— stronger pornography. What they say about drug users needing more and more powerful drugs to maintain the intensity of the kick is true of sexual addiction, too. The more we give in to it, the worse we want it, and the sicker it gets. We are sick with the disease of sex addiction and the sin it generates.
What Was He Thinking?
A friend of mine, call him Robert, went looking for sex outside his marriage, approaching women in his hot red car. He could be tempted by a wild head of hair, a gorgeous set of breasts, or a shapely behind with swell hips. He’d cruise by to see if they would look back at him. He didn’t think it through or rationalize what he was doing, or worry about the consequences of anything that he might be able to do. He just knew he needed to check out other women, because his wife wasn’t doing it for him. There had to be more to life than the chill his marriage was giving him. Seeing sexy women, his reaction was instinctive. Their erotic beauty drew his desire like a moth to a flame.
Cruising closer in his car, sometimes he saw something inviting in the way they looked at him, as though trying to identify what kind of man he was through the windshield. He’d speak to them through an open window. If they responded, they roused his confidence and made him feel attractive and strong and manly.
The first time Robert got a phone number, he was almost delirious with the nervousness and exhilaration of getting it. After he drove away, he was busted with guilt. He tossed the numbered paper out the window and drove home all mixed-up inside, proud of pulling it off, but also stumped, knowing it was forbidden to him, a married man.
He was hooked. He’d go on these hunting trips, looking for women in certain neighborhoods. You know, some women enjoy that kind of attention from a smiling, friendly, nice-looking guy, who obviously digs the way they look. Isn’t that why they put so much into how they look? They want to feel validated. And here was Robert in his car, attracted to them, confirming their vanity and proving to them that it was working.
Robert thought it was his pain that made him go looking for other women. He was driven by a fascination with their beauty, and not simply by the satanic lust that seems so much a part of a man’s very thoughts and feelings. Robert was repelled by his wife’s bitchy attitude, her cold unkindness — she did nothing for him. Maybe someone else could make him feel better.
Also, he enjoyed the exciting risk of putting it out there to women he didn’t know, for the reward of their phone number. Naturally, some would just ignore him or tell him to get lost, but some women were easily as brazen as he was and would flirt with him. Others, made bold by the company of their friends, would sass him to see how game he was. He felt like a different man from the one his wife knew at home.
These women saw something they liked in him. This made him feel cool and powerful and attractive. They would give him their phone numbers, and he would enjoy these victories, but he would always cave-in to guilt and toss the numbers. He couldn’t take that next step.
Then he realized he was programming himself. It got to the point that whenever he was in his car, he was in the hunting mode. He was this hunter dude in his car, so cool, cruising.
Robert still felt guilty and loathed himself for this perverse behavior, but it was as if he wasn’t himself in the car. He was a different man on wheels. He really became the hunter. He couldn’t help it. He thought it was crazy, but it was as if something possessed him in his car. He felt the euphoria of mobility and freedom and anonymity at the wheel.
Women: alone, in pairs, in small groups; give them a try. Talk to them with easy praise, flattering their secret sexy pride, complimenting them on little things that not every guy would even notice about them. Some loved it and wanted more. They gave him their phone numbers, which he never called. Did he ever pick one up? He had his chances, but he didn’t go any further with those women than getting their numbers.
A close friend of mine, call him Charles, who was suffering through the same desperation, found that his addiction needed stronger stuff. He had to do more for the satisfaction he needed. He’d pick up women, who turned out to be working girls. You know what I mean. They wait for you and are willing to go with you, for a price.
Sometimes, Charles would take one to a motel and just watch her take off her clothes while he masturbated. Or she would touch him and he would ejaculate because of the unbearable stress he was feeling. He wasn’t exactly comfortable with doing any of this, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He was squeezed with guilt in the middle of the experience and finished off as soon as they touched him. Guilty of addiction.
Charles knew he was messing up. Through every act of sin, there was always something in him that was disgusted with what he was doing. He prayed for God to guide him. He couldn’t stop on his own. He couldn’t stop himself from seeing those women, in spite of the overwhelming sense of the sinfulness of it all. He was obsessed. He couldn’t stop thinking about their voluptuous bodies and all of the details that made these women so sexy to him, each in their own ways. He thought of these experiences as his secret adventures. They seemed to make his own intolerable marriage a little easier to bear, because he had this other shameful adventure going on.
In his secret life, Charles enjoyed the lure of excitement and the sense of danger that was part of the sin. It was almost as if he was sinning out of boredom with his wife. It was his way of undermining the agony of being squandered in his unhappy marriage, where he felt devalued as a man and his hard work was held in contempt by his wife. It seemed he was a failure, wasting the best years of his life for nothing. If you’re starving, any kind of food seems to be worth whatever it costs; just so, any kind of sex can seem like a feast for the carnal mind. You can get more than a little depraved from being deprived.
An intense relationship can seem like the answer to your frustrations, in the face of your wife’s lack of interest in sex. You might ask yourself, “If she doesn’t want me, why should she mind if another woman does?” Or: “If my wife tells me, No, how can I say no to somebody else?” This is the rationale of the sexually addicted.
What exactly is “sexual addiction,” anyway? I’ve seen it defined as “excessive sexual drive.” Compared with what? Normal sex drive? What is that? Maybe one man’s normal is another man’s excessive.
I would say, look at the damage it causes, and define sexual addiction in terms of behavior. Look at it as an addictive practice, not as an excessive desire. It’s not so much the need that’s the problem; it’s the addicted person’s inability to control their compulsion that leads to problems. Beyond that, the sex-obsessed addict, like a drug addict or alcoholic, is so attached to their desire and dependent upon it — directed by it — they will take outrageous risks to satisfy their need and give no thought to the consequences of their actions. They might feel like they have no choice. They are out of control, as Paul said. Their obsession takes priority over everything else and sabotages their life. That’s the tragedy, especially for those who care for the addicted person. They get hurt, too.
What is excessive need within a marriage? Is it possible to love your spouse too much? If the marriage cannot contain the full expression of both spouses’ desire and this leads one outside the marriage — yes, that sounds like sexual addiction. Strong sexual drive itself is not unnatural, but if it reaches beyond your sex life with your spouse, it becomes the sin of being drunk with lust — sex addiction — which can take many forms, from viewing pornography and compulsive masturbation, to adultery, molestation and rape.
I’ve known men who suffered from all kinds of sexual addiction. For instance, David (Not King David) was so sex-driven he had three women on the go at one time and wanted more.
