“There are only two important things in life. The first is sex and the second I don’t remember.”
Woody Allen
I have never had a positive relationship with sex. I discovered masturbation at a very young age, when I was between 7 and 8 years old. I used it as a way to escape from the feeling of sadness and abandonment I felt at home.
I watched movies, books and even on television.
I never had a healthy role model for sexuality either. Since my parents barely touched each other.
They also never had a talk with me about sex, so everything I discovered I had to do on my own by watching movies and searching for information. As the years went by, I spent more and more time consuming pornography, until it got to the point where I no longer felt aroused when I was with other people.
I was very lost. I came to doubt who I was and my sexual orientation. I was constantly masturbating to escape and to recreate in my imagination situations of success that I didn’t have in real life.
I wanted so badly to feel that someone loved me, however, I was not willing to let anyone in. After a while and after a failed attempt at a relationship, I ended up realizing that what was happening to me was not simply that I really liked sex, but that I had a problem.
1. Sex addiction is something more than just wanting to have sex all the time
Some people think that sex addicts are sex addicts because they think about sex all the time, but this is not exactly the case. My patient did not think about sex out of desire, but felt an urgent need to have sex or masturbate to feel good about himself.
The fact that a person is very sexually active is not a sex addiction either. The question here is, for what purpose is the sexual encounter being pursued?
2. Sex addiction is not a minor problem
It is common, when talking about sex addiction, to speak in a jocular tone. However, it is an addiction that generates as much or more suffering as any other. The person suffers abstinence and feels empty if he or she does not have sex. In addition, the stigma associated with sex addiction is brutal.
Sex addiction is one of the most complicated addictions to overcome since the triggering stimulus of “consumption” is constantly incorporated.
That is, any addiction involves a mental and emotional sacrifice to be overcome. For example, if I have an addiction to cocaine, it will be easier to overcome it if I do not frequent places where it is passed or simply, I do not have it. However, in sex addiction the opportunity to carry out the addictive behavior is constant.
3. People addicted to sex do not want sex all the time
It is common to think that the person addicted to sex is like a bottomless sack, insatiable and always wants sex. This is not so. The person with sex addiction seeks sex as a way to compensate for an inner emptiness. In fact, on many occasions, sexual intercourse or masturbation takes place without desire.
4. Being addicted to sex does not mean being depraved
If you are a man and addicted to sex, in many cases it is normalized: “if you are a man, it is normal to be addicted to sex”. Although this is not always the case, the male sex addict is also perceived as someone strange, a failure or desperate.
In the case of women, the stigma is even greater. The line of thinking is that the female sex addict is simply a slut. These stigmas generate great suffering to the people who seem them and end up building a sense of identity.
5. The objective is not to stop having sex
The objective is to cure that which leads us to consume sex for what it is not. To return to having a natural relationship with sex, which will take some time, as the body and mind need to be re-sensitized to the stimulus.
The goal is not sobriety.
Final message
If your case is that of a person who is in recovery or looking for solutions for it, I would like to tell you that you don’t have to feel ashamed of what is happening to you. It doesn’t say anything bad about you, it’s simply the way you learned to support your emptiness.
Sexuality is not bad, nor will it ever be, as long as it is consensual. The problem with addiction is not that you are having sex, it is the suffering. In fact, one of the goals is to get you back to enjoying sex with full satisfaction.
