In support of National Women’s Health Week (which was May 13-19 this year), I would like to mention a few ways that female sex and love addicts are different from males. Perhaps this will help women recognize which excessive behaviors can be signs of an actual addiction.
Women always have been overlooked or underrepresented in studies of alcohol, drug, gambling or sex addiction. It has been 73 years since the founding of AA and 60 or so years since the American Medical Association recognized alcoholism as a disease.
Yet it was not until the late 1980s that significant findings regarding very powerful gender differences in the development of alcoholism surfaced in research studies for other diseases, such as heart disease or AIDS.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines. The comments below begin with the oldest comments first. Click on the last comments page to jump to the most recent comments.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines.
Post a Comment:
Copyright © 1995-2013 Psych Central. All rights reserved.
Site last updated: 22 May 2013
|
This brief glimpse into the mind of a female sex addict helped me better understand a recent relationship which ended in a breakup that I never saw coming. While I was totally immersed in the relationship and made great strides to bond emotionally and mentally with my girlfriend, there was alway something strange about our sexual activity. I knew she was sexually abuse as a child but I never came to know the full effects of the abuse. There is obviously more consequences due to her being abused than I could ever know, but it is more clear to me as to why she acted the way she did while we were engaged in various sexual acts; and why she ended the relationship the way she did. While, for almost a year, I’ve been confused and felt angry toward her for using me, I now feel empathy and compassion for her.
Thanks for the blog. Well done. Sex vs. Intimacy. What a sad situation. Sex should be a profound expression of intimacy. But how can we be intimate with another if we are not intimate with ourselves? Just a thought.
Thanks for this article Sharon. It’s always challenging to address differences between men and women, because there are so many exceptions to whatever tendencies and “rules” we observe. I work with male sex addicts in workshops and coaching programs, but in my writing and speaking, I come across female sex addicts, so getting more information is always helpful. I’ll be linking to this article on my blog!
Here I’d just like to add that I see these tendencies (engaging in sex as expression of power, and the mix of sex addiction and codependency) in many men that I work with. In fact, I found Kasl’s book to be surprisingly helpful in understanding what I see with many men, even though she’s talking about women.
Maybe one of the reasons we see some of these gender stereotypes breaking down is that we have so many men being reared in single parent households by mothers. Who knows? Whatever the reason, it’s helpful to understand the differences that arise from biology and conditioning, and also to note the ways in which we ourselves match – or don’t match – up to those differences.