Sex File: He laughs after we make love and it's a real turn-off

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After we've had sex my boyfriend sometimes laughs uncontrollably. He says he can't help it but I find it a real turn-off. What can we do?

This is rarely discussed - but it's not rare. Over the years I have had several questions from readers, men and women, who have been puzzled by this postcoital response. It seems that for a percentage of people laughing or giggling is an automatic response to an overwhelming neurophysiological experience. However, there isn't much in the way of academic research to explain it.

 In 2017 Dr Anna E Reinert, from the department of obstetrics, gynaecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Maryland Medical Center, conducted a study that investigated reports of unusual physical or psychological symptoms that occur after orgasm. Her study assessed post-orgasmic phenomena such as cataplexy (weakness), crying, facial pain, ear pain, foot ache, headache, itching, seizures, sneezing, laughter, panic attacks and illness, and provided supporting evidence for a number of them.

Research by Gert Holstege, a neuroscientist at the University of Groningen, confirms that during orgasm there is a significant decrease in activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that is involved in fear, anxiety and emotional control, and a huge increase in activity in the reward pathways, the same networks that are activated by drugs, alcohol and gambling, a finding that led him to compare the experience of having an orgasm to taking heroin. If orgasm decreases fear, anxiety and emotional control, while also flooding the brain with dopamine, it is perhaps surprising that more people don't respond to orgasm by giggling or laughing spontaneously.

Your boyfriend's response is unusual, but it is not abnormal, and he is not lying when he says it is not something he can control. Knowing that, the question you need to ask yourself is why his response to pleasure is such a turn-off. Does it make you feel insecure? Do you think it trivialises sex? Do you worry that he is laughing at you? Do you feel excluded by it? Since you've already spoken about the fact he giggles, why not have another conversation focused on how it makes you feel?

You need to make him aware of the negative impact his postcoital laughing has on you, so be honest. Tell him why you don't like it, and that it makes you feel out of sync with him when the two of you should be at your most intimate and connected. If he feels you are attacking him, he may become defensive, so be careful to use the vulnerable 'I' rather than the critical 'you'. If you can get him to understand the impact this behaviour is having on you, he is much more likely to try to do something about it. Though he believes it is an automatic response, being conscious of the fact his laughter impairs your sexual experience will force him to attend to the sensation and that will help him control what he believes to be uncontrollable.

Finally, although you dislike the way he giggles after sex, don't forget laughter is an essential component of a happy, healthy relationship.

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