While many men joke they wish they were a sex addict, sex addicts engage in distorted thinking and often rationalize their behavior and blame others for problems.
“Sexual addicts often pursue sexual activity, despite the potential for negative or dangerous consequences” states medicinenet.com.
They generally deny they have a problem and make excuses for their actions.
Now that today’s Press reports that Tiger Woods has checked into a clinic for treatment of Sex Addiction, perhaps we may see some serious discussion about the condition.
So what characterises Sex Addiction?
Sexual Addiction has also been called “hypersexuality, sexual dependency and sexual compulsivity. The existence of the condition is not universally accepted by sexologists and its etiology, nature, and validity have been debated”.
There are different desrciriptions according to diffeent treatment models, states sexaddictiontreatment.ca
- Compulsive masturbation
- Multiple affairs (extra-marital affairs)
- Multiple or anonymous sexual partners and/or one-night stands
- Consistent use of pornography
- Unsafe sex
- Phone or computer sex (cybersex)
- Prostitution or use of prostitutes
- Exhibitionism
- Obsessive dating through personal ads
- Voyeurism and/or stalking
- Sexual harassment
- Molestation/rape
How can you be sure if you are addicted to sex? Perhaps you simply have a healthy libido? What is called addiction in one culture may appear normal to another.
“One of the biggest problems with addiction is that we never know who is truly an addict. Yes, we have tests and notions, interviews and criteria, but all of those are simply tools we’ve used to get around the problem of not knowing” wrote Adi Jaffe, a writer for allaboutaddiction.com.
It seems that researchers at Florida State University may help us get a little closer, but their results have limited findings.
Jaffe points out that people hoped to find an alcoholic genes to know who to treat. Unfortunately, there is many that influence behavior in different ways.
The Florida scientists found a low Electrodermal response modulation (ERM; a measure of skin conductance) was more common among individuals with addiction than others, even less than people with personality disorders.
ERM measures how skin conductance changes in response to predictable versus unpredictable stress.
“The idea is that the more prepared the overall system is to deal with predictable stress, the better equipped a person is to handle life stressors” said Jaffe. Low responsivity would mean that the person’s system is not adjusting well to unpredictable stress.
If the research can be developed, then it may be possible to detect if a person is a potential addict.
P300 brain wave patterns have also been researched, however they are associated externalizing disorders like illegal activity and high risk sexual behavior or aggression.
Whether this research will be useful oin detecting potential sex addict it is to early to tell.
“This study shows that there are physiological factors to addiction that are far beyond anyone’s actual control” said Jaffe.
“ I don’t personally know anyone who can change their skin conductance.”
Perhaps we should introduce Jaffe to Mantak Chia, Master Taoist and teacher of Taoist Sexual techniques. Chia changed his electrical skin resistance from 60 Q up to 6080 Q and back .while tested at the Biocybernetics Research Institute in Vienna.
According to an article published in Philyburbps.com sex addicts do not desire physical affection.
A summary of its main thrust is below:
“Like people who can’t stop gambling, eating or drinking, people who seek serial, often risky sexual behaviors often don’t much enjoy the conquests.”
Dr. Kenneth Maguire, a Middletown psychologist with Council for Relationships, a Philadelphia relationship counseling center describes them as “much more wounded people than we think they are,”.
Sex addicts crave emotional intimacy, but they never learned how to make those connections on a non-physical level, so they equate sex for love.
They are chasing the empty highs.
In the USA 1 in 20 may meet the the criteria for sexual addiction and compulsivity, according to the Georgia-based Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health.
Some therapists describe sex addiction as an intimacy disorder typically resulting from childhood experiences including abandonment, lack of attention, affection or abuse, patterns also commonly seen in addictive personalities.
It is a behavior that takes over a person’s thinking and interfere’s with daily life. It become a form of self medication.
Within the psychotherapy community there is controversy over whether hypersexual behavior is a legitimate addiction. This deals with how the DSM criteria classifies a condition. It is even argued by therapist Kevin Medican that “the DSM manual reflects insurance purposes more than clinical realities.
There is also disagreement over whether the behavior is compulsive or addiction, said Karen Brash McGreer, a Medford certified sex therapist.
Addiction describes dependence on a particular substance or behavior to cope with life regardless of negative consequences. Compulsion described the intense urge to do something and it’s considered a small, but important, part of the addictive process, experts say.
Brash McGreer sees hypersexual activity as a compulsive behavior bolstered by a lack of moral and ethical development. Untreated depression also could manifest as sexual compulsion.
How the public perceives the partners of sex addicts is also unfairly distorted, therapists said. Often they are blamed as either complacent or naive, but it’s frequently the wives or girlfriends of addicts who are the first to seek professional help for their partner, therapists said.
Michele Saffier, who treats sex addicts in her Newtown, Pa. practice, says in her professional experience, most wives are absolutely shocked when they learn about a husband’s secret sex life. They feel guilt and shame for not seeing it sooner.
Like other addicts, sex addicts are typically the last ones to admit they have a problem. They’re skilled at hiding their behavior and frequently live what therapists call “compartmentalized lives,” where they maintain family, work, and other outside lives that are separate, rather than interconnected.
When in recovery, many addicts are horrified at their past behavior and filled with self-hatred and shame.
“When they come to grips with these things, they can’t believe how they acted,” Saffier said.