Addicted to Sex?

This news item caught my attention, because it gives an example of a common misconception about sex. The people who are being discussed in the news article are actually not addicted to sex as such. If a person were addicted to sex pure and simple, there is a pure and simple solution to their problem. Get married - have all the sex you want.

However, many of these people are married but, as the item shows, they do not find sex satisfying in their relationship. Their addiction is to the HIT that sex gives them, not the sex itself. This hit is the rush of chemicals in the body that is released when the seducer makes a conquest, when the hunter traps his prey. The sex itself is secondary to that. Some would say that it is an instinct, but this would be wrong, these are learned behaviors. The fault lies in the expectations of our society, which places too much emphasis on winners and losers, and too little on cooperation. In marital sex, there is no conquest, no pay off, no prize to be won.

The idea that people learn a stimulus-response behavior to associate sex with objects is very interesting. My own view here would be that it is not so much the learned behavior that is the cause of the problem, but the fact that certain modes of behavior, such as building relationships, are NOT learned. And once again, this is the fault of our society's thinking, with too much emphasis on the acquisition of, and pride in the ownership of, objects. Sphere: Related Content