Sex Addiction

[serialmonogamist]

The Tiger Woods scandal and others brought the issue of sex addiction into public light. Is sex and addiction or is it just harder from some people to achieve sexual satisfaction that others? Are some people better at going without sex than others and why? What do people think about sex addiction and how it relates to polyamory? How does sex addiction affect polyamorous relationships? Does polyamory have an effect on sex addiction?

[nycindie]

There's another thread on this topic:

thread on sex addiction

[Ariakas]

poly is about love. Lots of people are poly without the sex addiction.... hell some people are poly without sex..

There is also a love addiction as well. So maybe that applied...

Is everyone in non-monogamy addicted to love/sex/etc... no.. but I would hazard a guess some are.

[serialmonogamist]

Originally Posted by nycindie

There's another thread on this topic:

thread on sex addiction

Thanks for posting the link.

Originally Posted by Ariakas

There is also a love addiction as well. So maybe that applied…

Love addiction? What's that?

[Ariakas]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_addiction

[serialmonogamist]

Originally Posted by Ariakas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_addiction

That was an interesting read. I wonder if it would be worth starting a different thread on love addiction. After reading about it, I'm trying to figure out what it would be like to not be addicted to love. Love seems like food to me. You can live without sex but not without love, I think - but maybe that's just my impression because I'm addicted. When I think about food addiction, though, it involves things like comfort-eating and over-eating instead of just eating enough to be healthy. How would you figure out what amount of love you need to be health and when you are overusing it?

[Ariakas]

You can live without either. Having neither might drive you insane,but you don't need either to survive.

Well, I guess a simple example woud be. When you break up with someone do you feel the immediate urge to fill that gap of love and infatuation. Or can you take time to adjust and be on your own. If you HAVE to fill the whole, you could be addicted to love.

Thatsmy take anyways.

[serialmonogamist]

Originally Posted by Ariakas

You can live without either. Having neither might drive you insane,but you don't need either to survive.

Well, I guess a simple example woud be. When you break up with someone do you feel the immediate urge to fill that gap of love and infatuation. Or can you take time to adjust and be on your own. If you HAVE to fill the whole, you could be addicted to love.

Thatsmy take anyways.

Love comes in so many different forms. If you read the wikipedia page on love addiction, it even gets into things like when you are obsessed with the love of your children or believing in finding a "true soulmate." Apparently, you only have a healthy level of interest in love if you occasionally seek companionship with others and keep a fair amount of distance from them. That seems like a cold way to live to me, so I must be a love addict.

I'm going to venture out on a limb and say that love-addiction isn't really a problem any more than health-addiction is. I.e. it's not bad to always want to be healthy - it only becomes a problem when you get obsessed with it and can't just accept common health problems and health risks, etc. I think it's good to bring love into everything you do and I can only see it becoming a problem if you become strikingly depressed or panic when you experience moments where love is lacking in your daily life. If you are able to sufficiently love yourself, you are less dependent on constant love from others, even if you're still getting a steady supply of (self) love. This is my opinion, anyway.

[River]

Originally Posted by Ariakas

There is also a love addiction as well.

Actual, real love is not addictive, though it is enormously precious--precious beyond measure, and infinitely pleasurable.

Romantic attachments can be addictive, but they are not real, actual love when they are addictive. They are pseudo-love, a cheap counterfeit, a poor knock-off.

Real love is entirely liberatory, the very opposite of addiction.

To the extent that a culture's people treat love as scarce, a substance to be guarded and dribbled out in teaspoonfulls, those people will be love-starved and confused about love's true nature -- and thus vulnerable to "love addiction" (which is never love).

[River]

Originally Posted by serialmonogamist

I'm going to venture out on a limb and say that love-addiction isn't really a problem any more than health-addiction is.

The way I see it, folks labelled as "love addicts" are people with a gaping hole in their heart centers. They feel and behave like "hungry ghosts" because they are deeply wounded by not having been properly loved during some crucial moments in their human development. They do have a problem, alright. They are starved, and don't know how to nourish themselves or be nourished by others.


===


In his book Thoughts Without a Thinker, Mark Epstein paints a picture connecting these two viewpoints:

The Hungry Ghosts are probably the most vividly drawn metaphors in the Wheel of Life. Phantomlike creatures with withered limbs, grossly bloated bellies, and long thin necks, the Hungry Ghosts in many ways represent a fusion of rage and desire. Tormented by unfulfilled cravings and insatiably demanding of impossible satisfactions, the Hungry Ghosts are searching for gratification for old unfulfilled needs whose time has passed. They are beings who have uncovered a terrible emptiness within themselves, who cannot see the impossibility of correcting something that has already happened. Their ghostlike state represents their attachment to the past.[1]

He goes on to illustrate with a modern example:

A recent patient of mine, for example, an accomplished teacher of French literature named Tara, personified the predicament of a Hungry Ghost. Describing a long succession of relationships with other academics at the top of their fields, Tara repeatedly developed an impassioned relationship with one such man, while involved with another. Invariably, she kept the man she was actually living with at bay. She would quickly and critically uncover all of his faults, lose interest in him sexually, and essentially prevent him from touching her, either physically or emotionally. At the same time, she would begin to fantasize about the next luminary to enter her life...She remembered an unhappy and critical mother who had rarely touched her as a child...was searching insatiably for the kind of nourishment she had once needed, but that was now inappropriate to who she was as an adult woman.[2]

From the Wikipedia article on "Hungry Ghost": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost