Who Knew?
By SAM KNEW, MSW
Many become isolated by shame, which perpetuates the addiction
The internet is everywhere – our homes, work, phone, even free-of-charge at public libraries. That is why the nearly 4-million online users who identify themselves as online sexual addicts face a daily battle. It’s the internet’s accessibility and affordability that enables this form of addiction. This over-exposure of graphic and gratuitous sexual material can generate such an unhealthy attitude towards sex. Like most addicts, these individuals are capable of acting out with life-altering consequences. Users compulsively access the “net” to download sexual images, visit sexu a l l y – o r i e n t e d chartrooms and participate in live sexual video acts – usually involving some form of masturbation. Many become isolated by shame, which perpetuates the addiction. Although defining this form of addiction may be challenging due to the degrees of use, most professionals will identify it as an addiction when it becomes unmanageable or all consuming, costing users their own reality. Cyber addicts have been known to go online for hours or literally days at a time, risking their relationships, job and health.
The book “In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking Free of Compulsive Online Sexual Behavior” outlines five groups of users. The groups range from appropriate to inappropriate. Appropriate users include those who are capable of accessing sexual material online, even using it to enhance their real sex lives and maintain a healthy, expressive sex life in
their real world. Inappropriate groups include those who are at risk of becoming addicts, using the internet for exhibitionism or illegal sexual acts such as meeting under-age sex partners. They tend to lack the ability to express their sexual desires in the real world, yet they are still in control of the image they project to the world (much like a functioning alcoholic).
The most severe group is made up of individuals who have some form of sexual addiction, and the internet is simply a tool in that addiction. They are detached from the real world and put themselves in numerous forms of high-risk situations in all aspects of their life. These users risk their jobs by viewing pornography at work. In addition, they jeopardize relationships, by carrying on online fantasy relationships, some actually coming to fruition. This compulsion also takes its toll on the users’ physical and mental health, resulting in forms of depression and anxiety.
Like with most addicts of any other a d d i c t i o n , users must learn to live with their disorder, as they are never truly cured. The goal is to create an environment where addicts can communicate their desires and even fulfill them in healthy ways. Users need to understand the drive of their compulsion and learn to reconstruct their perception of sexual expression. Most importantly, they need to spend less time in their virtual world and more time learning to cope in their reality.