Category: Uncategorized

My new e-book starts with the premise that when one person in a relationship is engaging in sexually addictive behavior the relationship will be damaged.  It doesn’t matter whom the relationship is with or what the addictive behavior is.  Even sexual avoidance can be related to sexual addiction.

It doesn’t matter how the addiction is carried out.  The addict may lead a secret double life or may be open with their behavior such as porn addiction, compulsive seductiveness, and pressuring the partner to participate in more extreme experiences.  Sometimes the sex addict wants a great deal of sex in their marriage and sometimes they want little or none.

By far the most common experience is the discovery of hidden sexually addictive behavior in a partner followed by a traumatic crisis and upheaval.  At this point both partners need a great deal of support.  They need to find helping professionals, 12-step groups, books, online resources and spiritual supports.

The fact that sex addiction is considered to be an intimacy disorder means that problems were almost certainly developing in the relationship whether the partners knew it or not.  This implies that both partners need to change and grow in ways that will allow them to have a stronger bond based on trust, honesty, and a willingness to be vulnerable.

Partners of sex addicts need to make a journey from feelings of traumatic betrayal to an understanding of the nature and sources of the disease of sex addiction and a level of trust and comfort with a new kind of relationship—either with their partner or with someone else.  This is a long process and requires patience and a willingness to tolerate the ups and downs of recovery.

Addicts need to make a journey through treatment, psycho education and support groups to a point of giving up their old way of life and living in integrity.  The process is a slow one, usually taking 3-5 years to complete.

The process of recovery from sex addiction in a relationship is a blessing disguised as a catastrophe.  It forces both the addict and partner to become aware of and resolve issues in their relating that they have never before addressed.  In recovery they become different people.  What this means is that the relationship as it existed in the past must be let go.  The partners must eventually look at each other anew and decide if the relationship is right for them.  If they stay together they will be starting a new relationship.  They will have let go of their previous relationship, or of the fantasy of it, and will be living in awareness and reality.

“I am a recovering sex addict” is something you may or may not feel comfortable saying to people.  On one hand, you may feel guarded about telling people anything, partly because you know that sexually compulsive behavior carries so much stigma and shame.  On the other hand, you may decide you want to be open about your recovery. This openness may be received in a variety of ways, and you may find that people’s response is unpredictable; some may feel sex addiction is a joke, while others may react with extreme fear.

I had a client who came from Ohio for an intensive workshop in California. He was worried about what to tell others regarding his addiction. I naively suggested he could tell his colleagues that he’d been to “rehab.”  After all, I said, “everybody goes to rehab nowadays.”  His answer: “Not in Toledo they don’t.”  Attitudes vary, but in general it’s still the case that talking about alcoholism is a piece of cake compared to the embarrassment and anxiety surrounding sex addiction.

Everyone’s situation is different but I’d like to offer some basic ideas about who should know what and when they should know it.

Telling immediate family

If you have a spouse or partner they will have to know at least the basic truths, preferably in a planned disclosure with therapist(s) structuring and supporting the process.  Sometimes spouses uncover the addiction on their own, but blurting stuff out is never a good idea.

Apart from the initial disclosure process, spouses and partners need to know whatever they want to know as soon as possible in order to rebuild trust.  However, if you’re seriously considering divorce, then formal disclosure is often discouraged.

Anybody close to you who is directly impacted will probably have to be told sooner or later.  Young children will  wonder what’s going on and need to be given the general answers (“Daddy’s had some problems and needs to get help to learn to be better, not hurt mommy’s feelings,” etc.)  Older adolescents and adult children can be given more information, but it may not be appropriate to give all the details.

What to tell friends and associates

The hard part is deciding what to tell friends and other family members.  Resist the temptation to confess until you’ve thought about the situation and the consequences to both yourself and the other persons.  Here are some dos and don’ts.

Don’t

• Don’t tell acquaintances, neighbors etc.  You cannot assume that people will be able to understand sex addiction, and if they can’t understand it, they will be unable to contain it.

