Possible antidepressant-related sexual problems?

[Blue Sky]

Hi!

I'm 22 and I've been on antidepressants since I was 19. I never actually tried masturbating before that, because the depression hit before puberty did and it ate my sex drive. With the depression treated, my sex drive suddenly surfaced around when I turned 20. I now own a couple sex toys and masturbate a few times a week. (I'm a trans guy who hasn't had bottom surgery, so I have a vulva and the associated parts.) The medicine I'm on (Lexapro) has a fairly common set of sexual dysfunction side effects, mostly related to problems with the biological part rather than the mental part - inability to orgasm, lubricate, get hard, etc.

After 15-30 minutes of masturbation, I usually experience something that feels noticeably different/better than what was happening before, and after a couple seconds, makes me want to remove whatever toys I'm using and be done with sex for the night. It does not feel as powerful, or as overwhelming, as the way I see a lot of women describe orgasms. No involuntary muscle contractions (sometimes my leg cramps, but that's it, and that might just be positioning), no noise, no squirting, just "ooh there we go... okay I'm done now".

Is this an issue of "everyone's body works differently/people jazz up their descriptions/people who are inclined to describe their orgasms in public usually have really spectacular ones", or am I describing some sort of actual sexual dysfunction? I have no basis for comparison.

Thanks!

[Elise]

Hi Blue Sky, and thanks for your question!

Whilst we aren't medical professionals here and so if you do have any concerns about the side effects of your medication the best person to speak to is your doctor, taking the second and third paragraph of your post alone I'd say your conclusion is very apt, everyone's body and sexual responses are different, and this can be further influenced by our environment (which includes the headspace we might be in at any given time, and our health, mental and physiological) which may heighten our arousal or make it harder to build, and much in between. We are also all different in how we find experience pleasure (or not) in terms of physical sensations, and this can be a really great thing to keep exploring to find what you enjoy best.

You are also correct that people can sometimes exaggerate when they talk about sex and particularly so with orgasms, which isn't very helpful when it comes to having realistic conversations about sex. Also, dialogues in the media and broader society tend to focus on orgasm as the ultimate and only goal, and ignore the great value and pleasure that we can experience from sexual and sensual experiences, and touch in general.

If you'd like to learn more about the sexual response cycle, you can read more about it here:
Sexual Response & Orgasm: A Users Guide. If you have any questions, realisations or curiosities that arise from this article or anything else you'd like to ask, please feel free to post them here