GAYS AND SEX ADDICTION

[gayprojectforum]

This post, based on the experience gained in the Gay Project, will try to clarify what is sex addition, especially in the homosexual context, what is the dimension of the problem and what levels of suffering this type of addiction can cause.

THE INCIDENCE OF SEX ADDICTION

The incidence of sex addiction is great. In Italy, according to data collected by Franco Avenia and Annalisa Pistuddi, chairman and secretary of the Italian Association for Sexual Research, the prevalence of sex addiction, is 5.8%. The National Council on Sexual Addiction Compulsivity estimates in the United States a prevalence between 6 and 8% of the population. Patrick Carnes believes that 8% of the male population and 3% of the female population are sex-addicted. These are objectively huge numbers. Certainly more than a guy out of twenty is sex addicted, although the problem does not present any perceptible external evidence. Sex addiction, among all forms of addiction, is that which has been studied later.

CONCEPT OF SEX ADDICTION

Let's start with a simple analogical speech. Drinking a glass of wine is a pleasure for many people, but to talk of alcohol addiction, many other elements are required:

1) First, the compulsiveness, the irreversible urgency of drinking, and the inability to control the behavior in the face of alcohol, that is, the inability to keep a moderate behavior, to restrict themselves to drinking moderately or not to drink at all in certain circumstances. A need can be controlled, an addiction can’t at all.

2) secondly the pervasiveness of the need of drinking. In alcohol addiction, drinking becomes the center of life, in the name of alcohol the addicted ends up sacrificing everything. The world of interpersonal relations narrows and the relationship with alcohol ends up dominating the scene.

3) Third, the increasingly clearer awareness of becoming addicted. Alcohol is no longer lived as a source of pleasure but as a slavery of which you cannot get rid. You feel guilty and at the same time you feel unable to get out of addiction.

A more or less similar picture defines sex addiction.

THE CYCLE OF SEX ADDICTION

Sexual addiction, similarly to other forms of addiction, manifests itself in a compulsive and cyclical repetition of behaviors.

1) Craving (longing, desire) is the first stage of the cycle. The craving for sex becomes strong, impelling, uncontrollable, presents itself as an absolute requirement that one cannot fail to satisfy. Momentary physical gratification that comes from sex is perceived, before its realization, as liberating and tranquilizing, as if it were a means for attaining happiness, or at least an ephemeral happiness. The sex craving is completely analogous to drugs craving, and it can lead to risky behaviors like endanger your own health and that of others (HIV), attend prostitution, spend a lot of money to find satisfaction.

2) The realization of the sexual act is the second phase of the cycle. It must be made clear now that what the sex addicted guy tends to realize is not love in the affective sense but only sex in which the partner is seen as an instrument. Sex is something to be consumed, not a way of interpersonal relationship. It does not matter the partner in himself but only his genitals and his sexual reactions. The choice of partners is determined by the ease of finding them and the availability of the partners themselves to sexual contact "without affective implications". Relationships usually are or become exasperated, transgressive, and exclude completely or almost completely any kind of preliminaries and dialogue, before, during or after sex.

3) Post-sex reactions form the third and last stage of the cycle. Sexual intercourse often ends with a deep sense of dissatisfaction with guilt feelings and a collapse of self-esteem. After sex, it often happens that nervousness, aggressiveness, depressive sensations, sense of defeat appear. Depression levels associated with sexual addiction at this stage can be very deep with all the risks that this entails.

THE  CAUSES OF SEX ADDICTION

One can wonder how can a guy get into this vicious circle and it's really trivial and not respectful the idea that he gets into it by choice, because it does not happen that way. Book [Book, Praeger. (1997). Sex & Love Addiction, Treatment & Recovery. New York: Lucerne Publishing.] has found that 60% of those who are sex addicted have been sexually abused in childhood. This terrible statement must push us to reflect on the risks of pedophilia and the necessity of not abandoning the people who have been abused and risk becoming pedophiles in turn. Having been abused during the childhood can come to condition so heavily the sexuality of a guy to induce him, and certainly not because of his fault, to risky behaviors for himself and for other persons, and also to criminal behaviors. 

The important statistical correlation that exists between sexual abuse and sex addition must make it clear that pedophilia can actually get to deprive a guy of his sexual freedom and put him into the vicious circle of addiction with devastating effects on his personality. Sex experienced in addiction situations is in fact the result of a compulsion and has not the rewarding affective character that usually accompanies non-compulsive sexuality. 

