First of all, rip this page out of the magazine and use it to dry your sweet little eyes, you human waterfall. Second, come give mama a hug. It’s going to be OK. People cry at happy things all of the time. I mean, I cry every time someone sings like a not-douche on TV. And, according to the Google, crying during sex is actually pretty common. So, the first thing to know is that you are not alone. Second, sex can be deeply mental.

First of all, rip this page out of the magazine and use it to dry your sweet little eyes, you human waterfall. Second, come give mama a hug. It’s going to be OK. People cry at happy things all of the time. I mean, I cry every time someone sings like a not-douche on TV. And, according to the Google, crying during sex is actually pretty common. So, the first thing to know is that you are not alone. Second, sex can be deeply mental.

Ain’t a thing wrong with being moved by the profound closeness and intensity of the experience. Crying is like the rest of your body orgasming because your genitals already are, and it doesn’t know what else to do. In fact, some people are neurologically wired so feelings of bodily pleasure are interpreted as feelings of emotion. In fact, sex researchers William Hartman and Marilyn Fithian demonstrated this just with their physiological explanation for post-orgasm waterworks. They found that in some people, orgasmic signals travel up the genital branches of the vagus nerve to the brainstem where they get perceived as emotion and trigger watery eyes and a swallowing reflex in the throat. Also, Tantra further explains it, using “energy dynamics,” which say that during sex, emotions stored in the body are loosened and freed by sexual energy.

So look, there are explanations for it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of; crying is simply your body’s interpretation of pleasure, and I hope that’s a little liberating for you. In fact, crying could be a really good thing in that it could signal that something’s being done right, which is useful information for both you and your partner. In that sense, it’s beneficial to be moved to emotion by the physical and psychological feeling of sex. Plus, if those you bang have a problem with it, then fuck them. That’s their bag if they can’t handle emotion, not yours for simply showing how you feel.

However, if you’re unhappy-crying after you come, that’s a different story. Sex might be causing you to recall some traumatic event that happened to you in the past, whether you’re conscious of it or not. Or, you might be dealing with some heavy shit in your life, haven’t processed it, and it’s just coming out when you fuck because the pleasure and excitement leave you in a vulnerable mental state where you can’t suppress your feelings. In either of those situations, it’s important to acknowledge and confront the cause of your emotional pain or past trauma, ideally with the help of a therapist. Getting to the bottom of the issue and talking about it will help you move past it.