Internet Sex Addiction: Symptoms, Causes And Treatment
New technologies have completely changed our way of living. Not only has the way we communicate changed, but also the way we enjoy our leisure, and new types of problems have also emerged.
Internet sex addiction It is a psychological alteration that, although not yet included in the main diagnostic manuals, is emerging as a true mental health problem that requires intervention. Let’s find out what it is about.
We can define Internet sex addiction as the problem suffered by someone who is unable to control the urge to consume sex-related material on the Internet It consists of frequently visiting pornographic pages, sharing intimate images with strangers through chats and video calls or abusively enjoying any type of erotic content through social networks and main Internet platforms.
Depending on the predominant type of behavior we can talk about two types of internet sex addiction On the one hand we have cybersex, which consists of exchanging messages with high sexual content with other people, and on the other we have the consumption of pornography on the Internet, that is, the viewing of porn videos among other behaviors. Both types of addiction can overlap, but there is no doubt that they are addictive behaviors because, as happens with drug addictions, both the effect of tolerance and dependence can occur.
What is sex addiction in general as a psychological problem?
Internet sex addiction is still a variant of sex addiction. In its most general sense, andThis type of addiction, which is also known as hypersexuality, is considered a behavioral addiction That is, here the problem behavior does not imply the consumption of a substance, but rather the performance of the behavior itself, in this case being any behavior in which sex is performed, whether with other people or alone.
One of the main and most striking problems of hypersexuality is that, in the long term, pleasure during sexual relations is reduced as a result of developing tolerance. As the individual performs sexual behaviors very frequently, with the passage of time sexual relations lose intensity, which forces them to perform them even more frequently, increasing the behavior. Since sex is something so frequent in his life, the moment he does not do it he begins to feel discomfort (withdrawal syndrome) which is a sign that he is dependent.
All this shows that we are facing an addiction. The person addicted to sex, both with and without the Internet, is as addicted to his problem behavior as a tobacco user is to cigarettes or a person with alcoholism to alcohol. In the case of tobacco, the person who consumes it has to smoke more cigarettes a day to feel good and, if they do not smoke, they begin to feel discomfort, just as happens with Internet sex addiction if they do not consume pornography or has an orgasm every so often you start to feel bad, irritated and nervous
Symptoms of Internet Sex Addiction
Among the main symptoms of Internet sex addiction we have:
Added to all this, in Internet sex addiction we see that an escalation effect can occur, directly related to tolerance What happens in many patients with this problem is that the addict seeks increasingly intense reinforcements.
In other words, as his addiction progresses, what previously served him to obtain pleasure in the long run becomes boring and unstimulating, needing new and more intense things to get excited, even if this means paying to watch porn videos or consume material. not legitimate or legal.
For example, it may be the case that someone initially only watched videos with a certain sexual meaning, but without nudity (e.g., on YouTube). Later, he climbed the ladder by entering porn sites and watching their free content, but as time went by, that no longer appealed to him, so he signed up for a premium account to watch exclusive, longer videos with better acting. After a few months she begins to lose interest and decides to create an OnlyFans profile to consume videos with very specific fetishes, in addition to the possibility of paying to have a personalized video made.
Whatever the path that has led the person to end up addicted to Internet sex, there should be no doubt that It means losing a lot of time each week and also the risk of losing opportunities and money to pay yourself according to your tastes A cybersex addict can consume more than eleven hours a week watching erotic material, subtracting it from important aspects of her life such as family, friends, work, studies and her partner.
Although the Internet no longer seems like something new to us, it is worth saying that It is still too new a phenomenon and its effects on health are still being studied. To this day there is still debate about which problems associated with misuse of social networks can be considered true disorders. New addictions or technological addictions are not recognized as disorders in any of the main psychiatric manuals, but it is expected that as more information is collected they will be introduced into the DSM and ICD.
It is a fact that Internet sex addiction is widespread and can pose serious problems for the health of the affected person and their social environment. Proof of how we could be talking about a problem of important proportions in society is the fact that if we consult the statistics provided by Google itself, porn pages are among the most searched websites.
As we have commented in the introduction, Internet sex addiction manifests itself in two main modalities: porn addiction and cybersex. Although both can overlap, porn addiction consists of searching for audiovisual material with erotic content while cybersex involves interacting with other people to obtain sexual pleasure, whether or not masturbation may be performed.
Cybersex is nothing new It appeared with the first virtual contact pages and also with the first programs to make video calls like Messenger. Now, with the rise of social networks and the improvement of video calling systems, the phenomenon has spread even more, with the search for casual contacts also existing through networks such as Omegle.
Porn addiction does not only mean consulting pornographic pages There are countless profiles on social networks easily accessible to children under 12 years of age where pornographic content is posted or, at least, everything is uploaded. On social networks such as Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and even Facebook we can very easily find sexual profiles, with some type of censorship, although in many cases their material is easily accessible.
Sexting (from the English “sex” and “texting”) or virtual dirty talk is one of the most recent types of cybersex but it has grown thanks to instant messaging services such as Whatsapp, Telegram or any other chat. It consists of exchanging messages with sexual connotations. Not only are words exchanged, but intimate photographs can also be shared, a quite risky practice if done with someone you don’t know or who you don’t trust enough to know if they won’t share the images you have received with third parties.
There is a risk profile for falling into an Internet sex addiction. The profile of the porn addict is usually male, between 20 and 40 years old, with self-esteem problems, very introverted and with low social skills. These traits together are considered risk factors for falling into abuse of virtual erotic material. It is believed that between 20 and 25% of the population could have this risk profile, since that is the percentage of the population that consumes more than sporadic porn. If you increase your use or do not use it responsibly, it could degenerate into an addiction.
Likewise, experts on internet sex addiction consider that This problem would be found between 1 and 2% of the population These people would be the ones who present a serious clinical problem, consuming online pornography for more than eleven hours a week, negatively affecting their personal, work and social life, in addition to running the risk of going to sleep later than appropriate to watch porn videos. , taking away hours of sleep.
Is it possible to treat this addiction?
Like any other addiction, Internet sex is treated in the same way as substance addictions. Therapy to stop cybersex is usually based on knowing what factors precipitate the addict into carrying out the behavior (e.g., stress, depression, boredom…), keeping them hooked on this habit and being able to teach them new tools with which to replace their behavior with another. healthier and more functional.
Some of the pillars of psychotherapy applied to Internet sex addiction are the following:
These fronts of therapeutic intervention depend on each case and are adapted to the needs of the patient.
The problem with this addiction is that those affected are quite resistant to receiving treatment Among the reasons behind this, we have the shame of admitting to having this problem or social stigma or, directly, not seeing it as a reason to go to a consultation since since it is not a drug addiction nor does it harm other people, the addict does not considers it a problem but rather a hobby or a private matter.
