Early in childhood we learned not to trust. Many of us share a common history of some type of childhood abuse. We were yelled at, put down, laughed at, criticized, and told we were worthless or stupid or ugly, or responsible for everything wrong in our family. Today we recognize this as emotional abuse. We were neglected, ignored, minimized or overlooked. Today we call this emotional abandonment. We were slapped, punched, hit, beaten, knocked down, or struck with objects. Today we know this to be physical abuse. Lastly, we were touched, leered at, pawed, told sexually lewd or explicit jokes, and coerced or forced into sexual activities. Today we call this sexual abuse. Whatever abuses we suffered we learned that to survive we had to find a way to not feel the overwhelming and unbearable pain.
Instinctively we built walls around our hearts. At first the walls served merely to protect us from another abuse, but later we found ourselves prisoners in our self-made fortresses. Being cut-off from ourselves and from others we were also cut-off from connection with God. Our spiritual death was as real as our emotional poverty. Sex was the one thing that seemed to restore us to life. Like water to a dying man in the desert our lust served to seemingly bring life back to our aching hearts. The truth is that the lust was just another wall of our fortress.
Lust is a magical wall in that it gives the illusion of connection. It is transparent. We can see people on the other side and we can pretend that we are connecting with them, laughing, joking, living, sharing, but all the while there is this wall which deadens their voices so we can barely hear a sound, and distorts their faces ever so slightly - or greatly - and absolutely ensures that they will never harm us because they can not touch us. So we feel safe, but we remain alone inside our prison.
We have always been aware that we are alone. As children we interpreted the abandonment and/or abuses we experienced as justified. We believed that we were at fault for what had happened to us. Unconsciously we knew that we were somehow defective, that we were different from other human beings and not “normal.” Sex with ourselves or with others gave us the illusion of acceptance and thus the “cure” to our worthlessness. We became addicted to the “cure.” We needed a constant supply of sexual activity to stay “cured.” So we used others for sex instead of having relationships, or we bought our “cure” through magazines, or male prostitutes, or we sold our bodies to others, did sexually inappropriate acts, or we masturbated, but always we lusted. To lust was to live.
Lust had become the most important thing in our lives. Some of us were willing to risk and lose everything to get and keep it. Only when we came face to face with the truth that lust was a liar did we become willing to let it go. Lust never fulfills its promise. It promises to connect us with others and make us whole. But it never does. At best it always leaves us empty and alone. At worst, we lie broken and bleeding on the side of the road.
For many of us, our “Problem” began as a valiant attempt on the part of a child to cope and survive in an abusive world. This abusive world was one with which children are not designed to cope, much less experience. However, our “solution” became a part of our problem and eventually, it became “The Problem”. We were hopelessly addicted to lust.
Compulsive sexual thoughts and/or behavior leads to increasingly serious consequences, in both the addict's internal and external worlds. This addictive behavior effects women and men equally. The consequences may include severe depression, often with suicidal ideation, low self-esteem, shame, self-hatred, hopelessness, despair, helplessness, intense anxiety, loneliness, moral conflict, contradictions between ethical values and behaviors, fear of abandonment, spiritual bankruptcy, distorted thinking, remorse, and self-deceit.
For example, 70-75 percent of addicts have thought about suicide. Many sex addicts suffer from broken relationships. Forty percent experience severe marital and other relationship problems. Sexual activities outside the primary relationship result in loss of self-esteem to both partners as well as severe stress to the relationship. The sex addict is frequently absent, resulting in a loss of time in parental role modeling. Pressure is placed on the partner to provide parental support and nurturing of the children. Partners of sex addicts may develop their own addictions and compulsions, psychosomatic problems, or depression and other emotional difficulties.
These factors can result in an unstable family environment. Physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse and neglect of the children may occur. In one study, 72% had been physically abused in childhood, 81% had been sexually abused, and 97% emotionally abused. Growing up in such a home increases the risk for the next generation to have addictive disorders.
For some Black men, a very disturbing phenomenon, (men who have sex with men -- "MSM" -- Brothers on the "down low"), is increasingly becoming the primary means of transmitting HIV to heterosexual, Black women and men. Untreated sexual addiction and/or experimental homosexual activity in prisons have led some heterosexual or "straight," Black men to engage in even more riskier sexual behavior such as this. "MSM" is having grave consequences to the health and families of these men.
 
Health consequences of sex addiction may include HIV infection, genital Herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Sex addicts have an increased risk of STDs. Genital injury may result from excessive sexual activity or the use of sex aids and foreign objects.
Addictive sadomasochistic sex can lead to physical damage to the body. Automobile accidents can result when sexual activity causes the driver's attention to stray.
Some sex addicts go to jail, lose their job, get sued, or have other financial and legal consequences because of their compulsive sexual behavior. Financial difficulties from the purchase of pornographic materials, use of prostitutes and telephone and computer lines, travel for the purpose of sexual contacts, and other sexual activities can tax the addict's financial resources, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy, as can the expenses of legal representation. Sixty percent of addicts have faced financial difficulties, 58% engaged in illegal activities, and 83% of sex addicts also had concurrent addictions such as alcoholism, eating disorders, or compulsive gambling.
Legal consequences of sexual addiction result when illegal behaviors such as voyeurism, exhibitionism, or inappropriate touching, result in arrest and incarceration. Child molesting and rape in some cases are addictive behaviors. Sexual harassment in the workplace can be part of a sex addict's repertoire, and may result in legal difficulties on the job.
Over half the cases of sexual exploitation by professionals are perpetrated by sex addicts. Churches and synagogues are being subjected to greater scrutiny as more clergy are charged with some form of sexually inappropriate behavior. Sexual misconduct by licensed professionals (including physicians, therapists, clergy, and lawyers) result in loss of license, academic standing, and reputations, and victimization of those people they are mandated to help.
Many sex addicts are also addicted to alcohol and other drugs. When multiple addictions coexist, untreated sex addiction complicates recovery from chemical dependency and makes relapse to drug use more likely.
Both men and women are objectified, and therefore placed at greater risk to be victimized, in a society which provides many services to sex addicts and which uses women as sex objects in advertising to sell automobiles, liquor, and other products. This promotes an attitude that sex is the answer to many problems.
The physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, legal, and family consequences of sex addiction demand that we pay greater attention to this widespread problem.
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