Once again, I seem to have stirred up some problems.
Over at the Pizza Parlor, I commented that anything that becomes an obsession, compulsion, focus of your life is probably a “besetting sin.” And that recovering from such a thing is a long, hard process. And I think, allowing for the distinction that humanistic non-theists would use a different term than “sin,” they would agree that good mental health requires exactly the same process.
Then I observed, the context for this having been an individual who was “gay and wants to be healed” (and no, not the person many of you are thinking of), that since gay people are generally considered a minority, “different” and misunderstood, by reason of their sexuality, they are, as a stereotypic rule, in greater danger of falling into a sexual addiction situation than the average straight person. To me, this meant no slam on any individual gay person or gay people as a class, simply that a anomie/stress situation involving one’s sexuality can and probably does induce a “sexual addiction” situation that does need therapy. In my mind, there was a clear distinction between “he’s gay” and “he’s a gay sex addict,” and the circumstances called for discussing the latter subcase. The whole thread was done in the context of the proper Christian response to a gay person.
JAB (under his nom-de-poste over there) picked up on this and found it offensive. And in retrospect I’m not sure it is not. The logic and psychology in it seems to me to be valid, and I have absolutely no intention of creating some sort of categorization rule that says “gay=sex addict” – just that many gay people are at risk for sexual addiction for the reasons outlined.
So I’d welcome an analysis of the situation by gay posters and those with background in psychology (recognizing the groups overlap), and affirmation or correction of my thoughts.
What evidence do you have that gays are more likely to fall into sexual addiction? I think we might be able to say that gays tend to talk about their sexuality more than straights, but I find that entirely unsurprising; I never really have to mention my sexuality because I am straight and practically everyone assumes I am straight (Libertarian being a notable exception). I would also not be at all surprised to find that there are several dozen gays on this message board who very few know are gay, simply because they rarely mention that fact. If you don’t mention your sexuality, people will generally assume you’re straight, so I daresay these gays don’t get included in your estimation of gay’s attitudes towards their sexuality.
It may indeed be possible that the stress involved with having a sexuality that is often denigrated by society may lead to a greater obsession with that sexuality, and thus to sexual addiction. I have seen studies that show homosexual men have an average number of orgasms that is higher than that of heterosexual men, but that may simply be due to differences between the relative availability and willingness of partners and not indicative of an addicition; it’s not as if we should assume that the number of orgasms heterosexual males have is “right” and any more than that is indicative of addiction, anyhow. Some aspects of gay sexuality could be interpreted as being indicative of addiction, when in fact they are not, as well: one sign of sexual addiction is shame and secrecy concerning the sex, and a homosexual may have that shame and secrecy foisted on him by society’s attitudes rather than because he actually has an addiction with sex. I’d like to see some hard facts before I accept that homosexuals are more likely to be sex addicts. Does any person in a discrimnated minority invariably become more likely to be obsessive about the basis of that discrimination? Does the fact that pagan’s beliefs about religion put them in the minority mean that they’re more likely to have a religious obsession? Personally, while I know gays who talk a lot about sex, I haven’t seen any behavior that I would consider indicative of addiction. Sure, you hear all about the gay guy who so obsessively cruises for anonymous sex in public parks that it interferes with the rest of his life, but I’m not sure that he’s any more common than the married man who has multiple affairs even though he knows it will destroy his marriage. At least, I’m not going to assume it’s necessarily any more common without further evidence.
Gaudere, don’t forget the heterosexual married man who is cruising for gay sex in the park or at a porn store. At least from my personal experience, that happens a LOT.
I should have put heterosexual in quotes. Still, it is prevalent.
Regarding the sexual addiction… it has been shown in studies that gay men are not as prone to a paraphelia because as we are outsiders and have such minor expectations societally, we have a more balanced perspective on sex and tend to mystify it less. Thus, while there are sexual addicts who are gay, they are in the same or slightly less proportion than heterosexuals.
Can you find any reference to these studies online? Unfortunately, when you enter “+homosexual +‘sexual addiction’” in a search engine, you get a boatload of websites devoted to “curing gays” and it’s been taking me a while to winnow through them to find any legitmate information on sexual addiction in gays versus straights.
