Sex and Love | October 25, 2008 | 16 comments

Sex addiction: not just for men

source: http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article4993747.ece

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Experts say the number of sex addicts is rising — and, contrary to popular opinion, they are not all men. “In America, 30% of people coming in for treatment for sex addiction are female,” says Don Serratt, director of Life Works, which offers sex-addiction treatment in the UK. In this country, few women present themselves as sex addicts, but that doesn’t mean the problem is less prevalent. “They’ll come for help with alcoholism, drug addiction or depression and, in the course of treatment, the sex addiction, the root cause of the other addictions, will be uncovered,” Serratt says.

Susan Cheever, a self-confessed sex addict who has just written Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction (Simon & Schuster), agrees that this blurring of the lines between the compulsions of love and sex is common among women. “If there is a difference between sex and love addiction, I don’t know what it is,” she says. “Sometimes people say they just fall in love too frequently. Are they saying they don’t want to have sex with those people? Love addict sounds nicer for sure.”

As Cheever recounts in the book, there were times when every man who crossed her path was fresh prey, from removal men to bookshop reps — taking in three husbands and her mother’s oncologist on the way. “Whenever there was a crisis,” she admits, “I found a man to take the edge off the feelings of helplessness and pain” — regardless of the upheaval she risked unleashing on her husbands and two children. “Adultery is the drink-driving of sex addiction,” she observes.

A bleaker story emerges, however. “My parents spent a great deal of time telling me that I was unattractive and would never find a husband. Perhaps proving my parents wrong was one of my motivations. If so, I didn’t realize it at the time. It’s tricky, because addiction to other people, specifically addiction to a sex partner, is the only one that is applauded and embraced by our culture, despite the fact that there is more collateral damage than with drugs or alcohol.”

It is a pattern Serratt is all too familiar with. “Female sex addicts crave intimacy, ” he says. “They’ll use sex and seduction to create that closeness with a guy — but, once they get it, they freak out and move on to the next one.”

Yet, although they crave intimacy, Serratt believes female sex addicts are subconsciously terrified by it. Because of their low self-esteem, they are scared of a man getting to know the “real” them. “Sex addicts will often say, ‘Oh, I can never meet the right man’, but that’s because as soon as a guy turns up who is everything they want, it scares them and they kill it. Once they’re in a relationship, they’ll begin to find fault and start saying ‘Oh, he’s lazy/he’s fat/he’s broke’, then dump him. Sex addicts also have poor discernment skills for choosing boyfriends. They tend to go for superficial qualities, because what they’re attracted to is a fantasy.”
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16 comments // Sex addiction: not just for men

  • Brockie
  • damnneargenius
    • 0
      damnneargenius  

    • Wouldn't that be the worst nightmare you can imagine?

      Finding out that your wife was a sex addict...

      Well, if 30% of them are out there, and women are the ones that have the opportunity to have sex from damn near any man they meet...

      Is this really an addiction or just an excuse for selfish behavior and/or insecurity?

      I've met some girls in Hollywood that claimed to be sex addicts, but they were just insane because they couldn't deal with the social consequences of their behavior.

      They weren't "addicted", they had just chosen to live their lives in ways in which they have absolutely no value to men except for sex. Are porn stars sex addicts or just good old-fashioned sluts?

      I can understand an addiction to drugs where your body eventually conditions itself to need the chemical just to feel "normal" and function. I can even understand an addiction to love where you body becomes dependent on the natural chemicals released when infatuated by the other sex. But an addiction to sex almost sounds more like a cop out excuse for careless behavior.

      I mean, why would the numbers and percentages possibly change? What is responsible for that?

      It's scary to think of how much mileage a sex-addicted girl could have on her given how easy it is for women to get sex.

      One hyphenated word people...

      Self-control.

      Oh, another one...

      Self-respect.

      Think about it.

    • 3 years ago
  • jonny2times
    • 0
      jonny2times  

    • ladies, if you suffer from this, you can come to my focus groups, i have them every friday and saturday night from about 7:00-?:00, open bar, good music. just leave the shoes at the door.

    • 3 years ago
  • eldamon
  • ninepounds6
    • 0
      ninepounds6  

    • Its not an addiction, it is just better than TV. And bars. And movies. And wait, oh... talking on the phone, and ice cream, and eating or sleeping... dammit!

      Okay, where do I sign up...

    • 3 years ago
  • BenK
  • ClareW
    • 0
      ClareW  

    • I didn't think it was popular opinion that sex addicts are all men. Saying that is like implying that sex addition isn't a proper illness.

    • 3 years ago
  • bamboodizzard
    • 0
      bamboodizzard  

    • I think that this is a pervasive pattern in both men and women. It seems to all stem from parents and how they talk to their children. When you limit a child's options and diminsh their capacity to make decisions on their own, it undermines their confidence. Regardless of whether we are talking about drugs, sex, education, or anything, parents hold the reins until the child is on their own, and then the child takes what they learned (whether the parent meant to teach it or not) and makes due.

      This is sad. I have met many sex addicts before, and it always boils down to emotional insecurity.

    • 3 years ago
  • ScratchyPants
    • 0
      ScratchyPants  

    • I think that many women hate to be alone. I believe many use sex as a "hook" to make sure that a guy doesn't leave. On the flip side, maybe once they know that they've got this person reeled in, it scares them (like the article suggests) and they look for the next rel'p/fling/whatever.

      There are a few women I know who hate being alone and are always hopping from rel'p to rel'p.

    • 3 years ago
  • katedarling
    • 0
      katedarling  
    • ScratchyPants:

      I feel like you're ignoring the fact that many women really do love sex for the sake of just getting laid. I mean, if these women were using sex just to keep a guy, then they wouldn't become addicts, would they? They have to enjoy it a lot for sex to become an addiction.

    • 3 years ago
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