Come on you cant be addicted to sex! Its just guys being guys. It feels really good. Its part of our natural drive as human beings. You cant argue with those last two. It does feel good, and it is apart of our drive as human beings.
Yet when does it cross the line? When have you gone too far to where its no longer considered “normal”. Depending on who you ask the answer is all over the place. I would also argue that most people dont even have any idea or clue what it is.
In my experience, I have learned that healthy sexuality is not what the world defines it as. Sex is linked to love, which is not meant to be selfish or self-serving. Despite popular belief nowadays, sex can never replace a lack of connection. In recovery, the term “sexual acting out” refers to unnatural sexual desire that is outside of love and meant for selfish pleasure or pain relief. This includes but is not limited to: objectifying women, watching pornography, masturbating, cheating on a partner, lusting after women, etc. These are the main forms of “sexual acting out,” but can lead to more extreme actions, such as rape or abuse. This is a simple definition for now, but there are many layers that we will cover later.
Our society preaches to do whatever you want: “be free,” “be sexual,” “watch pornography,” “get drunk,” “do you”! Society promotes sexual acting out as if it is harmless and easy to control, and yet, when people go over a certain line, they are condemned by the same voices almost immediately. Most men don’t wake up and overnight sexually abuse others. The desensitization is built up over time and eventually, your mind and body are so perverted that you need an extreme form and/or amount of your “drug” in order to get your fix. The same thing goes for any drug addict. You build up a tolerance to the point where your body needs such a high dose of that substance, that for anyone else, they would overdose, and yet for you, you barely get high off of that amount. Tolerance and desensitization builds over time, especially when society is promoting your drug everywhere you look.
The only difference for alcohol, gambling, drugs, overeating, etc, society promotes to get help for these more obvious addictions. Whereas sex is just “normal.”
For me I went from one extreme to the other. I grew up religious, so pornography and masturbation were deemed wrong and evil. Yet, at the same time, as a child in so much internal emotional pain from my childhood that I was unaware of, all I knew is those things felt good. It gave me temporary relief, which I so desperately needed. So with a lack of explanations, guidance, and understanding, when I turned 18, I decided to leave that church and I turned to sexual acting out. Although, it wasn’t so easy as a young man entering a highly sexual society with a lack of experience. Because I was a novice at sexual acting out, I would get teased for sleeping with such few women, or in other words, “having a low body count.” My “numbers,” as it was referred to in my social circle, were low. So I went from the church I grew up in deeming it wrong and taboo to the opposite extreme. Sex was promoted in this world, so now I was being degraded for not sexually acting out enough, instead of thinking of/doing it too much.
So in my case, I went from an environment where my pain relief was highly frowned upon to becoming secular and then being told that this was all just normal. From what I have learned, an addiction is as simple as, “you know you’re addicted when you can’t stop.” For instance, if I challenged sex addicts to 60 days of no sexual acting out, there would be some serious withdrawals and challenges, just like any other drug. But freedom begins when you realize acting out makes you feel better in the moment, but it’s just temporary relief.
Let’s break it down even further. If/when you first start masturbating, it’s the most incredible feeling in the world. The intensity that you feel and the power is a shock to the system. And it feels amazing. Thats why you keep doing it. But as you go along its just like smoking a cigarette, the highs dont give you the same amount of relief and so you need more and more. Do more spend more time and get less out of it, Thats why it is able to hook you. And eventually you start to use it as a way to relieve your pain and function in life. Boss makes you feel inadequate act out, girl rejects you act out, see someone attractive act out later. The solution that you find that gives you that jolt to start becomes the drug that you cannot shake.
It was an addiction for me because I couldn’t stop and it kept progressing up levels. I needed more and more of it and it didn’t have the same affect that it did when I first started masturbating and watching pornography.
Acting out is freedom, until you try to stop.
How to know if you might have a sex addiction:
Are women humans or objects?
How long can you go without watching pornographic material?
Can you stop acting out today and not do it again?
Are you able to tell your spouse/wife everything going on in your life?
Can you be intimate with your wife without thinking about other women?
Hopefully you’ll be able to see how incredibly dangerous letting this addiction linger and go on without getting any help can be. Get help today. Fight this addiction. Go get some God. God Bless.