Signs and symptoms of compulsive sexual behavior

Other names for sexual addiction
Nymphomania, hypersexuality, erotomania, perversion, sexual obsession, sexual addiction.

Signs and symptoms of compulsive sexual behavior
Having multiple sexual partners or extramarital affairs.

Engaging in sex with many anonymous partners or prostitutes. Sex addicts treat sexual partners as objects rather than social intimates that are only used for sex.


Engaging in excessive masturbation, as often as 10 to 20 times a day.

Using pornographic materials a lot. Using chat rooms or on line pornography or sex chat phone lines excessively.

Engaging in types of sexual behavior that you would not have considered acceptable before. Examples are masochistic or sadistic sex. Sometimes more extreme forms of sexual behavior are engaged in, for example pedophilia, bestiality, rape.

Exposure in public.

Effects of Sexual Addiction

There is a line between being enjoying sex, its peripheral pleasures and sexual addiction. In sexual addiction long periods of time are given over to sex-related activities. Sex addicts feel unable to control sexual behavior or even reduce its incidence. People with sexual addiction behavior often use sex as an escape from other problems such as anxiety, stress, depression and social isolation.

Sexual Addiction

Most common among men, sexual addiction is an overwhelming desire to have sex. Sexual behavior becomes a problem and is considered an addiction when it is repeated often enough to interfere with normal daily living. Addictive sexual behavior interferes with relationships, work, friendships, and lifestyle.

Sex Boosts Self-Esteem

 Boosting self-esteem was one of 237 reasons people have sex, collected by University of Texas researchers and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.

That finding makes sense to Gina Ogden, PhD, a sex therapist and marriage and family therapist in Cambridge, Mass., although she finds that those who already have self-esteem say they sometimes have sex to feel even better. "One of the reasons people say they have sex is to feel good about themselves," she tells WebMD. "Great sex begins with self-esteem, and it raises it. If the sex is loving, connected, and what you want, it raises it.

Sex Improves Cardiovascular Health

 While some older folks may worry that the efforts expended during sex could cause a stroke, that's not so, according to researchers from England. In a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, scientists found frequency of sex was not associated with stroke in the 914 men they followed for 20 years.

And the heart health benefits of sex don't end there. The researchers also found that having sex twice or more a week reduced the risk of fatal heart attack by half for the men, compared with those who had sex less than once a month.

Sex Burns Calories

Thirty minutes of sex burns 85 calories or more. It may not sound like much, but it adds up: 42 half-hour sessions will burn 3,570 calories, more than enough to lose a pound. Doubling up, you could drop that pound in 21 hour-long sessions.

"Sex is a great mode of exercise," says Patti Britton, PhD, a Los Angeles sexologist and president of the American Association of Sexuality Educators and Therapists. It takes work, from both a physical and psychological perspective, to do it well, she says.

Sex Boosts Immunity

Good sexual health may mean better physical health. Having sex once or twice a week has been linked with higher levels of an antibody, which can protect you from getting colds and other infections.

Sex Relieves Stress

A big health benefit of sex is lower blood pressure and overall stress reduction, according to researchers from Scotland who reported their findings in the journal Biological Psychology. They studied 24 women and 22 men who kept records of their sexual activity. Then the researchers subjected them to stressful situations -- such as speaking in public and doing verbal arithmetic -- and noted their blood pressure response to stress.

Those who had intercourse had better responses to stress than those who engaged in other sexual behaviors or abstained.

Another study published in the same journal found that frequent intercourse was associated with lower diastolic blood pressure in cohabiting participants. Yet other research found a link between partner hugs and lower blood pressure in women

Sex and Health

When you're in the mood, it's a sure bet that the last thing on your mind is boosting your immune system or maintaining a healthy weight. Yet good sex offers those health benefits and more.

Seek to Improve Your Sex Lives

 Therapy that focuses only on the mind may fall short; rather, it should seek to educate one about their bodies, how sex may be modified to be more pleasurable or how certain medical conditions or prescription medications can interfere with sexual response. As one seek to improve the sex lives, try to pay attention to the multi-faceted ways that the body and mind play together.

Learning To Relax During Sex

 Learning to relax during sex, or by learning to better communicate with ones partner so that there is no feel of pressure  or inadequate during sex raise a big question about sex: how much of sex can we attribute to the body? How much to the mind?