While people are still a bit perplexed over weather or not sex
addiction is a real thing, it is slowly but surely becoming more
mainstream and accepted, like drug and alcohol addiction.
Sex addiction is where a person compulsively engages in sex acts to the detriment of their happiness and health and are unable to stop themselves. It's a hard thing for some to accept, however. Sex is something natural that we're supposed to enjoy, how can it be addictive, especially when nothing like a drug is entering the body? Isn't it just an excuse immoral people use to justify their bad behavior?
The truth is, the body doesn't need alcohol or drugs to get addictive chemicals. The brain creates its own during sex, that's why it feels good. Some studies suggest that the sex drive we all have is more powerful than a drug addiction. We could fill a library with stories about the foolish things people have done for love and sex, and maybe another two libraries with stories about the plain, normal, things people have done with sex as an ulterior motive.
Thousands of common people have stories to tell about how this addiction ruined their lives. People have lost marriages, jobs, their children, and their freedom under its influence. It strains credibility to think that all of these people are simply "horn dogs," with no control over themselves who truly value sexual gratification over everything.
It's a bit of a double-edged sword that sex addiction really came to the public's attention through celebrities. While not all claimed addiction was to blame for their indiscretions, many did, and many people breathed a collective "Yeah, right." It's the public's nature to assume the worst of public figures, and many felt, and still feel, that sex addiction is simply an attempt to save face by playing a victim.
Things might have stayed that way had it not been for the Internet. In the early 2000s, some experts estimated the number of American adult males addicted to sex to be around 8 percent (three percent for females), and many correlated the rise in sex addiction with the rise of the Internet. If the drug is more available, more will become addicted.
While the Internet allows people unfettered access to porn and sex, it also lets sex addicts talk to each other more easily, and to learn more about addiction. That a large amount of people were reporting being addicted to sex was something that could no longer be ignored. That, more than celebrity scandals, has focused the public's attention on this addiction. It's affecting more and more people each day, and as we said above, it's hard to believe that all these people are scapegoating a made-up mental disorder.
And let's be honest, does a person claiming they're addicted to sex put them in that much better a light when they face the consequences of sexual indiscretion? Being an addict is not without stigma, and sex problems in general are so taboo that commercials selling products to cure them have to speak in euphemisms.
Sex addiction is where a person compulsively engages in sex acts to the detriment of their happiness and health and are unable to stop themselves. It's a hard thing for some to accept, however. Sex is something natural that we're supposed to enjoy, how can it be addictive, especially when nothing like a drug is entering the body? Isn't it just an excuse immoral people use to justify their bad behavior?
The truth is, the body doesn't need alcohol or drugs to get addictive chemicals. The brain creates its own during sex, that's why it feels good. Some studies suggest that the sex drive we all have is more powerful than a drug addiction. We could fill a library with stories about the foolish things people have done for love and sex, and maybe another two libraries with stories about the plain, normal, things people have done with sex as an ulterior motive.
Thousands of common people have stories to tell about how this addiction ruined their lives. People have lost marriages, jobs, their children, and their freedom under its influence. It strains credibility to think that all of these people are simply "horn dogs," with no control over themselves who truly value sexual gratification over everything.
It's a bit of a double-edged sword that sex addiction really came to the public's attention through celebrities. While not all claimed addiction was to blame for their indiscretions, many did, and many people breathed a collective "Yeah, right." It's the public's nature to assume the worst of public figures, and many felt, and still feel, that sex addiction is simply an attempt to save face by playing a victim.
Things might have stayed that way had it not been for the Internet. In the early 2000s, some experts estimated the number of American adult males addicted to sex to be around 8 percent (three percent for females), and many correlated the rise in sex addiction with the rise of the Internet. If the drug is more available, more will become addicted.
While the Internet allows people unfettered access to porn and sex, it also lets sex addicts talk to each other more easily, and to learn more about addiction. That a large amount of people were reporting being addicted to sex was something that could no longer be ignored. That, more than celebrity scandals, has focused the public's attention on this addiction. It's affecting more and more people each day, and as we said above, it's hard to believe that all these people are scapegoating a made-up mental disorder.
And let's be honest, does a person claiming they're addicted to sex put them in that much better a light when they face the consequences of sexual indiscretion? Being an addict is not without stigma, and sex problems in general are so taboo that commercials selling products to cure them have to speak in euphemisms.
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