SYDNEY: Challenging a common assumption that men always desire and experience sex as pleasurable, a new study claims that there are exceptions.
Just like women, men too can and do suffer from a condition, called Postcoital Dysphoria (PCD), which results in feelings of sadness, tearfulness or irritability following sex, said the study published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy.
While the condition had been recognised in women, no studies had previously identified the phenomenon among males, said the researchers from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia.
"The study breaks down the results of an international anonymous online survey of 1,208 men from Australia, the USA, the UK, Russia, New Zealand, Germany and elsewhere," said one of the researchers Joel Maczkowiack.
The findings showed that over 40 per cent of the participants reported experiencing PCD in their lifetime with 20 per cent reporting they had experienced it in the previous four weeks.
Up to four per cent suffered from PCD on a regular basis, according to the study.
Maczkowiack added that some of the comments from men who participated and who had experienced sadness following sex described experiences ranging from "I don't want to be touched and want to be left alone" to "I feel unsatisfied, annoyed and very fidgety. All I really want is to leave and distract myself from everything I participated in".
"Another described feeling 'emotionless and empty' in contrast to the men who experienced the post coital experience positively," he said.
The results indicated the male experience of sex could be far more varied and complex than previously thought, according to Professor Robert Schweitzer from QUT's School of Psychology and Counselling.