Addicted to Sex

As if they didn't have enough to worry about, between the Prozac in their drinking water and the newly coined "frantic life syndrome," today's news tells us that British women are addicted to sex:

According to the latest research, between one and two percent of women in the United Kingdom now suffer from sex addiction. Although the condition among men has been widely reported, its existence in women has been largely ignored, often because those affected have not sought help. An international study by a United States university concludes that the problem is extensive and under-reported.

While fictional characters such as Samantha in the television series Sex And The City boast of their sexual conquests, in reality women are generally ashamed of their behaviour.

Dr Cyndi Roller, author of the report Sex Addiction And Women, said women addicted to sex believe they are worthless, no one loves them, that their needs will never be met, and that sex is their most important need.

Robin Cato of the National Council on Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity said: "A man can go out (with) all these acting-out behaviours and society considers them macho - it's what a man does. But if a woman does it, she's a tramp."

Nothing new in that last graph. But, what accounts for the sudden rise in sexual appetite?

Dr Sidney Crown, a London-based psychiatrist and sex counsellor, said: "I think the Internet has played a part in the increase. Sexual appetite can always be titillated and appetite for anything can lead to addiction. It is also the case that society is now much more permissible; if, a few years ago, a woman had openly said she wanted sex, it would have raised eyebrows. It is more acceptable now."

Don Serratt, founder and chief executive of Life Works, an addiction and mental health treatment centre, said: "The Internet is the crack cocaine of sex addiction. People have just gone off the wall with it because it is so easily accessible, and chatrooms are attractive for women.

Okay. I'm still not understanding what the problem is. Can someone explain?

Comments

[Astarte]

I don't get it. If they're worthless and nobody loves them, then how is it they can find people to have sex with? I mean, I know it doesn't take love to have sex, but you'd think if someone was willing, you'd be worth asomething.

That's just silly. Is it me, or do psychologists sit around, smoke pot and make things up for people to be chronically afraid of?

[Amanda]

The problem is demanding women wanting sex like they were men. Jeez, next thing you know they'll want to get paid for working.

[Hanna]

Okay, this *is* funny, but it's also true that we tend to try to fill the (figurative) hole inside ourselves with food or drugs or sex. It doesn't have anything to do with the Internet (which seems to be everyone's new favorite thing to blame stuff on; if it were men, it would be video games).

Almost (Over? Has it been that long?) two decades ago I was deeply involved in twelve-step programs and one of them was sex addicts anonymous and yes, there were a lot of women in that program (I wasn't actually in that program, but all the different twelve-steppers in the city I lived in mingled together). If you feel unwanted and unloved, sex is a natural place to look for that, but I'm pretty sure that the two aren't linked all that closely. People end up having lots of sex, hoping the love will magically appear, but it doesn't and just like an alcoholic drinks more and more because it doesn't solve the problems one is trying to cure by drinking (though, often it can do a good job of masking them or temporarily self-medicating them) sex addicts keep having more and more sex to try to solve their problems only to find out that at some point having too much sex has become their problem. The original problem is still there, but it becomes secondary to a larger and more dangerous problem. It's not promiscuity so much as it is reckless behavior and women are particularly prone to being in dangerous situations when having a lot of sex with strangers.

At the very basic level, I think all the twelve-steppers realized we were all looking for the same thing and just had different ways of overcompensating for it.

Sorry to be so serious.

One of the many sayings we had was that "If you think you have a problem with something, you probably do. People who overindulge and don't worry about it probably don't have a problem, it's people who fret over it that probably have a problem and that's where the twelve step programs come in." Um, I don't think that was the actual saying, because the little sayings were always very short and simple and there were so many of them and it was a long time ago and I've forgotten most of them (you know, like "One day at a time" and such).

Anyway, women having a lot of sex. Not a problem. Women having a lot of sex because they think it will make them feel better about themselves and then feeling worse about themselves afterwards. A problem. Same for men. It's actually a niche problem that isn't really part of the mainstream. Not to say there isn't sexism involved, but less than one might expect.

(By the way, the groups were usually segregated so that people who were attracted to each other didn't go to the same meetings. Very difficult to manage when sexual minorities were mixed in.)

Um, that was a long answer. Sorry.

Love,

Hanna

[Dean Landsman]

The answer is simple. That dashing ladies' man Tony Blair is so damn attractive, that he has women all over England swooning and moaning over the mere concept of him. They dream of him at night, they fantasize about him by day.

Why, he must be even more of a Bubba (or whatever the Brit equivalent of that might be) than Clinton!

That Tony Blair even made the younger female Brits forget about Harry and William. Now they put up posters of PMTB instead of the younger swains.

Actually, rumor has it that the real attraction is in his teeth, or maybe the gaps thereabouts.

Oh, that boffo Tony!