The fundamental sign of the rise of a sex addiction is represented by the progressive detachment from the affectivity or by the difficulty of falling in love, that becomes progressively impossible. The sex addicted guy, initially at least, tries to build a stable affective relationship but then realizes that he is incapable of falling in love and of living a monogamous sexuality and an affective life rewarding for himself and his partner, and this causes feelings of guilt towards the partner, wastes the relationship and in the long run causes the break of it. 

It should be noted, however, that partners and ex-partners of sex addicted guys, even though they have been technically betrayed, realize that that betrayal is actually very particular. Generally, sooner or later, the sex addicted guy confesses to his partners, or at least to some of them, his betrayal, but tends not to cut ties with his ex-partners and almost always succeeds in this. Behind this attitude, on the one hand, there is a tendency to maintain a relationship with a person who might be again at least an episodic partner of a sexual relationship, but on the other hand there is also a tendency, not declared and explicitly unacceptable, to maintain some affective contact with the ex-partner. The sex addicted guy's relationship with his ex-partners is complex, seemingly contradictory, if it is considered to be without any affectivity but understandable in the context of a relationship that still maintains some affective dimension.

FROM BEING ABUSED TO PEDOPHILIA

First of all, we have to keep in mind that sexual abuse does not always have the character of violence.

Violence is always, if not premeditated, at least put into practice against the will of the victim by the use of physical or psychological coercion and precisely because of this explicit violent character becomes for the victim an "removal-imprinting", that is, a first sexual experience to be removed. For example, for male boys who will recognize themselves as homosexuals and who have been abused by men during childhood, the "removal-imprinting" leads to the so called "escape-heterosexuality".

Abuse, very often, at least at the beginning, is not planned by the adult and has no violent characters. The child can begin, by pure curiosity, a game with sexual implications with the adult, in this "game" the child sometimes takes the initiative, finds in it something forbidden and transgressive and is pushed to continue until the "game" does assume a distinct sexual character. 

An adult responsible and aware of the consequences of his or her behaviors should immediately get away from such "games" but sometimes this does not happen and the situation comes to the sexual acts with minors, behavior that is punished by criminal law, such acts in many cases do not materialize just once but become habitual. The child, in these cases, experiences the abuse in a very ambiguous condition, does not feel himself a passive victim but a co-participant if not a promoter of that behavior, abuse does not therefore result in a "removal-imprinting" but in an imprinting of imitation, it becomes a model of sexuality which, in adolescence, constitutes the dominant masturbatory fantasy, but during adolescence the boy, just because he has gained a greater awareness of the facts and of their meaning, begins to associate with fantasies about sexual abuse also negative feelings of shame and rejection, because he perceives the discredit that society attributes to those behaviors. On the one hand the boy feels himself bound to his sexual imprinting and for the other he would like to erase and overcome it, and so, starting with masturbation, begins the vicious circle that leads to sex addiction. 

But there may be truly alarming developments; the sexual fantasies related to the abuse can easily lead the boy to imagine a changing of roles and the boy may begin to see himself no longer in the role of the victim of abuse by an adult but in the role of an adult who is induced to a sexual game with a child, that is, the victim of abuse can begin to develop pedophile fantasies. The appearance of pedophile fantasies is badly felt by the boys, in practice as if it were a condemnation or a curse, they feel unsuitable for life, dangerous for themselves and for others, guilty feelings are very strong because the boys consider themselves at list co-responsible if not promoters of the abuse they have suffered. In this situation, heavy depressive elements can appear, especially if the children have no way of dialogue on sexual abuse and pedophilia, with people who can support them. 

The victim of abuse tries to relive in adulthood the experience of abuse, and at the same time feels uncomfortable about the inability to break away from addiction but nevertheless  continues to perpetuate it in order to reduce anxiety and avoid thinking about those experiences. The guy who is sex addicted is perfectly aware that there is something wrong, he sometimes tries to break the cycle of repetitions, as in all dependencies, but the craving is so strong that his attempts are frustrating.

CHOICE OF PARTNERS AND MODALITIES OF THE SEXUAL INTERCORSE

People who have suffered sexual abuse during childhood and have experienced it as an imitative imprinting tend both in partner choice and in intercourse modality to repeat the characters of abuse.

The sense of frustration and defeat of a sex addicted guy is also complicated by sense of guilt, linked to the fact that abuse is often considered as caused, at least partially,  by the victim: "I am the one who led him to do those things". In the mind of the victim that memory is interpreted (misinterpreted) as a kind of predestination to sex addiction: "At that age I was yet sex addicted." The victim doesn’t consider at all obvious that responsibility can only be attributed to the adult abuser. It should be emphasized that we are not talking about vague memories lost in the past but about vivid memories that accompany the development of sexuality up to adulthood and for the sex addicted guy there is a complete awareness of the suffered abuse, although interpreted in a self-blaming key, and also a complete awareness of addiction. One of the worst situations that sex-addicted guys can face is the total isolation when guys cannot talk to anyone about the abuse or sex addiction.

