By Robert Weiss, LCSW, CSAT

For most adults, healthy sexuality is an integrated life experience. Sex with partners, with self, or as a part of exploring new relationships is usually a pleasurable act of choice. For sexual addicts however, sexual behavior can be most often defined by words such as driven, compulsive and hidden. Unlike healthy sex that is integrated into relationships, sexual addicts use sex as a means to cope, to handle boredom, anxiety and other powerful feelings or as a way to feel important, wanted or powerful. While sexual addiction is not defined by any particular sexual act, sexual addiction is defined by the feelings and activities surrounding sex. Patrick Carnes, Ph.D. in his groundbreaking 1978 book on sexual addiction, Out of the Shadows, helps to define sexually addictive behavior as sexual activity that often falls into one of three categories: Shameful, Secretive, or Abusive.

For most people sex is a pleasurable experience with few negative consequences. Sex addicts however are more likely to define their sexual behavior with words like driven, secretive and shameful, than fun, playful or intimate. Sex addicts repeatedly engage in the pursuit of sex and the sex act itself more as a means to tolerate emotional stress, distract themselves from past trauma or to feel more important or powerful than they do. While you wouldn’t be diagnosed as a sex addict because you enjoy a specific type of sexual act like seeing a prostitute or having an affair, sex addiction is defined by how you approach sex and intimacy as a whole. Another way to look at this is through the lens of Dr. Patrick Carnes who in his groundbreaking book on sexual addiction, Out of the Shadows defined sexually addictive behavior as sexual activity most often involving Shame, Secrecy or Abuse. Let’s examine this further.

Shameful
Shame can be defined as a feeling of inner worthlessness or despair about ever being worthy or lovable. For the sex addict who spends endless amounts of time, money and energy going to strip clubs, getting sexual massages, maintaining multiple affairs or masturbating night after night to Internet porn, the shame he feels about these acts reinforces an inner core of negative feelings that ends up sabotaging his relationships, careers and self-esteem.

For several years John, a 35-year-old married man with two young children, has diligently spent hour after hour at the computer after his wife has gone to bed, viewing and storing porn and masturbating. More recently, John made live contact with a few women he met in chat rooms and has been making plans to meet one of them for sex during a break in his workday. John justifies this by saying things to himself like “it doesn’t hurt anybody and besides I deserve it, look how hard I work” and “No one will ever know so what difference does it make?” However, each time he lies to his wife and avoids being intimate with her, puts his kids to bed without spending time with them to get back to the computer, or comes into work exhausted from his late night masturbation sessions, he feels a little bit worse about himself and becomes more detached and emotionally distant from everyone around him.

Secretive
Secrecy is a hallmark of sexual addiction. Compartmentalizing a life of hidden sexual behaviors, the sex addict finds him/herself wrapped in a web of lies and manipulations, consistently hiding from those close to them, while using justifications, rationalizations and outright denial to lie to themselves.

Alex, a 45-year-old gay male supposedly in a long-term monogamous relationship continues to cruise for anonymous sex in the same public park restroom where he has been arrested for lewd conduct just 2 years before. Though promising himself he would never return there, that he was done with having sex with strangers, he continues to engage in sexual behaviors which put him at risk of re-arrest getting a disease. He has convinced himself that since he was arrested before, he would now definitely recognize the signs of a vice officer being present and would be able to get out before being arrested again. Each time he goes out for sex it is the last time, and upon leaving each sexual encounter he says to himself, never again. When not in the park, Jeff frequents adult bookstores and the showers at his gym seeking to hook-up for sex. Jeff lies consistently to his partner about where he goes after work and has a never-ending stream of excuses about his invariable lateness, fatigue and irritability. When questioned he quickly becomes angry and defensive, pushing his loving partner away time and time again.

Abusive
Abusive sex can run the gamut from manipulating someone or using your power over them get obtain sex, to sexual offenses such as exhibitionism, voyeurism, sex with minors and rape. Potential sexual partners are being abused when invited into situations they do not fully understand, when there is a clear inequity of power in a relationship and whenever they can’t fully and openly consent to sex

Al was a supervisor in a large corporation. Because he was known as “always being on the make” the women at Al’s company learned to be careful how they engaged with him. Al didn’t see anything wrong with simple pats on the butt, commenting on a co-workers legs or breasts or making out with secretaries in the elevator at the company holiday party, though he was always careful not to sexually engage women who worked directly for him. Married for 11 years, Al has engaged in sexual affairs both at work and with various baby-sitters his wife has hired to work in his home. When he was younger, Al had been kicked out of a school fraternity when he was accused of having sex with a woman when she was passed out from drinking. At the time he felt like too much was made of the incident, “after all, we were drinking together.”

To conclude, when asked to inventory their past sexual activities, most sex addicts often uncover long histories of various types and degrees of problem acting-out, behaviors that often proceeded their present problems. Recovery from sexual addiction, like any addictive is a long road with many challenges and is a task best undertaken with a professional trained in sexual addiction treatment. The main keys to healing from years of hidden sexual acts, compulsive behaviors, betrayal and lies are: a strong motivation to get well and the willingness to take the necessary emotional risks in honesty facing these painful issues in the presence of others who will not judge you, but offer direction and real help.

Reprinted with permission Robert Weiss