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| Sexual Addicts: Who They Are? |  The prevalence of sexual addiction is not accurately known, in part because addicts are secretive. However, it is commonly seen in combination with other addictions as well as mood and stress disorders. Sometimes, when multiple addictions are present (food, alcohol, drugs, gambling) sexual addiction is found to be the "core" addiction. Sexual addiction has in the past been considered a largely male problem, but more recent work suggests it is also prevalent in women, although usually manifesting in different ways.
Sexual addicts use widely varying activities. Anonymous sex, compulsive pornography use and infidelity. Even masturbation can become obsessive, being done to the point of injury or to the point that it interferes significantly with ordinary life, even to the point where the addict prefers masturbation alone over interpersonal sex. Pornography or other sexual/romantic literature can be addictive and addicts may spend huge amounts of money on it. Employment of prostitutes is also common for sexual addicts. But in contrast to fetishism sexual addiction is seldom sharply focused on a single activity.
A key feature of sexual addiction is its compulsive, unmanageable nature: a normal person might stare as they happen to drive past an attractive person, but an addict will drive around the block to stare again and perhaps again and again. Addicts can spend an extraordinary amount of time and money on their habit, entirely lacking control. They often experience an almost trance-like state in which acting out can go on for many hours.
As with other addictions, some addicts experience episodic binges (between which they may believe there is no problem) while others experience more continuous problems. Some sex addicts also swing into the opposite end of the spectrum, engaging in sexual anorexia, where they so tightly control themself that they have absolutely no sexual experiences. This does not control or cure the basic compulsion but like food addictions is simply another manifestation of the addiction.
Some addicts act in more intrusive ways or progress to them as they experience diminishing "highs" for their original activities. A Level 2 addict might include voyeurism and exhibitionism and rubbing against people in public places. A Level 3 addict involves much more serious and intrusive sexual offenses and has more harmful consequences.
Patrick Carnes, the most prolific author and a pioneer researcher on this subject, states specific activities are not that identify addiction. Even a rapist may not necessarily be a sexual addict. Rather, it is the compulsive nature of the behaviors that demonstrates addiction.
Addicts have tried often to stop and failed. Their behavior generally conforms to a cycle:
1. Preoccupation - the addict becomes completely engrossed with sexual thoughts or fantasies.
2. Ritualization - the addict follows special routines in a search for sexual stimulation, which intensifies the experience and may be more important than reaching orgasm.
3. Compulsive sexual behavior - the addict's specific sexual acting out.
4. Despair - the acting out does not lead to normal sexual satisfaction but to feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness, depression and the like.
To escape these negative feelings the addict soon becomes troubled with sexual thoughts and fantasies again, restarting the addictive cycle. A variety of questionnaires and tests have been devised to evaluate sexual addiction but few if any have been formally evaluated, normed or proven accurate. The cycle and beliefs above strongly characterize the sexual addict, however.
In addition, Carnes proposes a basic test for whether a particular sexual behavior has become addictive:
1. It is a secret.
2. It is abusive or degrading to self or others.
3. It is used to avoid (or is a source of) painful feelings.
4. It is empty of a caring, committed relationship.
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