• Don’t tell anyone you don’t feel safe with emotionally.  This may change over time but it means feeling that the person will still respect you and care about you; that they will not judge you or shun you.

• Don’t tell anyone if it could endanger your livelihood.  This often includes people you work with.

• Don’t tell people who aren’t ready, meaning even extended family if it is outside their universe and if they can’t assimilate this information.  This is a personal judgment call on your part.

Do

• Do tell your doctor as it may be relevant (and might help him or her learn more about the issue).

• Do tell trusted friends and relatives including recovery friends from other 12-step programs.  This helps fight the stigma that exists even in programs like AA.

• Do tell anyone whom you could’ve exposed to a sexually transmitted disease or any other disease.

• Do tell people to whom you are making verbal (9^th step) amends.  This can be in a general form such as, “I had a problem with sexual behavior and I’ve been working on it” etc. Your sponsor will help you with this.

• Do tell adult children and other close family members about your journey when it will help them understand their family and make sense out of their own experience.  Seeing you grow and change is extremely powerful in helping adult children grow.

This process is never neat, and never goes perfectly according to plan.  Anyone who’s ever been through it will have their own amazing stories to share.

Online relationships are becoming a part of our social reality in the digital age.  We get acquainted with someone on the Internet and establish an emotional connection.  We communicate often and sometimes extremely openly with that person and we can come to feel a special closeness to them.

Sometimes we know the person in real life and sometimes we don’t.  Perhaps they are a business acquaintance who lives in another city and whom we see in person only rarely and then only fleetingly.  Or maybe they are an old flame who suddenly surfaces online, and old fantasies get reignited.  We may not run to meet them in person but we can convince ourselves that it is a good idea to keep up the connection through social media and emails.

 Normal online relationships vs. virtual affairs

A spouse or partner cannot meet every emotional need that we have.  Most people have healthy friendships with people outside their primary relationship or marriage.  Sometimes these are people with a common interest, or old friends who share our sense of humor.  Sometimes these people are trusted confidants and we feel very connected to them even if we only communicate with them online.  Spouses, partners, boyfriends and girlfriends need to allow each other to have separate parts of their lives in order not to become swallowed up and stifled in a relationship.

The dark side of virtual or “special” friendships outside of a relationship depends on how they are conducted, and consequently their meaning for and impact on the primary relationship.  An online relationship can be perfectly fine or it can be a form of infidelity and even a destructive betrayal whether or not there is any overt sexual content being exchanged online.  For people with a history of intimacy issues or sexually addictive behaviors these kinds of virtual or emotional connections pose special risks.

Even in its most seemingly innocent form where the “special friend” is not in a sexually relevant category (by relevant I mean opposite sex for straights, same sex for gays and lesbians) the special friend can still be a form of disloyalty.  A good example is the straight married guy with a friend who is like the little bad demon sitting on his shoulder, urging him to forget about what his wife wants and just do what guys do.  In this case the choice of the “friend” is in itself a threat to the relationship.  Whether the spouse knows about it or not, the friend often exists to drive a wedge into the couple and undermine the trust and closeness that form the foundation of the marriage.

Connecting online with someone of sexual interest can be a form of sexual betrayal even when there is no actual or even virtual sex involved.  The partner who invests a lot of himself online in a special friend who is exciting and sexually attractive is taking part of himself out of the relationship in a way that undermines the intimacy of the couple.

For sex addicts and recovering sex addicts, the online connection can represent the re-emergence of an old acting out pattern in a watered down form.  The excuse that “she tracked me down!” or “how could I know she would post a photo like that on Facebook?” or “I have to deal with her because she’s a ‘business connection,’” are just ways of dodging the fact that the addict wants to find a way to avoid their relationship and engage in an experience that is more of a “high.”

Problems to look for in an online relationship

1.    It relates to an old pattern of sexually addictive behavior

When the person who is spending a lot of time connecting with a special someone on the internet is a practicing or recovering sex addict or has a history of serial seductions and infidelities then the “special” online relationship – no matter what the logical reason for it – is often a step down a slippery slope back into old destructive behaviors.  This is true even if the partner knows everything about it.