I have to question your initial premise, Poly. I see no reason why being of a “minotiy” sexual orientation should correspond to a greater than average tendency to sexual fixation. Most fetishists that I have known personally (admittedly, hardly a scientific survey) trace the genesis of their attraction to a specific event of events, usually during childhood or early adolescence, that had no particular relation to their “orientation”. Often, in fact, the “first cause” seemed to predate any real feeling of sexual attraction at all.
I’m going off info that I have learned in my psych classes(I’m a psych major). What I do know is that paraphelia is covered in the DSM-4. That would be the first place I’d send someone.
Gaudere, Hastur, and S/M, thank you for the enlightenment.
As occasion permits, I’ll amend my remarks on the subject over there to reflect what you’ve had to say. Hastur, if you have opportunity, I’d be interested in more background on paraphelia (as, I think, would other posters).
I think your idea works with gay men, simply becase men are societally conditioned to be aggressive sexually. In a gay relationship or sexual encounter, you have two aggressive people so sex is more likely to occur when pursued than it is between, say, a straight guy trying to pick up chicks in a bar.
What’s a guy who has lots of sex? A stud. A woman? A slut. I think things would change if you managed to identify the little gay boys and teach half of them the value of saying “Fiddle Dee Dee” and giggling behind a fan.
I don’t know that lesbians are really in danger of sex addiction, but then I don’t know many lesbians.
My example is shown in the following joke:
What does a lesbian bring on a sexond date?
Answer - All her luggage and a moving van.
What does a gay man bring on a second date?
Answer - What’s a second date?
These are broad generalizations and are mostly an excuse for me to tell that joke.
Well, simply having more sex than average does not mean you are a sexual addict. IANAP, but sexual addiction is when a person’s lack of sexual impulse control causes serious trouble in other areas of that person’s life (job, family, friends) and the person is ashamed and secretive about the sex and feels s/he cannot control his/her sexual impulses. That’s not an accurate description of a gay male who simply enjoys having a lot of casual sex.
Poly, I’m interested to hear your reasoning behind the idea that greater stress leads to sex addiction. Why not repression? Or just an ulcer? Even if the stress is related to one’s status as a sexual being, I don’t see how it follows that sex addiction is more likely.
Here are some thoughts based on my own history and other guys I’ve known.
Imagine being a teen-ager and having some very deep feelings, and all you get from society is “you’re sick, you’re bad, you’re an abomination, you’re a sinner, you should be ashamed of yourself, you’re a freak, you’re a fag, you’re a queer, you’re a pervert, you’re a sodomite, you’re going to burn in hell forever!” And you have nobody to turn to, because you don’t know of any other gay people.
Then imagine, as you get older, gradually reaching out and discovering that you’re not the only one after all. You find that these feelings you have are shared by millions of people just like you, and there doesn’t have to be anything wrong or shameful or perverted.
Many people, at this time in their development, are so eager to throw off those old prohibitions, that they immerse themselves in a great deal of sexual activity. I did exactly that for a while, and I think it was a necessary part of my development, and I have no regrets. Most people eventually grow out of this and start to look for something more permanent.
I might add that many heterosexuals go through the exact same thing, if they’re from very strict or puritanical backgrounds. Of course, there are some who become “addicted,” just like there are people addicted to any other type of activity. I don’t think the “addiction” has anything to do with sexual orientation.
And I certainly don’t think gay men obsess about sex any more than straight men do.
Thank you very much, JAB. I like to work with the facts, the data, and not preconceived notions.
For those of you who questioned why in the world I’d come to this idea anyway, I refer you to Panache’s post above, particularly the fourth paragraph, which tracks out my line of thinking. However, I didn’t take the additional steps to conclude what Freyr’s post and Panache’s concluding notes make clear.
And I’ve corrected my remarks over on the Parlor to reflect what I’ve learned.
Well, this is a bit off-topic, but… A question is only valid if the concepts it relies on are valid. As such, the question “Are gays more likely to experience sexual addiction?” is only valid if there are such things as “gays” and “sexual addiction”.
