Addiction To Sex Or Satyriasis: A True Problem
The addiction to sex, also known as satyriasis, is considered by psychology to be a personality disorder. All addictions are harmful, but some are much more delicate than others. If we can understand that gamblers or alcoholics should avoid games or alcohol, we could also understand that people addicted to sex or compulsive eaters (bulimics) cannot get rid of that addiction completely, because sex and food are necessary in the right amounts.
The addiction to sex according to the DSM-V
The DSM-V (Manual of Mental Disorders) considers the addiction to sex to be a “disorder of hypersexuality.” An obsessive compulsive disorder for which the affected parties are absolutely incapable of voluntarily controlling their thoughts. It is necessary to add that according to psychiatric experts, all of those obsessive acts that make it hard for us to develop a normal life, interfering with our social or work life, can clearly be considered a pathological disorder.
With the known statistical data (studies done by sexologists), it does not seem that we are talking about a minor addiction. Three million people in Spain, 19 million in the United States, three million in Argentina, etc. have an addiction to sex. We have to understand that a person can have a very active sex life throughout their entire life and not be considered an addict.
The addict is not satisfied with himself; they do not have control over their actions despite the fact that their behavior forces them to suffer a reduced state of motivation as a result. As with all addictions, a sex addict, as time goes on, will need more and more stimulation to calm their need, even if this pleasure only lasts a moment and then shortly will return to a self-destructive cycle in search for new goals that will satiate their discomfort. Compulsively turning to sex can indicate a need to fill our loneliness or existential void with external agents that feed our self-esteem.
An addiction to sex usually implies large consumption of pornography, dates, or sexual encounters with multiple people in a single night (with people we know or through prostitutes), and compulsively turning to masturbation. If this way of interpreting sex destroys or interferes with our daily lives, we can consider ourselves to be addicted to sex. As happens with all addictions, the necessary step to break away from them consists in accepting the problem as something real that manipulates and harms our daily activity. Seeking professional help and contacting specialized centers that are adapted to this sexual conflict are the best measures to find a solution.