Inside The Mind Of A Sex Addict
The New York Times tackles sex addition. It's much darker than you may think.
Many of us have probably had a month (or three) where our sex appeal and appetite are so voraciously on fire that we'll (half jokingly) wonder, "Am I a sex addict?"
Then the well will dry. Months will pass. And the question turns into a mocking shadow of itself. ("Am I sex-repellent?" seems more appropriate).
Such musings aren't cute little time-fillers for the writer of this week's New York Times Modern Love piece. An in-and-out of treatment center sex addict, Benoit Denizet-Lewis succinctly and swiftly crushes any romanticized "pop-psychology" views anyone may have of a person so swimming in sex he knows nothing of "dry spells."
Excerpted from a chapter in his book, "America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life" Denizet-Lewis would often cruise Internet sites looking for sex and then blow off any type of responsibility to get it. He lost jobs, boyfriends, friends and entire years of his life where he couldn't for the life of him sign off of the Internet. His affliction for porn and chat rooms were so eyebrow-raising that he installed Internet blocking software (the type parents use for children). That tactic didn't work out too well. He soon just went ahead and bought another computer.
The story begins as the writer skips out on a childhood friend's wedding to meet up with two different men he'd been chatting with. The reader then takes a peek inside the logic of a sex addict:
"If Mike didn’t show, I had a 19-year-old backup plan named Travis, a regular in one of the AOL chat rooms I frequented. We had never met in person, but he lived close to Mike, so it seemed logical that I should have sex with both of them on this trip — Mike in my car, Travis in his apartment."
Such double-deckers were a common occurrence, and as the writer goes into treatment he compares the sex high as the same any substance abuser may garner from an addiction to drugs and alcohol. An entire psychosomatic condition fueled by a moment of finally "feeling OK."
He considers himself "sober" today but addresses the inherent trickiness of cultivating a normal love life. What's unique about sex addiction, is that it's unrealistic to think one will cease having sexual experiences—an alcoholic could theoretically never drink again, but could someone put a lid on sex?
Throughout therapy the author settles on cathartic but generic solution:
Discussion
I have seen sexual addiction from the outside, loving someone who struggles with this problem and I have to agree with Chacha it's more about self esteem issues than any chemical high. The chemical high makes the self esteem issues easier to ignore much like alcohol can for some addicts.
I think that an addiction to sex is not about addiction really. Sex is not an addictive substance like nicotine. It can chemically force you to seek after it. But here is the thing, if you have that sense that you are "not okay" and that doing X will make you "okay" (i.e. feel wanted, desired, loved). It is more about obsessively filling that hole in your life than it is about exactly what you are addicted to. It's not about the sex, its about fulfillment and people having a skewed sense of reality that sex is their only way to fulfillment.