2.    It is done in secret

Privacy is one thing.  Secrecy is something else.  The very fact of concealing the existence of the online relationship from a partner strongly suggests that it is a form of emotional betrayal.  Whether consciously or not, a person may be falling into a “double life” in order to assuage loneliness, act out anger at their partner or simply avoid dealing with getting close or committed.  This is in some ways the worst kind of betrayal because it prevents working through the problems in the primary relationship and building a stronger connection.

3.    There is no accountability

When one partner wants to pursue an online relationship and will not talk openly about why and what it means it is often because they are afraid that what they are doing is illegitimate in some way.   If on the other hand the person is willing to discuss it, have their partner learn about the online friend, seek out trusted advisors and even let their spouse or partner meet the friend then the betrayal issue will probably go away of its own accord.

Getting stuck in cyberspace

By their very nature, relationships that exist only online are not real and intimate in the same sense as relationships that exist in person.  No matter how many jokes or videos you share online, and even if you engage in a variety of high tech cybersexual activities, you will never go to the supermarket together or take care of each other when you are sick. Online relationships that make one partner partially missing in action have the potential to prevent couples from growing together.  While there may be real reasons why the partners are better off going their separate ways, the online virtual affair will only stand in the way of their making a good faith effort to find out.

In some circles “narcissistic sex addict” has become redundant.  It almost sounds like a double put-down, and yet many sex addicts exhibit narcissistic personality traits. Often they are self-centered, ignore others’ needs and feel they should have special privileges.

Narcissism is on a continuum

At the mild end, there are narcissistic personality traits, the folks who seem a little overly impressed with themselves and who like being the center of attention.   At the extreme end, “narcissistic personality disorder” borders on the sociopathic.  These are the folks who barely know anyone else exists and couldn’t care less.  Somewhere in between are the people with what I call a “narcissistic defense system,” who are using a façade of power and self-importance to cover up deeper feelings of insecurity and low self worth.

Narcissism and sex addiction

A narcissistic defense is a brittle façade which covers feelings of being unlovable and unworthy.  This narcissistic “false self” is so common in sex addicts because they feel so deeply inadequate that they have a long-standing habit of avoiding intimacy.  Instead of getting close and trusting someone, the sex addict is essentially emotionally alone, choosing non-intimate sexual encounters instead.  Many sex addicts become progressively more isolated as their addiction progresses in what is called “relational regression,” even as they present a false picture of their own power and competence to the outside world.

Will Sex Addiction Treatment Cure Narcissism?

To a great extent, yes.  Sex addiction treatment involves a great deal of self-examination with an emphasis on learning honesty, integrity and the capacity to trust both self and others.  The same skills that help the addict recover from addiction are the skills that allow the addict to begin to behave in a more authentic and vulnerable way.  These newly learned abilities go a long way toward eliminating the need to put up a narcissistic defense.  As the sex addict gains an ability to see and accept him/herself more realistically, they will in turn be able to behave in a more trustworthy way and to connect on a deeper level with their fellow human beings.

Why Do Addicts Need to Hit Bottom?

“Hitting bottom” is a well known concept among those in the drug and alcohol recovery community which originally gained currency in the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program (AA).  It is also commonly referred to among sex addicts and in Sex Addicts Anonymous 12-step groups.  Hitting bottom is a very individual concept and means roughly that point in your life at which you were so broken down and desperate that you were forced to admit that you needed help. 

The original AA concept of hitting bottom was based on the idea that a true addiction is so powerful that by definition it takes something dramatic to make a person seek help.  In other words, for any addict, sex addicts included, the last thing the addict wants to do is stop engaging in the addictive activity.  Against that overwhelming need, a motivation for seeking help will have to be monumentally powerful.  Furthermore, the concept of needing to hit bottom includes the idea that change is impossible without first admitting that you yourself cannot solve the problem, that the addiction is bigger than you are.  The first step to overcoming the addiction, i.e. step 1 in all the 12-step addiction programs, is admitting this powerlessness.

