Just Sex, No Intimacy: Sex Addiction and Relationships
The concept of sex without an emotional connection may sound impossible to many, but to the millions of people who are living with sex addiction, it’s part of the destruction and the pain of the complex addiction.
Recent articles are posing the question about whether or not sex can exist in a relationship void or personal connection and how the two impact each other. Part of the debate comes from skyrocketing access to this type of uninvolved sex online – such as porn sites, sex chat rooms, virtual sex sites and more people exchanging sexted messages with strangers or acquaintances.
For people living with sex addiction, issues around intimacy are often strong factors. This may include specific symptoms:
- Sex with multiple partners with whom no relationship is present, such as paid services
- Inability to maintain or form close personal relationships or friendships
- Fear or negative feelings surrounding personal intimacy
- In some cases, a history of abuse that leads the person to avoid intimate relationships and seek multiple acts of sex instead
- Desire to escape or avoid feelings through acts of sex
For couples in which one partner is living with sex addiction, the intimacy factor of sex may be strongly affected. One partner may feel inadequate or unable to meet the other’s sexual interests or desires. The person with the addiction may feel uninterested in sex with a partner because they are seeking a non-intimate connection, one in which they can “numb out.” If pornography is involved, the partner with the addiction may form a distorted view of sex over time as just an act with an object, instead of a person.
Because sex involves both receiving and giving, the presence of sex addition makes establishing and maintaining an intimate relationship very challenging because the act of sex is used as a way to escape or cope with negative emotions. Like other addictions, sex addiction requires professional help for treatment – but recovery and a return to intimacy is possible for both partners who are affected.