Sexual Addiction: (Not) A Love Story
Picture this: Two people, a man and a woman, on separate sides of a relatively large city, staring into their computer screens. He runs his fingers through the scruff growing on his chin and smiles. She tilts her head slightly to the left, curls her lip in that little way she does when she feels happy and nods. A pop up window opens, “Do you wanna chat?” It’s all very “You’ve Got Mail.”
Except that this is not a love story. Yet.
Kenny’s profile says he’s looking to meet women for “short-term dating and casual sex,” which is how he found Cass. Hers says she’s interested in simply “casual sex” and you should message her if you’re good at talking dirty. As you can imagine, Cass gets hundreds of hits a day even though her images are fakes, but this time it’s different; she’s met a kindred spirit.
Now, here’s something about this scene you probably hadn’t considered: Cass is a vice president of one of the last independent community banks in her neck of the strip malls. She’s smart and professional and entirely independent. She has two master’s degrees. And Ken, well, he’s something of a legend in the ranks of American photojournalists willing to travel to high conflict areas. He’s got a wall of awards and a few pieces of shrapnel still imbedded near his left knee. (Somalia is nothing to shrug at.)
This couple represents a confounding truism about men and women who struggle with not only sexual addiction, but any kind of addiction: you can rarely spot them based solely on appearances.
What Does a Sex Addict Look Like?
The answer: me; maybe you.
Take yourself back to the last time someone made a joke about another person’s likelihood of being bipolar, based on some behavioral cue the speaker found odd, unpredictable or annoying. This has probably happened fairly recently somewhere near you. Now consider the reality that making jokes about bipolar disorder is a little bit akin to making jokes about ethnicity or religion. You can never be wholly certain whether the person you’re mouthing off to belongs to the group you’re passing the time mocking.
Sex addicts feel like the latest social free-for-all, but undoubtedly, someone leaned over a cubical wall to mock a celebrity’s “excuse” of sexual addiction … oh, about five minutes ago. And just as undoubtedly, one of the recipients of this apparently hilarious issue is none other than a sexual compulsive himself. He pretends to agree, “Oh yeah,” [insert uncomfortable laugh] “those people.”
Two nights ago I encountered a familiar experience. At a casual cocktail party intended to celebrate a grad school acceptance, a new acquaintance asked me what I’d been doing earlier in the day.
Me: “Writing an article.”
Her: “Oh? About what?”
Me: “Sexual addiction.”
Her: “Oh my god, really? Isn’t it just ridiculous how these men who are serial cheaters just claim to be ‘sex addicts’ when that psychological board—you know the one?—doesn’t even recognize it as real?”
Me: “Hmm,” I said, smoothing my skirt. “I don’t find the idea particularly ridiculous. But then, I’m a sex addict.”
Changing the Conversation
Granted, I may be rare in my willingness to out myself—a raw (and occasionally alienating) type of honesty I’ve only acquired since recovery—but doing so has taught me something crucial. Claiming my addiction and being willing to discuss the issue without defensiveness can be mind-opening for others and heart-opening for me.
You see, the most critical common denominator among those who experience sex, love or relationship addiction appears to be that we long to get intensely close and yet we fear true, emotional intimacy. This kind of intimacy can only develop when two people are honest and willing to be, in one another’s presence, the people they most fundamentally are. In practicing coming out to people, I begin to lean on a newly developing trust in others—choosing to believe they will hold whatever I have to reveal carefully and kindly. If someone can’t do that, I’ve finally and once-and-for-all learned that it isn’t me who “isn’t enough.” If I am comfortable with myself, scars and all, other people are pretty easy.
“Kenny” and “Cass” represent two people I came to know through recovery. Their details have been altered but the story is essentially the same. I met them years after they’d found one another and discovered something important about who they were and how they were choosing to interact, and the truly intriguing thing is that they decided to recover together. As a result, they have a relationship so strong and honest that I have rarely witnessed its likeness. Their story reveals a face of sexual addiction most people aren’t willing to acknowledge exists—people who are competent and successful but who discover they have a problem that needs healing and proceed to build a powerful relationship in support of one another. Not all of us who suffer sexual addiction are world travelers or bank executives, but then, there really are few useful labels here. The only one I can be certain of is that owning sexual addiction never serves as an easy “excuse.”