Sex Can Wipe Your Memory

"Mind-blowing" sex is something we all strive for. Normal sex will never do. We want sex that will destroy our brains and render us incapable of functioning like a normal human. We want our cognitive processes permanently disrupted by the force of an earth-shattering orgasm that causes an earthquake in Beijing, killing thousands.

Sounds exaggerated, but at least one part of that desire is kind of true. Sex, it turns out, can wipe your memory clean. Transient global amnesia is a strange phenomenon in which a person's memory is almost completely erased for a few hours before it inevitably returns. It affects only 3 to 5 people per 100,000 every year, and scientists have no clue why it happens but know at least one activity that triggers it–porking, AKA sex, for those that aren't into creepy, unappealing synonyms.

A 54-year-old woman from Washington, D.C. became the best example of sex-induced Transient global amnesia. The unnamed woman woke up one morning with no memory of her recent past. She knew who and where she was, but the previous 24-hours weren't even tequila-bender blur, they didn't even exist in her mind. In her mind, she went from Thursday to Saturday with no Friday. Even her newly formed memories, the ones she was forming after she woke up, became instantly hazy.

The next day she visited the emergency room of Georgetown University Hospital and, with a clearer head, was able to pinpoint the moment her brain wiring shorted out like a fork in a power outlet. She remembered that she stopped remembering immediately after she had sex with her husband. If she had been cheating on her husband she could have had an amazing excuse for not remembering her infidelity, and probably even a doctor's note to back her up.

There are some theories that attempt to explain transient global amnesia–for instance, some scientists believe contracting our abdomens during sex creates an excess of de-oxygenated blood in our brains–but none are definitive explanations.