March 29, 2024

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Sex addiction may affect 10 percent of men, survey finds

Is sex addiction real? Researchers say it may be, or at least something close to it, and might be more common than anyone thought.

Ten percent of men and 7 percent of women say they have significant levels of stress and dysfunction because of their sexual thoughts or behaviors, the researchers reported Friday.

A national survey of more than 2,000 adults found on average, more than 8 percent of them reported symptoms of compulsive sexual behavior disorder — a persistent pattern of failure in controlling intense sexual urges that leads to distress and social impairment.

It’s definitely controversial, Janna Dickenson of the University of Minnesota and colleagues wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Network Open.

“From Tiger Woods to Harvey Weinstein, news articles have conjectured that ‘sex addiction’ is a growing and heretofore unrecognized ‘epidemic,’ while the scientific community debates whether such a problem even exists,” they wrote.

But it’s not that hard to define, they said: “failing to control one’s sexual feelings and behaviors in a way that causes substantial distress and/or impairment in functioning.”

It’s the impairment part that matters — people must feel like the thoughts or behaviors interfere with normal life in some way.

They used data from a large national questionnaire, the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, to see how common sexual behavior problems might be. It asks a range of questions, including:

  • How often have you had trouble controlling your sexual urges?
  • How often have you felt unable to control sexual behavior?
  • How often have you made pledges or promises to change or alter your sexual behavior?
  • How often have your sexual thoughts or behaviors interfered with relationships?

“Distress and impairment associated with difficulty controlling sexual feelings, urges, and behavior were measured using the Compulsive Sexual Behavior Inventory,” Dickenson and colleagues wrote.

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