Sex Addicts Use Bodies to Escape From Loneliness, Psychologists Say

Norma, a child development counselor, figures she went to bed with more than 1,200 different men--four or five encounters a day were not uncommon--during her eight years as a sex addict.

Randy, an insurance salesman, estimates that his five-year sexual binge led him into the bedrooms of 650 to 700 women.

Their first names are real, as are the notches on their bedposts.

Although neither is proud nor terribly ashamed of once enormous, seemingly unquenchable sexual appetites, both preferred not to see their last names in print.

Risking relationships, disease, jobs and reputations, Norma and Randy say there was a time they were so preoccupied, obsessed and driven by unrelenting yearnings that they would do anything for a sexual fix.

Men ‘Like Cookies’

“It sounds crazy now, but I used to think of men like they were cookies,” Norma, 41, said. “If one was good, then I figured the whole box was better.”

Randy, 32, said, “It got to the point where you know something is wrong with you--that you can’t sleep without it, can’t concentrate at work. You masturbate a lot or hit a porno shop at lunch.

“This urge, it never lets you go,” he said.

“You don’t feel good without getting that fix from a woman. And when it’s over, you roll over and kind of feel that same awful empty feeling again. And you hate yourself a little.”

Sexual addiction hits men, women, heterosexuals and homosexuals. The pickup doesn’t have to be a singles bar. It could be a health club, a market, a library, a laundry. Wherever available partners are.

Called Sexaholics

The lust is as chronic and unmanageable as one last hand for the gambler, or the one-for-the-road ritual of the alcoholic.

Sexaholics, they’ve been called by some psychologists.

In practically every case, the feverish compulsion is a release, acted out to escape--if only for a passionate moment--the effects of their own depression, anxiety, loneliness, anger, revenge on the opposite sex, a bad self-image, self-destructive tendencies, or perhaps a sexually troubled childhood.

For men, the addiction is called “satyriasis,” or its more romantic equivalent, “Don Juanism.”

Women, however, have long carried the negatively charged tag of “nymphomaniac,” though the term refers to an organic brain malfunction disrupting the hypothalamus where the need for sex is biological, not psychological. Such a disorder is extremely rare.

Perhaps 5% Addicted

However, Dr. Michael Gass, a clinical psychologist in Riverside, says that as much as 3% to 5% of the population may be psychologically addicted to sex.

And Dr. Lee Blackwell, a human sexuality instructor at UCLA, said there “may be as many sexual addicts as alcohol addicts.”

Dr. Allan Goodman, a clinical psychologist in Beverly Hills, said, “Some people use sex to avoid their own problems, to avoid loneliness.”

Dr. Jerry Oziel, a Los Angeles psychologist, said, “The addiction is a lot of time based on the need to conquer, to dominate, more than the act itself.”

Gass said many women he’s treated use sex to get back at a man, and will say, “I can get you to love me, to have sex with me, and I can leave anytime I want.”

‘They Don’t Enjoy It’

Los Angeles clinical social worker Vivian Geiger Krepack, who says about 20% of her clients are afflicted with some form of sex addiction, said that, typically, “the men and women don’t enjoy it. The women are rarely orgasmic, and if they do achieve it, it’ll many times take them hours.”

“It’s like there is this bottomless pit,” Krepack added. “All they want is a real relationship, but feel they don’t deserve it or can’t have one.”

For years, Norma felt that too.

“I found that people liked me if I was having sex with them,” she said. “I liked the high, the surge. . . . It was like eating chocolate ice cream--you’re not supposed to do it, but it’s really great.”

Married at 16

Raised in an authoritarian Catholic family, Norma said she got along badly with her alcoholic father and lived like “the preacher’s daughter” after sneaking of the house at night.

At 16, she met a man 21 during one of her outings and married him.

Then, the cheating started.

“It was like getting out of a box,” Norma said. “I cheated on him every chance I could, and I liked it. There was no attachment to it. I just wanted the love and excitement.”

Finally, after a binge that led to prostitution, she wanted to stop. “I was getting scared. I was having blackouts. I sometimes wouldn’t remember how I got there or who I was with, and my oldest daughter was beginning to realize, I think, what I was doing.”

Hypnosis Used

Gass used unconventional methods to remove Norma’s sexual dependency.

He employed hypnodrama--putting Norma under hypnosis and instructing her to relive the experiences that may have caused the disorder.

Psychodrama was also used, Gass said.