies are when comes to sex!
HUGS,
Gloria
Dear Gloria,
I’ve known my partner for over 20 years but we only got together 6 months ago. I love her to the moon and back, always have but….our sex life is as straight as can be. If I try to broach the subject of BDSM and my life within it, she is adamant that my interest is based on my abusive childhood.
She told me yesterday that “everybody involved in that lifestyle is flawed in one way or another” and that it is why they are part of that world.
I’m struggling. In every other part of us, we work really well but this…….bothers me (that’s an understatement).
BDSM Blues
Dear BDSMB:
Do you know why she is adamant? Usually, the people who are most adamantly opposed to BDSM have secret reasons behind their prejudice. But since I don’t know what happened in her life to make her BDSM-hostile, I can only deal with how she’s reacting instead of the reasons why.
I hope that you understand she is negging you — deliberately undermining your self-confidence about BDSM to manipulate you and invalidate your beliefs. By claiming that everyone in BDSM is flawed, she is demonstrating that she hasn’t done her reading or, conversely, has done all her reading on anti-BDSM sites where other people who haven’t done their reading try to rationalize their prejudices against types of sex they don’t like. This includes some feminists who have built absurd intellectual cases about why kink is bad rather than reading the science and facts that support a multi-dimensional take on sexual variety. Especially disheartening is that she’s trying to make you feel bad about yourself while appearing to be concerned about your mental welfare.
So let’s address the her two primary claims. First, she says BDSMers are flawed people. Okey-dokey. But how exactly does that make BDSMers different from other human beings? If you know a human being who is not flawed, please submit their name to academia for intensive research. Because every known human being is flawed in some way. That’s the nature of the human being. If she means they are all flawed in the same way, then I guess she doesn’t know many BDSMers because, as all BDSMers already know, we are each flawed in our own magnificent ways. 😉
The concept that some consenting adults, based on their sexual needs and choices, are more flawed than other consenting adults is plain bigotry. You know, it’s always been homophobes who traditionally accused anyone who didn’t fit their hetero-normative binary norm as being flawed, so it’s especially sad that the same sex-negative rhetoric has crept into her thinking. There’s no science behind it. It isn’t a flaw to be different sexually any more than it’s a flaw to like the color blue instead of the color red.
An absolute correlation between adult kinks and childhood abuse has never been proven. Millions of abused kids grow up hating BDSM and millions of pampered kids grow up loving BDSM. I did a demographic study myself some years back and the actual percentage of BDSM people who said they’d been abused as kids was slightly lower than the percentage of abuse survivors in the general population. So are there people in the kink communities who were abused? Of course. Are there people in the LGBT communities who were abused? You bet! And are there people in the totally utterly straight heterosexual who were abused? OMG YES! Child abuse is reported every 10 seconds in America. Come to think of it, most BDSMers were raised by straight, vanilla people. Hmmm!
But I doubt you’ll be able to convince your partner with facts. Instead of displaying interest in the things that make you happy, growing her own understanding of BDSM, or trying to be tolerant and supportive of your needs, she is trying to manipulate you out of having them. It would be easier if she came out and said she hates BDSM because then, at least, you’d know where you stand. But she’s using sneaky, demoralizing tactics, the kind that make people question their own judgment. Making you feel like your early trauma is the reason you’re kinky is a way of diminishing you: it implies that you don’t understand yourself or your sexual needs as well as she does. That is a classic red flag of emotionally abusive people. Does she paint herself as the true victim here too, the one who’s putting up with your misguided need for BDSM? Because that’s a classic abusive move as well.
Sorry to be so harsh but I call it as I see it and what I’m seeing here is a controlling, judgmental person who doesn’t fully love the kinky person you are and instead is trying to remake you into the vanilla person she thinks you should be.
BUT…there is one final and more charitable possibility. For your sake, I hope this is what’s really going on because this one can be resolved. Could it be the real problem is she can’t deal with the idea of you sharing this special thrilling intimacy with other people? Maybe she feels threatened by your fulfilling outside life? If your heart says you have to give her another chance, try confronting her about whether she feels threatened by your independent BDSM life. Ask her if she’s afraid you’ll l leave her for another BDSMer some day. If jealousy or insecurity are the root causes of her BDSM-bashing, working through her fears as a team could create the true love miracle you’re hoping for.
HUGS,
Gloria
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