Sex Addicts are Powerless over the Addiction

Those of us who work with sex addicts have no problem with the idea that sex addiction is just as overwhelmingly powerful as any other addiction—we see it every day. Sex addicts no less than drug and alcohol addicts need to reach a point where they are up against the wall and can no longer believe that they can quit on their own.  It makes no difference what the specific sexual addictive behavior is.  Internet pornography is called the “crack cocaine of sex addiction” because it hooks so many people so easily and so quickly, but other sexual addictive behaviors such as anonymous sex, serial seductions, sexual massage parlors, strip clubs, sexual chat rooms and prostitutes are experienced as just as addictive.  All addictive behaviors escalate as the addiction progresses and the addict finds that despite the best intentions, fiercest exertion of will power and the promises to himself or others, he (or she) continues to give in to the urge to sexually “act out.”

What is an “Intervention” for a Sex Addict?

An intervention is an arranged confrontation of the addict aimed at making him/her see the need for help before they hit a more devastating, absolute bottom.  A large number of the sex addicts who come for help do so because of pressure from outside.  This can take the form of a spouse or partner who finds out about the addiction and pressures the addict into getting help, or it can be an arrest for behavior related to the sex addiction or a brush with the law, or it can be losing a job or being at risk for losing a job due to the addictive behavior or its consequences.  This route into treatment does not guarantee that the addict will automatically believe that he/she needs help or that treatment can cure him/her.  But most sex addiction treatment is geared toward overcoming the initial denial of the addict first and it therefore paves the way for the addict to accept the need for help and ultimately to embrace a program recovery.

Some addicts do “hit bottom” without outside pressure.  They suddenly realize that they have no life, that they are incapable of a good intimate relationship, or that they don’t want grow old and die an addict.  But the pressure from a spouse or partner can be an invaluable tool in creating a “bottom” and propelling the addict into treatment.  Instead of hiring an intervention expert, the partner of a sex addict can often get the same results by saying “get help or else,” that is assuming they mean what they say.

“Why didn’t I see that something was wrong?”

Most partners and spouses of sex addicts feel that they had no idea there were sexual addictive behaviors going on behind their back.  They believe, and correctly so, that sex addicts are world class liars and they cannot imagine how they were supposed to have figured out that their spouse was engaging in sexual behaviors like viewing internet pornography at work, having random sexual hook-ups, or spending a small fortune in strip clubs.  Were they wearing blinders?  Definitely not.  Addicts are great liars.  But there are ways in which the sex addict’s behavior is a symptom of a larger problem, and that larger problem was almost certainly one that pervaded the marriage or relationship in many other subtle ways.   If both addict and partner have some of the same unconscious hang ups, then the partner may not be able to clearly see that something is amiss.  The disclosure of the sex addiction will seem to come out of left field.

Both sex addict and partner have intimacy issues

Sexual addictive behaviors are, among other things, a way to avoid intimacy.  Sex addicts tend to pick partners who do not demand that the relationship be based on emotional maturity, honesty, and equality.  The addict is most comfortable with a partner who is so afraid of abandonment that they are either checked out a lot, keeping distance through drama and turmoil, or through behaving in a needy and compliant way.  In other words, one of the ways that the sex addict’s intimacy disorder meshes with the partner’s intimacy issues is that for both of them there is a tendency to choose partnerships with built-in distance. 

Separateness and loneliness: the addict

Sex addiction is a lonely business.  When sex addicts are active in their addiction, they are “intimacy disabled” – they avoid close relating with a partner and substitute the fleeting excitement of sexual acting out.  Most likely they are coming from a place of fear of intimacy that goes way back to childhood experiences.  The upshot is that their way of relating to their partner may be very superficial, intermittent and outright deceptive.  This is not closeness.  Underneath, the addict has feelings of inferiority and loneliness.

