Hypersexual disorder!Am I sexually addicted?Take a quize....

What is sex addiction?

Relationship counselling service Relate describes sex addiction as any sexual activity that feels "out of control". This could be sex with a partner, but it can also mean activities such as pornography, masturbation, visiting prostitutes or using chat lines.
For most people, these habits don't cause them any problems. However, sex addicts are unable to control these urges and actions, despite the problems it may cause their relationships, finances and professional lives.
The Recovery Network says sex addiction "involves frequent self-destructive or high risk activity that is not emotionally fulfilling, that one is ashamed of and that one is unable to stop, despite it causing repeated problems".

What causes sex addiction?

The causes of love and sex addictions are often rooted in childhood or adolescence. Early trauma, neglect or depression are potential reasons. One US study revealed that 80% of participants with a sex addiction suffered emotional trauma or sexual abuse during their childhood.

Sex addicts often describe their parents as rigid, distant and uncaring. These families, including the addicts themselves, are more likely to be substance abusers. One study found that 80 percent of recovering sex addicts report some type of addiction in their families of origin. 

Symptoms of sexual addiction

While there is no official diagnosis for sex addiction, clinicians and researchers have attempted to define the disorder using criteria based on chemical dependency literature. They include:

• Frequently engaging in more sex and with more partners than intended.
• Being preoccupied with or persistently craving sex; wanting to cut down and unsuccessfully attempting to limit sexual activity.
• Thinking of sex to the detriment of other activities or continually engaging in excessive sexual practices despite a desire to stop.
• Spending considerable time in activities related to sex, such as cruising for partners or spending hours online visiting pornographic Web sites.
• Neglecting obligations such as work, school or family in pursuit of sex.
• Continually engaging in the sexual behavior despite negative consequences, such as broken relationships or potential health risks.
• Escalating scope or frequency of sexual activity to achieve the desired effect, such as more frequent visits to prostitutes or more sex partners.
• Feeling irritable when unable to engage in the desired behavior.

You may have a sex addiction problem if you identify with three or more of the above criteria. More generally, sex addicts tend to organize their world around sex in the same way that cocaine addicts organize theirs around cocaine. Their goal in interacting with people and in social situations is obtaining sexual pleasure.

In 2010, the American Psychiatric Association issued its preliminary criteria for “Hypersexual Disorder,” which may be a possible alternative definition or diagnostic label for sex addiction.

Symptoms for hypersexual disorder

In 2010, the American Psychiatric Association released draft, preliminary criteria that may define “sex addiction,” which they are formally called Hypersexual Disorder. Hypersexual disorder can only be diagnosed in adults 18 years or older, according to the draft criteria.
The symptoms of Hypersexual Disorder are:

• Over a period of at least six months, a person experiences recurrent and intense sexual fantasies, sexual urges, and sexual behavior in association with four or more of the following five criteria:
1. Excessive time is consumed by sexual fantasies and urges, and by planning for and engaging in sexual behavior.
2. Repetitively engaging in these sexual fantasies, urges, and behavior in response to dysphoric mood states (e.g., anxiety, depression, boredom, irritability).
3. Repetitively engaging in sexual fantasies, urges, and behavior in response to stressful life events.
4. Repetitive but unsuccessful efforts to control or significantly reduce these sexual fantasies, urges, and behavior.
5. Repetitively engaging in sexual behavior while disregarding the risk for physical or emotional harm to self or others.
• The person experiences clinically significant personal distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning associated with the frequency and intensity of these sexual fantasies, urges, and behavior.

 Am I sexually addicted?Take a quize....

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