Examples of Sexual Behaviour

The following are composite examples and not real case histories. While they do not refer to any real person they illustrate some of the problems that bring people to seek sexual addiction recovery.

Internet Pornography

Daniel is a middle-aged married man who has little control over his use of Internet pornography. He goes online for half an hour and then compulsively stays much of the night online. He also uses prostitutes, sometimes several in a weekend. He has many one-night stands. These behaviours also conflict with his strongly held religious beliefs.

Exhibitionism

Simon is a young heterosexual male with a female partner and three children from that union. His 'addictive behaviours' involved exhibitionist behaviour in showers and changing rooms and other public places. He has twice been cautioned by the police for exhibitionist behaviour on public transport.

Anonymous Sex

William is a self-employed man who spends four to five hours, four to five days a week, using the telephone and the Internet in pursuit of semi-anonymous sexual encounters against a background of mounting debt and decreasing employment opportunity.

Telephone Sex

Tony is a young professional who uses telephone chat lines to have ritualised sex about once a week, while talking through a fantasy of innocence and seduction with an anonymous paid female operative. He is unmarried and, while he desperately wants a girl friend he is incapable of sustaining an intimate or committed relationship.

One Night Stands

Sarah is a woman in her mid-fifties who lives alone. Her sexual patterns involve picking up men who are unknown to her in bars and bringing them back to her flat. She is concerned about the compulsive nature of the behaviour and the danger that this behaviour creates. In spite of the personal danger she persists in these patterns of behaviour.

Sexual addiction is not about the type of behaviour or the frequency of expression - but about how the behaviour and the harmful consequences are experienced in the life of the individual.