What is Sexual Addiction?

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Sex and Love Addiction

A distinction has been made between sex addiction and what is referred to as sex and love addiction. The latter has to do with an addictive pattern of establishing love relationships with specific people, where the person and the relationship, as well as sex with the person, are all part of the appeal to the addict. While these same elements are normal in a healthy love relationship, sex and love addicts can never find fulfillment and permanence in any of the love relationships they begin. They keep seeking satisfaction in another relationship but find it empty, demanding or anxiety-provoking instead.

Sex and love addicts may have several love relationships with different people going on at the same time or they may pass serially from one to the next, leaving each when the initial "love high" wears off. Or they may have a major love relationship, such as a marriage, complete with home, children and other signs of permanence, but keep returning periodically to one or more former relationships or create secret relationships with new people. .

Sex addiction, by contrast, usually is a preoccupation with sexual arousal and sexual release which often has little to do with who the person is and requires no relationship. On the contrary, to the sex addict, what counts is the charge he or she gets from the image, whether it's a stranger spotted in a car or on a street corner, or stimulating body parts, an erotic picture, or the addict's own fantasy.

Then there are many who exhibit the characteristics of both a sex addict and a sex and love addict. Regardless of how it manifests, however, the addiction progresses in much the same way, always leaving a trail of problems and losses. And, by the same token, the solution to whatever form the addiction takes, the work to be done to change the behavior, is quite similar.

Sex Addiction and The Internet

The Internet has become the newest, most rapidly growing form of sexual acting out for many sex addicts today. A lot of sex addicts have added computer sex to their repertoire, as it fills a need for "more, easier and better." For the cybersex addict, increasing amounts of time are spent "surfing," downloading, creating files, masturbating, reading information posted on sexual bulletin boards, exchanging sexual information live with others in sexual chat rooms or via computer cameras, or directing their own live sex shows on interactive sites--in short, looking for what's new, what's better than last time. The Internet just happens to provide many of the things sex addict's seek, all in one palce: isolation, secrecy, fantasy material, endless variety, around-the-clock availability, instant accessibility and a rapid means of returning, low or no cost. (The cost factor can change, however, if the sex addict keeps charging view-for-pay services on the internet, such as live interaction with performers who follow the customer's instructions for engaging in all kinds of prescribed sex acts that the customer can watch and masturbate to.)

Since one of the characteristics of sexual addiction is that it is progressive--that is, the habitual behaviors progressively become more frequent, varied and extreme, with more frequent and extreme consequences--sex addicts on the Internet often experience a rapid progression of their addiction. The new sexual thrills lead to spending huge amounts of time, moving more quickly into more extreme behaviors, taking greater risks, and getting caught more frequently. Thus, internet sex has been referred to as the "crack cocaine" of sex addiction. Actually, the sped-up progression of the sex addict's problem via the internet can turn into a blessing, since it can move the addict into the consequences more quickly that can cause him or her to get help.

What Happens Without Help

Another feature of sexual addiction is that it is progressive. It rarely gets better. Over time it gets more frequent, more extreme, or both. At times when the addiction seems under control, the addict is merely engaging in one of the common traits of the disease process in which he switches from sexual release to the control of it. The control phase inevitably breaks down over time, whether it be in an hour, a week, a month or a year or five years, and the addict is back in the behavior again despite his promise to himself or others never to do it again. When the ecstasy of the release is spent, the addict will often feel remorse at his failure and with great resolve will switch back to another "white knuckle" period of abstaining from the behavior until his resolve weakens again. Without help, this is the way the sexually addicted person lives his or her life.

If You Are Serious About Starting to Get Help

If you have related to the information presented in the foregoing and would like to know about professional help available, click here for treatment information. Or if you would like to check out yourself if you fit some of the specific criteria of sex addiction, click here for a sexual addiction self-test. If you would like to know about free 12-step programs for sex addicts that may be available near you, click here. You will probably find answers to your questions by reading these sections carefully.

If You Are a Spouse or Partner of a Sex Addict

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If you are in relationship with someone you think is sexually addicted, your efforts to help may be actually adding to the problem rather than achieving the results you desire. Sex addicts usually wind up in relationships with partners who unconsciously fit right into the addictive patterns. For example, typically the sex addict keeps on returning again and again to the sexually addictive behaviors and the partner accepts what is going on, or overlooks clues that would suggest something is wrong, or threatens to leave but doesn't (or leaves and returns when the addict promises to change, only to learn later the addict did not stop), or takes responsibility for trying to control the addict's behavior. None of these strategies work and actually add to the problem. What the partner has to realize is that she or he needs help too in order to get out of her or his own addictive habits. The partner will need to learn how to stop enabling the sex addict and how to focus on her/himself, and how to take stands or draw boundaries that actually work. If you would like to learn more about the process partners experience and what to do about the situation, click here for partners of sex addicts. You will probably find answers to your questions by reading these sections carefully.

More: How Serious A Problem Do You Have With Sexual Addiction?  Take Our Sexual Addiction Test

Next: Treatment for Sexual Addiction

Last updated: 10/05

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