Does Sexual Promiscuity Make a Woman a Sex Addict?

While the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has yet to make sexual addiction a standalone diagnosis in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), compulsive sexual behavior continues to be treated by noted mental health organizations, therapists and healthcare providers in every state. While the APA continues to work out the science—and the politics—inherent in legitimizing the diagnosis, naysayers continue to level serious claims as to why they should not. One of the arguments made against putting sexual addiction into the DSM is that doing so is a way for conservative elements to attempt to police people’s sexual behavior. “Too much” sex, they say, is a value judgment, and value judgments around sex are moral attitudes, not scientific facts.

The other side of the debate, those in favor of making sexual addiction a valid diagnosis, argue that it’s important to do so because compulsive sexual behavior has the potential to harm people, to ruin their lives—it has been doing so and will continue to do so whether the APA gets on board to recognize the true nature of the problem. A diagnosis of sexual addiction means that not only will insurance companies be forced to honor people’s needs for care, but that more research and more therapeutic intervention will be made available. Research in the area is sorely lacking , particularly in regard to women. When we think of compulsive sexual behavior to the point of dysfunction in life, we have primarily and historically only thought of men. But this, again, is a social attitude, not a scientific fact. The reality is simply that more and more women are experiencing hypersexuality to the point of dysfunction. 

Women Wired for Promiscuity?

Up to relatively recently, research in evolutionary biology has repeated what amounted to a foregone conclusion: men are wired to seek sexual variety in order to ensure the dissemination of their genetic code (i.e., guys like fooling around because it’s good for the survival of the species, if bad for monogamous relationships); women seek one strong, stable partner in order to ensure the survival of her offspring. When we see a young, beautiful woman with a much older, less attractive but wealthy man, this explained it. He could financially ensure the survival of her offspring.

But somewhere in the tick-tick of evolutionary research there was the proverbial record scratch. Studies on lifelong pair bonders (mammals and other animal species who mate for life) revealed some interesting findings. The females were secretly stepping out! The babies of these pairs were determined to not always be a result of the mating between their supposedly monogamous parents. Somewhere along the way, maybe when Mama was out searching for food, she’d gotten a little action on the side. Why would she do that? Oh, right. To ensure the survival of her offspring—genetic variety does just that. Genetic variety equals health.

An instance of this research, which has only been coming out in the last three decades, is a finding published in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology, which revealed that “ … women seek out multiple sexual partners as an evolutionary strategy, but they change up their strategies depending on context.”

So Is a Label Like “Sex Addiction” a Way to Shame Women?

Not so fast. While labels that are used to confer undo judgment and moralistic control over women’s practices and behaviors have been used since at least the dawn of agrarian culture and likely before, talking about sexual addiction with women or anyone else is not necessarily borne of these intentions. Sex, like anything else, can become a compulsive means through which someone experiences both a dopamine high and an emotional numbing, all intended to keep reality at bay. To this extent, it can become both dangerous and dysfunctional—not because women being promiscuous is an inherently “bad” thing, but because a person being compulsive, impulsive, addictive and numb is a painful thing.

The answer then, is that promiscuity does not make a woman a sexual addict; it makes her a mammal among mammals. What makes anyone a sexual addict is a set of criteria determined by a professional and the woman herself and includes: 1) compulsion, 2) obsession, 3) continuing behaviors despite adverse consequences, and 4) building a tolerance—as with all other types of addiction.