It should be pointed out that, despite the strong internal resistance, sometimes it is possible to get a clear speech, but the real risk is that the interlocutor, unless he is a professional one, ends up being considered by the sex addicted guy as one of the possible partners and more or less consciously takes this role. The experience that comes from this hypothesis is, however, stressful and depressing for both of them. The sex addicted guy makes the partner aware that it is "only sex". This premise, from his point of view, is essential to exclude the partner from creating expectations, but things go on anyway. 

However, after the intercourse, the sex addicted guy recognizes that the partner's participation was only mechanical and is amazed that there was no real involvement ("how can you not be excited by these things?") Actually, the sex addicted guy is moved from the craving without any affective involvement. The partner, who would expect a minimum of affective involvement, acknowledges that this involvement doesn’t exist at all and comes out of the experience substantially disappointed. Often, the meeting ends with a brief discussion, even with strong tones, in which they promise to each other never to meet again, because both partners understand that it is a matter of addiction. 

For the sex addicted guy then becomes a state of irritation, disappointment, collapse of self-esteem and for some time the craving is not felt and depressive elements prevail, but then the craving inevitably comes back powerfully and the sex addicted guy resumes the search for sexual partners to relieve anxiety and not facing the many real (social or economic) problems that in the meantime become ever more serious. The result of all this, on a psychological level, is a further fall in self-esteem, but the socio-economic consequences can be very high (job loss, study abandonment, loss of social relations). Those who experience a sex addiction end up believing that their fate is now marked and they will not come out of the addiction anymore.

Addiction is not related to one or another particular behavior or sexual content, however in sexual addiction can be encountered uncommon, rare, or not accepted sexual behaviors. I try to list some, only at indicative level:

1) Incestuous sex fantasies and incestuous relationships.

2) Sexual fantasies about minors and consequent acts.

3) Sexual fantasies about much older people and consequent acts.

4) Voyeuristic sexual fantasies and voyeurism acts.

AFFECTIVITY OF SEX ADDICTED GUYS

Speaking to guys who experience forms of sexual addiction, it is noticed that sexual addiction is accompanied by an affective deprivation, often manifested even before the rise of sex addiction, which is likely to be the cause of the addiction itself. I add that generally the guys who do not have friends and who are largely marginalized make extensive use of pornography that, if for others is often the only source of sexual education, for them is even the only source of affective education, with the result that both levels, affective and sexual, tend to become confused and identify. In other words, I think that at the origin of the mechanisms of sex addiction there are deep and unheard affective needs, which are sexualized. A guy who is not accustomed to serious affective contacts translates his need for affection in terms that are more familiar to him and, if he has been educated on the patterns of pornography, he translates his affective needs into sexual terms. This means that the sexual needs of a guy who is in a state of sex addiction are actually affective. They are guys who, although they tend to see themselves as depraved, interested only in sex, in fact, are hungry for affection, try to be understood and accepted, are afraid of negative judgments, and especially of the indifference of others. Talking in chat with these guys gives a concrete measure of their degree of despair and of the depth of their affective need. 

After the first few minutes of chat, I am astonished at the level of the conversation, which is not dispersed in divagations. The guys who are experiencing forms of sex addiction are totally sincere and aim at immediately emphasize the darker dimensions of their behavior, or at least those that appear such to them, for them to be accepted in a generic way, that is, not for what they really are but on the basis of reticence and misunderstanding is absolutely unacceptable. They expect substantially negative judgments. The chat, which at first could hypothetically support the hypothesis of a sexual contact, when this hypothesis is lost, does not end at all, but continues on another more typically affective register. For these guys, being told "you are a good guy" is extremely important, to feel appreciated despite all that they see as negative in their behaviors is gratifying for them precisely because it responds to a deep emotional hunger. A serious response to this affective hunger is the real precondition for getting out of sexual addiction.

I've read a very interesting book these days, which I recommend to deepen the subject of sex addiction: Carnes, Patrick. (1991). “Do not call it love: Recovery from sexual addiction”. New York: Bantam Books. I basically agree with what the author says, and I'm pleasantly surprised that a clinical scientific inquiry comes to the same conclusions that come from Gay Project. Obviously the point is different. Carnes deals with diagnosis and therapies from a clinical point of view. The Project's interest is essentially centered on what friends or people close to the sex addicted guy can do, this is a minor support but can also sometimes be of enormous importance.