Now, I don’t think anyone here will argue the fact that homosexuality exists, and that it is a valid concept, but does sexual addiction exist? I honestly don’t know, but I am skeptical. I’m not a pyschologist nor a pyschiatrist (nor a good speller), and I can’t claim to be particulary learned in the field, but I do think questioning the existance of sexual addiction is fair game. Going simply by the American Heritage, Third Edition (not a specialized medical dictionary, I’ll freely admit) addiction is:
Ignoring the fact that sex is not a substance, can a person have a “compulsive physiological need” for sex? From the use of the word “physiological” rather than, say, psychological, I infer that the need can not be entirely mental. In other words, it is not enough that a person has a strong desire to engage in sex, even to the point of ignoring other possibly necessicary activities, they must also have a physical reaction that results from not engaging in sex.
Is it possible for a person to experience that? And if not, is my definition of addiction valid, or am I setting up a straw man by my use of a standard defintion rather than a specialized one?
Despite the dictionary defintion, “addiction” as a psychiatric term can also include psychological addiction. A person addicted to gambling may not have physical withdrawal symptoms (although they may as well, but they’re almost certainly psychosomatic), but they need to gamble so badly they will lose all their money, their job, alienate their family and basically ruin their life just becuase they can’t stop gambling. Similarily, persons addicted to sex may need to have sex so badly they allow it to significantly interfere with their job and relationships, and they feel profoundly guilty about their actions yet out-of-control and unable to stop. Sexual addiction can also include things like voyerism and exhibitionism; they’re not indicative of an addiction if the desire can be reasonably controlled, but if you can’t hold a job because you can’t keep from flashing your co-workers, well, you gots a problem.
For those of you who questioned why in the world I’d come to this idea anyway, I refer you to Panache’s post above, particularly the fourth paragraph, which tracks out my line of thinking. However, I didn’t take the additional steps to conclude what Freyr’s post and Panache’s concluding notes make clear.**
Whoops! This is my first post here so I’m not sure why you’re referring to me. Prehaps you mean Hastur?
FYI, I agree with Panache45’s assessment in his posting you refer to. I went thru a similar phase when I first came out in the late 70s & early 80s.
As for the OP, two questions:
does sexual addiction actually exist? I can see that it does in the same way as alcoholism, etc, but are there any hard statistics on it? Is it really sexual addiction or is constant sexual contact a symptom of some other, psychological problem, like low self-esteem.
how do you measure this sexual addiction? Is a married man who has sex (in this case, sex with orgasm for one or both partners) with his wife 14 times a week (twice a night) sexually addicted? What about a gay man who goes out and has 3 sexual encounters (with different partners) per night (see definition above) yet only does this twice a week (total of 6). In both cases, their professional life doesn’t suffer, so is either one an “addict” ??
I think if you follow the basic guideline of “safe, sane, consensual” before “doing it” everything’s fine. Now if you’re doing so much you can’t keep a job… then there might be something to this.
FYI, safe means don’t transmit diseases. If you do find yourself infected, get yourself cured. If a cure isn’t possible, inform your partners, they have a right to know.
Sane means think about what you’re doing, ESPECIALLY if you’ve used mind-altering substances before hand.
Consensual; does your partner agree with this? You may think doing it whilst on a (non-moving) motorbike is the ultimate scene, but your partner may not. If not, try to find common ground.
Helpful answer, Freyr. And yes, I did mean Hastur – I didn’t have the thread up when composing the answer, and misattributed the response to you. Apologies to both of you for that.
Regarding the reality of “sexual addiction” – you, Freyr, would I think be the first to admit that psychological classifications can be slippery things to work with. But by the term I meant “an inordinate preoccupation with matters sexual in nature, to the extent that they interfere with other aspects of a person’s life that are important to him/her, and have characteristics of obsessiveness or compulsion with reduced will to resist the opportunity to indulge the preoccupation.” As such, it’s not quantifiable: to use Gaudere’s analogy to gambling, a multimillionare who makes occasional $10,000 bets may very well not be “addicted to gambling” – he can spare it – while a woman who plays dollar-a-card bingo seven nights a week, and shortchanges necessary expenses to afford it, may very well be addicted, even though her annual gambling expenses are an order of magnitude less than one bet by the multimillioniare. A man who looks at porn sites at work contrary to company policy, or who puts a relationship at risk for repeated sexual flings, may well be sexually addicted. A woman who endures an abusive relationship for the sake of the good sex may be addicted. And so on.
