When Does Sex Become An Addiction?

It’s important to differentiate a healthy sexual appetite to mean when you want sex and you really enjoy it tremendously.   Having an unusually high sexual drive isn’t really bad, but it can become an issue when it leads to problems with a person’s sex life and life outside of sex. The early passionate phase of a relationship usually comes with a high sex drive which isn’t a psychological condition.  However there are serious mental disorders that can lead a person making sex number one priority. According to experts, sex can be a form of self-medication for some people suffering from anxiety, while poor self-esteem, shame, and other ingrained feelings can also increase sex drive to an unhealthy phase.

Sexual addiction

The term ‘sexual addiction’ is used to describe the behavior of a person who has an unusually intense sex drive or an obsession with sex. You want to have sex but not necessarily enjoy it.  Sex and the thought of sex tend to dominate the sex addict's thoughts, making it difficult to work or participate in healthy personal relationships. Other behaviours of sexual addiction include:

1. Intense thoughts about sex

A person with the sexual addiction has excessive, intense thoughts and behaviors surrounding sex that lead to personal anguish or incursion into other areas of life. Daydreaming about your cute co-worker is quite normal and may be healthy, but missing work to watch pornography may be a sign of something abnormal. 

2. Distorted thinking

Sex addicts engage in distorted thinking, often give good reason for and vindicate their behavior, and similarly blame others for their problems. They usually repudiate the fact that they have a problem and provide excuses for their actions.

3. Risk taking

Sexual addiction also is linked with risk-taking. A person with a sex addiction participates in different forms of sexual activity, regardless of the potential for negative and dangerous consequences. In addition to damaging the addict's relationships and interfering with his or her work and social life, a sexual addiction also puts the person at risk for emotional and physical harm.

4. Unlawful activities

For some people, sex addiction develops to involve unlawful activities, such as exposing oneself in pubic, making indecent phone calls, or molestation; though sex addicts don’t essentially become sex offenders. Other actions linked with sexual addiction are:

• Masturbation
• Several extra-marital affairs
• Several sexual partners and  one-night stands
• Repeated use of pornography
• Risky sex
• Phone or cybersex
• Prostitution or use of prostitutes
• Exposing in public
• Compulsive dating via private ads
• Watching others or stalking
• Sexual harassment
• Sexual assault or rape

5. Lacks emotional bond

Generally, a person with a sex addiction gains little satisfaction from the sexual activity and forms no emotional bond with his or her sex partners, feels ashamed and guilty from the activity, and often can’t control the behavior even in the face of undesirable financial, health, social and emotional consequences.

When to Face the Truth

First, ask yourself if your sexual drive is noticeably different from your normal, and try to identify possible causes. Is it negatively affecting your happiness, relationship, or life? Second, if you’re in a relationship, find out how your partner feels about your sex drive. Are the two of you completely not on the same page or are things matching up pretty good? If you and your partner feel great about how much sex you want, chances are your sexual drive is just fine. Just keep on getting it on.

In addition, high sexual drive is not usually a source of too many grievances between couples, unless when they have unequal sexual desire, or its part of a sexual addiction. Taking it up in a loving way with your partner if it’s the former may be a good place to start, but if the problem swings to the latter you may need to see a professional. Talking to a professional can help greatly in resolving the trickier roots of high sexual overdrive. 

Treatment for sexual addiction

Several sex addicts tend to live in denial, and treating an addiction is dependent on the person accepting and admitting that he or she is in dire straits.  In many cases, it takes a major negativity such as the loss of a job, marriage split-up, an arrest, or a health emergency, to push the addict into an admittance of his or her problem.

Treatment of sexual addiction focuses on controlling the addictive behavior and helping the person develop a healthy sexual drive. Treatments often include counseling on healthy sexuality, one-on-one therapy, and marriage or family therapy. Support groups, like Sex Addicts Anonymous, are also available to provide assistance on steps to stop compulsive sex addiction. In some cases, medications used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder may be used to curb the compulsive nature of the sex addiction. These drugs could include Prozac and Anafranil.

Final word

It’s time to discard all your ideas of what constitute ‘normal’ sex drive, because sex drive is extremely personal!  Sexual desire only becomes an issue when it’s causing you anguish, upsetting your daily life, or destroying your relationship with a partner. If you’re experiencing any of these, it’s essential to find out the reasons why and probably look for a professional to help you sort things out.

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