sex talk: is sexual addiction even a real thing?

[Please note: This is the first in
an installment series titled Sex Talks. These talks are meant to grow
awareness and begin healthy conversations that we might otherwise not
have had. Please be advised that content is naturally sexually
explicit in nature. It is not meant to be a prescription for life, a
how-to, or a guilt trip. If you would like to further chat with
someone about any thoughts/feelings that arise, please email me at
emilylorinlifestyle@gmail.com]

Kelly Cave is friend and peer of mine.
Her counseling practice in the Marietta/Kennesaw area currently consists largely of people
struggling with sexual addiction in some way. I sat down with her to
understand what exactly sexual addiction is and what that means for
us based on her experience with this population.

What is sexual addiction?

It is unique to each person and defined
by how much impact it has on their life. It is defined by whether or
not their sexual behaviors and urges create problems in their
work/home environment, cause significant distress or are outside of
what is considered a societal norm. Sexual addiction leads to
something outside of societal norm—even with the flex our culture
gives on what is normal, and has biological impact on your brain.
Similar to any drug addiction the chemical composition in your brain
changes as the pleasure pathways in your brain mold around your
addiction.
Sexual behaviors are
addictive when you reach the point of unmanageability or when sexual
thoughts consume you until acted upon.

What are the effects of sexual
addiction?

Just like when you’re putting any
(drug) substance into your body, when you introduce sexual stimulus
to your brain (pornography, masturbation, sexual stimulus, etc.) you
are releasing the same “happy” chemicals—oxytocin, dopamine,
etc—flooding your brain, essentially getting high. How addiction
looks different from regular sexual behavior is that your brain gets
used to living on elevated levels of these neurochemicals. So the
brain begins to crave more and becomes dissatisfied with anything
less. Eventually, if you try to stop, the effects are like withdrawal
from drugs, you experience the same physical symptoms, and are out of
control.

What are the causes? How does
sexual addiction happen? Is it at the urge/thought or at the
action/behavior that it becomes an addiction?

It depends on what you’re referring to.
The cycle of addiction starts long before the actual behavior. Long
before you see the behavior an addict is triggered. If they do not
recognize the trigger and appropriately deal with the urge then, they
can get “too far gone,” which results in the behavior. An addict
begins romanticizing about the act long before committing the act.
Although afterwards they feel really down on themselves: shameful.
Shame restarts the cycle and the behavior is a culmination of shame.
Addiction is the perfect way to mask your problems.

Most of the cases I have seen, started
in childhood with sexual abuse. Sex then becomes something that they
use as a control mechanism for themselves. “now I have control over
it and now that I have control over it, I’m using it to control my
pain.”

People are inevitably effected, but sex
addiction doesn’t necessarily involve someone else.

Pornography? Is it all bad?

Everyone has a different opinion on
this, but my opinion is that it is horrible. It becomes just like a
drug. When you see this stimulation (pornography) you will never get
in real life what you get in pornography because it’s not real. I see
men getting hooked on something that is not real so they will never
be able to achieve that in real life, setting them up for
disappointment. A lot of people argue “well I’d still prefer my
wife over pornography,” and my question in response is always, “so
why do you keep going back?”

I tell my clients this: “It is an
incredible journey with an awesome reward…instead of a come down,
like you would have after using (a drug), there is ejaculation.”
Pornography sets men and women up for hardships in their
relationships whether they develop an addiction or not.

On Women…

It is becoming very much both men and
women in our culture. Women can get just as addicted as men. Men are
very visual beings. Women, however, gravitate more towards “book
porn”—the same concepts and consequences apply—but with an
emotional connection with a character in a book.

What would
you say to the single person who just wants to take the edge off
occasionally?

Have a good support group who can
surround him or her and have open dialogue about this behavior. But
you’re talking about masturbation, right? I see pornography with
masturbation and masturbation alone as two very different things.

You can only get so creative with
masturbation—you’re not watching people actually do these things.
Porn leads to more and more erotica, more and more distortion of
reality. Men will say, “I don’t know how I got here; I don’t know
how that stuff excites me.” That was never their intention. Their
brain is flooded with those neurochemicals—just like a high on
drugs. That generally does not happen with masturbation alone.

Both take the sexual act and make it
single—both isolating—but pornography creates an environment
where it feels like you’re not alone. So there is a lot of confusion
when you feel that connectedness but you’re actually alone.

So…are all sexual behaviors
bad? At risk?

It depends on every individual. Does
addiction run in your family? If so, then you are more at risk of
developing an addiction. It is impacted by our biological nature, our
past, and how we learn to self-soothe. Sexual behavior can be
soothing or heal pain in an appropriate way (i.e between two partners
in a marriage), but just like everything else it is about excess and
whether or not they’re staying emotionally and mentally present to
their spouse. Addiction is not emotional presence, it’s physical
escape.

What would you want everyone to
know about sexual addiction?

That it is exists and that it happens
to so many people. It is something to get help for not to be ashamed
of. I think it is the least talked about addiction because there is
so much shame behind it, but we’re all susceptible—it’s everywhere.

What is something you see in all
of your clients that we wouldn’t expect?

A lot of people don’t expect that sex
addicts have been abused, but many have. Often more trauma has
occurred because sex can be so comforting when in a healthy context,
but so confusing and scarring when not. Also, none of my clients are
monsters, none of them. They’re all good men, it could happen to
anybody.

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” 

Virginia Woolf

Sexual addiction can happen to anyone. Sexual acts are usually performed
in isolation, but the impact of these acts when misused in an unhealthy manner is a lifestyle of
isolating, wreaking havoc on all relationships.

For more information or to contact Kelly Cave, visit: http://kellycavecounseling.com/

And as always, feel free to email me at
emilylorinlifestyle@gmail.com.