Separateness and loneliness:  the spouses of addicts

The person living with a sex addict is fearful of abandonment too and therefore fears intimacy because it carries with it the danger of getting hurt.  In some way there is safety in a partner who is partly unavailable.  Getting too close is not safe.  So the partner of a sex addict (or any kind of addict for that matter) is not the “main squeeze” so to speak.  The addiction is in some ways the addict’s true love.  Often the relationship started out with the addict seeming to be overwhelmingly in love and seductive and the partner may mistake this intensity for intimacy.  In this way the partner is unconsciously settling for a relationship in which there is intense romanticism (at first) but really, in one way or another, an absence of deeper intimacy.  Worse still, the spouse or partner of a sex addict will periodically have a sense of this lack even if they cannot see the cause.  The partner or spouse will be subjected to periodic but constant episodes of abandonment by the person they love.

Learning to be Intimate:  new skills for both addict and partner

The cure for all this loneliness and fear of abandonment is that through recovery both sex addicts and their partners will be receiving appropriate support and professional help in order to overcome their fears and learn to be intimate.  This is a long process; the old fears are deeply ingrained.  But both addicts and their spouses or partners have many of the same fears and the same lack of ability to feel safe in being open with what they feel and who they are.  In the process of recovery the addict and partner can count on having a lot of common areas for growth, and this in itself will be a basis for genuine closeness.

People are Afraid for their Children

A predatory child molester is a parent’s worst nightmare.  The idea that someone who has committed a sexual offense against a child could be loose in the neighborhood is a truly frightening prospect for the folks who live there.  The reflex reaction is to say that if we can prevent one child from being sexually assaulted then any preventive measure is justified.  Likewise, the reasoning goes we should just lock up sex offenders and throw away the key just to be on the safe side.  

Prison sentences for first time offenders guilty only of viewing child pornography have tended to vary widely but to be often extreme.  The average person tends to conclude that any act such as viewing child pornography is surely going to lead to offenses against children.  Such conclusions are often drawn purely on gut level fear rather than any knowledge of the facts. 

The available research does not indicate that the act of viewing child pornography leads to committing sex offenses even though most actual child molesters do view child pornography.  Some have even argued that viewing child pornography can be a less damaging substitute for child sexual abuse and can therefore be somehow useful for those who have those inclinations.

Nevertheless, a conviction on possession of child pornography alone can in itself lead to the offender being placed on the state’s sex offender registry.   Local law enforcement may also notify their communities about the presence of a registered sex offender under certain circumstances.

http://www.nsopw.gov/Core/Portal.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

In recent years the internet has allowed child pornography to become a rapidly increasing problem.  In 1995 about 50 people per year were prosecuted on child-pornography charges in the U.S. Currently the number is about 2,500 per year.  The U.S. Department of Justice reports that images of pre-pubescent children are becoming more prevalent and are increasingly violent and sadistic.

Reasons to be Less Afraid

• Residency restrictions may not make communities safer.  An article entitled “Studies Question Effectiveness of Sex Offender Laws,” reviewed two studies which showed that registration does little to increase public safety. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-08/uocp-sqe083011.phreviewed
• Most convicted sex offenders do not re-offend.  Most estimates of recidivism rates for sex offenders are under 20% which is lower than for other types of crimes. 
• Most sexual offenses against children are not committed by strangers.  The NY State Criminal Justice Department in their “Myths and Facts” about sex offenses reports that for offenses against victims age 16 and under, 93% were assaulted by someone they knew, usually a family member or acquaintance. http://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/nsor/som_mythsandfacts.htm
• Treatment of sex offenders is thought to be effective.  According to the above link, studies show a reduced rate of repeat sex offenses for offenders who successfully complete their treatment goals.  Treatment with youthful offenders appears to be particularly effective.

There is also growing concern about the possibility that excessive restrictions on registered sex offenders as to where they can live, where they can go, whether they can be on social media sites, GPS monitoring, etc. may lead to their lives becoming so disadvantaged that they are actually at greater risk to reoffend.  In other words, where their life options are so narrowed they may be hindered from leading a normal life even if they start out motivated to do so.

