Sex Is Optional… Why This Is Important To Recovery From Porn Addiction

Wait what? Sex is optional. Isn’t it a human “need” or necessity like food or air? I hear this all the time from clients. The truth is this, sex is not a need it’s a primal instinct, a survival instinct, a desire, a feeling, a pleasurable experience, but not a need. Expecting or being entitled to having sex or an “orgasm” at any whim is to overindulge and can be dangerous for those struggling with sex addiction. Giving in to this primal urge whenever it hits may be the luxury of non-addicted people but for a sex addict it is highly dangerous, hurtful and destructive. For the recovering porn addict it is of paramount importance to get to a place where all sex is optional…

To be clear, I am not saying that they need to abstain from all sex or even have “boring sex”. But at any point in time they need to be able to walk away from the urge and be ok with it. Let’s look at this a little more closely…

A “need” is something like food. If you do not have it you die. This is not true for sex. If you do not have it you do not die. But there is a general expectation or entitlement when it comes to sex. A good example of this is masturbation. Many of my clients at first believe that if they do not have an “outlet” such as masturbation to “release” the urge then they are in danger of acting out in other ways. In other words they use it as an alternative to cheating or looking at porn or other behaviors. When I help them examine this more closely they find the fantasy they are having while masturbating is a form of acting out. 99% of the time they are playing the porno in their mind or having thoughts of the person they saw in the grocery store earlier that day. Rarely do they masturbate to loving thoughts of their significant other or their spouse. So in fact they are acting out. The reason this is dangerous for a sex addict is because of the compulsive nature of the problem. One might think that masturbation “relieves'' the urge but it only does so temporarily. For the sex addict or porn addict this is just the beginning of a “spree” and this is soon followed by more and more and more acting out. It actually triggers the compulsion and is the beginning of more problematic sexual behavior. Sex addiction is the same as alcoholism in this way, “one is too many and a thousand is not enough”.

But What’s The Alternative?

I am not saying masturbation is bad and many can do it safely. But what is the alternative? The alternative is letting the urge pass without doing anything and thereby NOT triggering the compulsion. What would happen if the individual who is sexually addicted allowed the urge or the sexual energy to be there with doing anything. Nothing would happen. Maybe a little discomfort. But this passes in a short period of time. To add to this what if they did something more productive than obsessing about sex or masturbating? Replacing the time spent giving into the urge could be substituted with something more productive. It only takes a couple of tries for the individual see that sex is truly optional and that mindfully observing the sexual energy without acting on it IS possible and beneficial.

Need Help?

If you are struggling with porn addiction and want to consider counseling, please feel free to “contact me” below and we can see if porn addiction therapy is right for you.