This is Crymaxing

Crymaxing/Crygasm by L. Hind

Over a dozen times I have googled: “what does it mean when you cry after an orgasm?” Google reveals dozens of answers: medical and psychological`explanations, listicles, generalized experiences, and lots more questions like: “is crying after sex normal?” or “why does my girlfriend cry after achieving orgasm?” or “I cried after an intense orgasm, what does this mean?” 

These questions make me cry. They also make me angry and eager to know why many of us feel the need to google a very normal and healthy part of our lives. What creates the disconnection in the brain from the body that says there is something wrong with crying during and/or after an orgasm? Is it possible crymaxing is a sign of healthy emotional release? Is it possibly another form of climax all together? 

As a survivor of numerous sexual assaults, domestic violence, and incest, I have a lifetime of experience in the art of emotional numbing, dissociation, and being triggered during sex. I’ve also lived through the freak outs, the shame, the mind racing, the ghosts that enter the space between me and my partners, and the extreme terror of being in my body when, for years I had found a way to leave it because it was not safe. So now, without the threat of perpetrators, and engaging in consensual adult fun, I experience a range of all of these things. In fact, the safer I feel, the more that comes out - including incredibly potent tears almost every time I orgasm.  

I remember the first time I cried after an orgasm. It was shortly after my three year old dog had passed away suddenly from a horrible undiagnosable infection that left me with a $6,000 vet bill and all the guilt of not being able to save him. I went home to stay at my mother’s and get away from my life and responsibilities for a few days. It was there, in my mother’s recently renovated bathroom, where she had installed a rather nice detachable shower head and what I deemed to be the perfect antidote to my grief, that I experienced my first crymax. I came hard. The first taste of anything remotely pleasurable I had felt in a while; an ecstatic state of great relief. But moments after, not before I could gasp for another breath, my entire body curled into itself and my mouth opened into a gaping silent cry. A loud silence, perhaps a scream if I could. My body heaved into explosive tears as I was held by my bath water, continuing to shake and heave for over 20 minutes, all the while wheezing, exhaustingly trying to catch up to my breath. It seemed relentless and everything I did to try and make it stop only made it stronger. I felt something or someone had taken over my body. After I had finally wound down and gotten out of the tub I felt weak but elated. I laid down with a sense of relief and lightness, my mind finally had stopped spinning in all of my grief, my sadness seemed to dissipate, and I could rest. 

That first crymax was over 10 years ago, and since then I have experienced waves of them by myself, with partners who witnessed and held space for them, and with partners who I hid them from, learning I could muffle my cries in a pillow; not always ready to share this vulnerable part of myself. I have cried while thinking: “why, why, why is this happening to me?” and “no, no, not again!” and the universal “what is wrong with me?” I have also cried while thinking: “let it go, this is beautiful!” and “I am so grateful to be alive!” and the miraculous, “I can’t believe I get to feel so much!” And sometimes the paradox of these extremes felt simultaneously, all in one big crymax.  

During a long partnerless period of my life, I began to become curious about my crymaxes and started to think they might even be something special, something unique. So I decided to video tape them, using a camera to witness this intense experience and give myself the sense of being seen. I have since grown a solid collection of crymaxing videos, continuing to shoot them when I feel the need to be witnessed in my most raw state, creating an archive of my most intimate self. 

No two crymaxes are the same, and there is no way to predict them either. Very often they don’t come right after orgasm, but after a few second delay - perhaps the amount of time the release from my vagina travels to the emotional center in my brain. My crymaxes are sneaky like that; often when I think “Okay maybe it won’t happen,” she comes on strong, just to keep me humbled to the uncontrollable forces of my spirit.  

I thank her for that. Yes, her: my crymaxes and crygasms. I am grateful for her and all her surprises. I thank her for teaching me how to surrender to my emotions and learn to feel again, in and outside of sex. I thank her for teaching me what rape culture, patriarchy, racism, capitalism and homophobia did not: to not be afraid of my emotional body. To hold space for the silence, the tears, the rage, the confusion, the agony, the betrayal, the joy and the pain. Mostly, I am grateful for my crymaxes because they have taught me how to experience pleasure in a world full of pain. 

I don’t need the internet to answer questions my own body holds the intelligence of teaching me. Her wisdom is in each tear I allow to slip down my face, each gasp for breath I reach for, each convulsion my body dances in. This is life experienced in the body. This is crymaxing.