What to Do

On the whole I believe that the lesson is that rather than trying to increase the controls on those offenders who have been convicted, we should channel our anger and fear into efforts to catch and treat young sex offenders, place increased emphasis on treating all sex offenders both incarcerated and in the community, and continue preventive efforts to increase public awareness and awareness on the part of youngsters about the prevalence of and dangers associated with internet pornography.  We need to focus on efforts to prevent children and adults from becoming either sex addicts or sex objects, either predators or prey.

Sex addiction is hazardous in general

The standard ten criteria for sex addiction listed under the “defining addiction” tab above illustrate the many possible detrimental results when out-of-control sexually addictive behaviors gain a hold on your life.  Some of the criteria suggest that sexual addictive behavior has a negative impact on the addict’s relationships and occupational functioning.  Obviously spending hours a day looking at pornography or hooking up for anonymous sexual encounters costs people their marriages, jobs and connections to people in their lives. 

The more severe varieties of sexual addictive behavior such as exhibitionism, voyeurism, stalking, and molestation carry the additional risk of arrest and incarceration.

Sex addiction is physically and emotionally hazardous to you (and others)

Other defining criteria for sexual addiction point to the direct negative effects on the addict’s mind and body that such behavior can have.  Three of these defining criteria jump out at me:

• Continuation of the behavior despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent social, financial, psychological, or physical problem that is caused or exacerbated by the behavior
• The need to increase the intensity, frequency, number, or risk level of behaviors in order to achieve the desired effect; or diminished effect with continued behaviors at the same level of intensity, frequency, number, or risk
• Distress, anxiety, restlessness, or irritability if unable to engage in the behavior

Mental and Physical Diseases

Physical hazards include first and foremost exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.  The sexual addictive behaviors which involve multiple sexual partners, anonymous sex, or sex with prostitutes etc. involve the possibility of unprotected sex which could lead to the addict contracting HIV, HPV and other sexually transmitted diseases.  The indiscriminate sexual contact with a number of partners could also lead to the exposure to other diseases as well.  These diseases are then potentially transmitted to the partners and spouses of the sex addict as well.  I know of one particularly sad case in which an addict unknowingly exposed his pregnant wife to a pathogen that caused a birth defect in his child.

Mental distress and depression are common among people with sexually addictive behavior patterns.  I have encountered any number of sex addicts who have been suicidal due to their addiction at one time or another.  Recently a man in his 50’s who had been arrested for viewing child pornography died while awaiting sentencing.  He died of a heart attack but my suspicion is that the stress of his situation was the precipitating factor.

Erectile Dysfunction

By definition, an addiction involves a process of gradual desensitization, a numbing of a specific pleasure response in the brain.  As more and younger men who are addicted to internet porn exhibit ED, it is clear that the process of desensitization to sexually addictive behaviors operates in exactly the same way as any drug.

Affects on Women

Women are affected from two directions.  (1) More women are becoming sex addicts (although still fewer than men) and (2) images of women in the media are becoming increasingly sexual across the board.  Sexualized images of women are everywhere in media, film, advertizing etc.  These are images that are:

• Increasingly pornographic
• Increasingly violent
• Increasingly idealized (thin, airbrushed)
• Increasingly intended to look extremely young or even childlike

It is well documented that the dissemination of idealized images of women has many negative impacts on women and girls such as eating disorders, emotional disturbance and lack of sexual self protection.  Body dissatisfaction is common and from 2002 to 2003 the number of girls 18 and younger who got breast implants tripled.

Affects on Children

As adults become accustomed to being bombarded with sexual imagery, they are likely to be more lax about protecting their children from it and are even coming to see it as OK for children.  Sexualized images of children are becoming much more prevalent than ever and sexualized clothing such as thongs and high heels for young children has led to the coining of the terms “prostitot” and “kinderwhore.”  It remains to be seen what the ultimate affect of all this will be on the development of the current generation of children. 

