In order to get hooked on something, there needs to be a good feeling - a "fix" or a high:
The sex addict is constantly searching for that one person, that one experience which will allow him to transcend pain and find peace and fulfillment.
Sexual activity itself or the pleasure of a sexual orgasm (a relatively brief experience) is only a small part of the high that the sex addict pursues.
Most sex addicts spend a lot of time in preoccupation and fantasy before they act out.
Sex addicts spend hours cruising, intriguing, and trying to "score." The excitement can grow and the pleasure that the sex addict is experiencing is growing. Sex addicts get proficient at developing and sustaining this high.
"Cruising" and "intriguing" are other ways that sex addicts is building up sexual energy and excitement.
The excitement of "the chase" or the seduction is more addicting than the sexual part of the encounter.
An exhibitionist can spend hours driving around in his car looking for girls that he could "flash" before he would actually expose himself.
Bars, pornographic bookstores, and street corners are all places where sex addicts will look for action.
Many addicts, however, are not involved in any public activities that would enhance their level of arousal. Instead, they spend hours reading or watching pornography, with eventual masturbation as only a part of their activity.
The key element in all these activities is the good feeling they produce. This is what addicts get attached to, and what they must give up.
Addicts know how to get the feeling that they want, and can create a relatively predictable, repeatable high.
Most so-called normal people react with shock or disgust at the severity or extent of a sex addict's "perversion". This moral judgment and lack of ability to identify with the addicted person taps the addict's already severely impaired self-esteem, and the addict will run for cover. Most of us, if we try, can identify bad habits or obsessions and compulsions in ourselves. To understand the addict, we need to connect with these problems and place ourselves in his shoes. What would we do if we felt ourselves compelled to read or view pornographic materials, "look for love in all the wrong places," be sexual with children, masturbate, or go to prostitutes or massage parlors? These are all behaviors that human beings act out. If they are addicts, they have a sense that their high has gone out of control. They did not start out this way, and they never intended to become addicted, but this is where they have ended up.
For the sex addict, sexual behaviors that are secretive, illicit or dangerous carry an even greater internal experience of intensity or arousal (high) which thus encourages irrational choices.
Just as our bodies generate endorphins, natural antidepressants, during vigorous exercise, our bodies naturally release peptides when sexually aroused. The molecular construction of these peptides parallels that of opiates like heroin or morphine, but are many times more powerful.
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Sex addicts seek out this temporary high, this pleasure that pulls them back for more and more still. Afterward, they may be riddled with guilt or shame. Yet if they go too long without a fix, they may become moody and uneasy (see also withdrawal) .
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An introverted woman can turn into an uninhibited lady of the evening in cyberspace. A stodgy, unassuming man can become the Casanova of the Internet. The behaviors of each produces a “high” that is both immediately rewarding and ultimately addicting.
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Sex, by its very nature, has the potential to be an addictive behavior. Since mammals are biologically and neurologically designed to experience pleasure during and after sex, it is natural that sometimes it turns into an addiction that robs the addict of pleasure and leaves emptiness and pain instead.
See also: