The psychologist at UCLA, those who are pushing this for its recognition, claim that sex addiction is recurrent. The intense sexual fantasies, sexual urges and sexual behaviour that last at least six months. So that’s a broad definition. Recurrent sex fantasies and sexual urges beyond six months, If I consider that then I have been sex addict since I was 13. Really! and most of my friends that I know are also Sex Addicted. But maybe there is something here that is going on between the lines.
For instance, I wonder about people who can’t stop watching porn at work, people who sacrifice social life and hobbies to stay at home and jerk. This type of compulsive behaviour can interfere negatively with someone’s life. It can cause them distress and complicate their relationships.
However, when it comes to defining hypersexuality I am with the American Psychological Association. Recurrent sexual fantasies and urges are not a disorder in themselves. I have noticed a few general issues with much of the hypersexuality research that I have checked out. My first concern is that this disorder turns much of the normally expected variability in people’s sexual behaviour into some crazy mental disorder. People regularly misbehave sexually in all kinds of mostly harmless ways, but misbehaviour to the point of sexual compulsion not so common. So finding a reliable distinction between oh that’s normal and well that’s kind of whack is trickier than it looks.
The second problem with hypersexuality is that it’s unclear where the behaviours coming from. It could be something that’s learned or could it be a product of a general compulsion that leads into their sex life.
The third issue with the formation of this disorder is that labelling someone a sex addict may very well tell us more about society’s attitudes about sex, than the person themselves. For instance, we still can not come to terms with the fact that teenagers have a lot of sex and there are lots of people deny that sex can be more than heterosexual intercourse in the missionary position.
As a society, we are often in denial about what normal healthy sexual behaviour looks like. None of us is exempt from the mostly unconscious biases we have learned through our social training, not even research psychologist. That’s my take any way I would love to know what you all think though do you think sex addiction is a real disorder?