Recovery is not Prudery

If you are inclined to take the issue of sexually addictive behavior seriously and you help others to do so you are helping to push the social agenda in a healthy direction.  There is still pressure in the sexually addictive direction from many people who see recovery as “sexual repression.”  It is important for sex addicts to get help and for those around them to get help and to carry the message.  This is not being against sex.  There is nothing liberated or liberating about being caught up in sexual addiction.

Are there more sex addicts in the US than alcoholics?

The exploding use of internet pornography worldwide has been well documented of late and has prompted people to use the word “epidemic” to describe the phenomenon.  Even the most conservative estimates based on surveys of college students put the figure at six percent or more. But a recent statistical review concluded that “ten percent of adults admit to an internet sexual addiction.” (Internet Pornography Statistics by Jerry Ropelato, Internet Filter Review)

So since there are roughly 232 million adults in the U.S.that means that 23 million of them are internet sex addicts.  If this is even in the ball park, then the number of sex addicts of all kinds in the U.S. is greater than the number of alcoholics (17.6 million) and the number of drug addicts (3.6 million) put together! 

Recreational users

The Internet Filter Review reports that 40 million people in the U.S. per day log onto internet pornography sites (as of 2006.)  This is up from a reported 30 million 3 years prior (Datamonitor.com 2003.)  They are not all addicts but neither are the 22 million Americans who, according to CNN.com, “use” illegal drugs.  But internet pornography is known to be highly addictive.  Powerful stimuli often tailored to people’s specific fantasies, produce high excitement and arousal chemistry in the brain not to mention the reinforcement of easy, anonymous sexual gratification.

Intimacy vs. sexual addiction

The largest consumers of internet pornography are the 12 to 17 year-old age group (safefamilies.org, Statistics on Pornography, Sexual Addiction and Online Perpetrators.)  If as widely reported, the average age of first exposure to internet pornography is 11; this means that tens of millions of young people are forming their ideas and attitudes about sex and sexuality based on alienated, idealized and often exploitive or violent content.  Furthermore they are doing so in many cases long before they will ever have had any kind of intimate physical experience with a real live person.

Sex addiction is a disorder in which the preferred sexual activities take place apart from an intimate relationship with another person.  In other words the sex addict engages compulsively and often in one or more types of sexual situations that have nothing to do with intimacy, such as cybersex, strip clubs, anonymous sex, and sex with prostitutes.  Most people still prefer to have a sex life in the context of a relationship with someone.  But as more and younger people are seduced into spending hours each day in front of internet pornography, they are fast losing their ability to relate sexually in the more complicated, less airbrushed world of real people.  For those kids who started getting hooked on pornography in their early teens, they may never have the chance to begin to learn how to relate intimately.  This very ineptitude will then lead them to flee from sexual relationships into their fantasy world of porn and thus the process feeds on itself.

Not enough addicts getting treatment

The arithmetic is striking.  If there are 10 to 20 million sexually addicted Americans, and there are about 1,500 therapists who specialize in treating them, along with a dozen or so rehab programs (which tend to be costly although very effective) there can be only a tiny percentage of sex addicts actually getting professional help for what is a remarkably intransigent problem.  There are a number of AA type support groups including Sex Addicts Anonymous, Sexual Compulsives Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous and Survivors of Incest Anonymous.  The world headquarters of Sex Addicts Anonymous told me that there are currently 1,300 registered SAA groups worldwide.  If each group has an average of 10 people who belong and attend meetings then there are only 13,000 sex addicts getting help through SAA which is the oldest and biggest of the organizations.  Again, a puny percentage of those needing help.

And the good news?

Sex addiction has received a lot more attention in the media around the world of late and by and large the problem has been taken seriously.  A growing number of therapists are being trained and certified by IITAP (International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Therapists) and more residential programs are being created.  Parents are becoming more aware of the issue and there are serious campaigns and organizations combating the sexualization of media and culture and the sexualized depiction of children.  Also there is growing awareness of the violent pornographic nature of imagery present in games as well as media.

And Sex Addicts Anonymous?  Their office told me that worldwide, the number of groups that register with the central organization every year is increasing by twenty percent!  If the growth keeps up at this pace then this alone will go a long way toward spreading the word.