CHAPTER 2: BUILDING-BLOCK BEHAVIOURS OF SEX ADDICTS
Fred is an accountant. Each day he sits behind his desk, crunching numbers. But he has more than arithmetic on his mind. Today, for example, he thinks of a pornographic magazine he picked up at a newsstand. He also spends some time thinking about his secretary, who has been particularly nice to him lately. He begins to fantasize about what it would be like to sleep with her. Fred exhibits some of the building-block behaviors of a sex addict. By "building-block behaviors," I mean behaviors that form a foundation upon which other sexual behaviors are built. These behaviors may start very early in the life of the sex addict, even before the child has developed enough physically to experience orgasm. Because these behaviors develop so early and are so basic, they are the hardest forms of sexual addiction to recover from. Building-block behaviors include sexual fantasizing; the use of pornography in all of its forms, including the Internet; and masturbation. Fred's story depicts the three building blocks of sexual addiction working together in a vicious cycle. For a sex addict, fantasy is created by a need to satisfy deep emotional and spiritual longings. At the same time, the addict perceives sex as the solution to the need for love, touch, nurture, and affirmation. Pornography escalates the intensity of the fantasy to higher and higher levels of lust. Masturbation is the physical expression of that lust and perhaps the only touching the addict receives. Fantasy, pornography, and masturbation constitute a vicious cycle. Fantasy is escalated by pornography. Pornography stimulates lust. Lust expresses itself in masturbation.
SEXUAL FANTASY The cornerstone for the three building blocks is sexual fantasy—thinking about sex. Normal people think about sex, and fantasy is not unhealthy in itself. Sex addicts, however, think about sex almost constantly. While normal people might note an attractive person then move on with their activities, sex addicts do not move on. Instead, they wonder how they might obtain sex with that person or they imagine what sex with that person would be like. Fantasy can involve remembering past sexual encounters, imagining new ones, or planning how to obtain them. Sex addicts do not need pornography to start fantasizing. Any person or event might trigger sexual thoughts. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, for sex addicts so is sexual stimulation. A person does not need to be wearing something sexually provocative for a sex addict to start thinking sexually about them. Many nonsexual things can be pornographically stimulating to a sex addict. For example, consider one of my favorite television game shows, The Price Is Right. The models on the show are attractive but not nude or provocatively dressed. However, a sex addict might readily fantasize about one of them.
When that happens, the show becomes pornography for the addict. Fantasy might also involve preoccupation with certain types of people—their appearance, age, status, or personality—or with certain parts of the body. Every fantasy is different. Many sex addicts are completely ashamed of the activities they've thought about even if they haven't acted on them. What is it about fantasy that is so addictive? Fantasy by itself can be exciting enough for the addict's body to produce adrenaline, which is stimulating and elevates mood. Fantasy fuels the neurochemicals that facilitate human sexual response in such a way that the response takes place even without any physical stimuli. Fantasy can produce chemicals called catecholamines in the pleasure centers of the brain that positively alter mood and even have a narcotic-like effect. The addict then uses these effects to escape unpleasant emotions, to change negative feelings to positive feelings, and even to reduce stress. For example, many sex addicts fantasize when they go to bed to put themselves to sleep. Don't underestimate the power of fantasy. Given the chemical changes it creates in the brain, sex addicts are, in reality, drug addicts. Fantasies can be the addict's attempt to heal loneliness, boredom, and unmet needs. By fantasizing, sex addicts are able to create idealized images of sexual partners whom they believe will meet their every unfulfilled need. Sex addicts are often angry that their needs were never met. Fantasy meets those needs in imaginary ways and thereby medicates the anger. The fantasy partner is all caring, all attractive, perfectly nurturing, and completely sexual. Some addicts even fantasize about the perfect partner while having sex with a real partner, thereby attempting to make that partner into a perfect person.
USE OF PORNOGRAPHY The second building-block behavior of sexual addiction is pornography. We live in a time in which use of pornography is increasing dramatically. When I first became addicted to pornography there were very few magazines available that featured actual nudity. Movies and TV still adhered to conservative moral codes. Videos and DVDs weren't available. The Internet was thirty years away. Since that time, our cultural appetite for newer and more provocative forms of sexuality has grown, and every media outlet—television, radio, movies, advertising, magazines, and more—has rushed in to meet the demand. Our cultural appetite for sexuality has escalated in addictive ways and we are paying the price for it. Defining Pornography Defining pornography can be difficult. If we define pornography as anything that displays nudity, many works in art museums would be considered pornographic. At the same time, there are instances of pornography on television that display no nudity at all. For example, many of the so-called "reality" programs don't show explicit nudity (although some come close) but do show sexually suggestive or explicit sexual situations. Could this not be considered pornographic? Most of us would probably agree that pornography is writing about or displaying in some medium (magazines, videos, television, movies, the Internet) nudity or sexual activity that excites sexual feelings. Christians might add that pornography excites unhealthy, immoral, and sinful sexual feelings. Sex addicts can be sexually excited by a wide variety of written and visual stimuli.
Magazines like Playboy (and worse), R- and X-rated movies and videos, television shows (especially late-night cable and satellite shows), books that describe sexual acts, and Internet pornography sites excite most people. They display sexuality in immoral and unhealthy ways and incite sinful sexual passions. On the other hand, a sex addict might be sexually excited by something no one else would find stimulating. The determining factor in what makes the stimulus pornographic is how a sex addict turns otherwise nonsexual material into sexual fantasy. If you are an addict, this means you must determine what is pornographic for you and not worry about what is pornographic for someone else. In order to find healing, it is vitally important to identify and understand your own fantasy triggers. Chapter 11 addresses this in depth. If you are in a relationship with an addict, please know it is the addict's responsibility to identify and avoid pornographic materials. It is not your responsibility to protect the addict from all things you think are pornographic. Other sex addicts are attracted to deviant sexual activity, such as bestiality or violent sex. Perhaps the most tragic forms of pornography are those that use and abuse children. Since the development of the Internet, the availability of incredibly perverse sexual material has increased in astonishing ways. Many websites now offer menus of specialized activities. Sadly, one recent study revealed that there are over two million different children depicted in sexual ways on the Internet. Some television shows, written materials, movies, and Internet sites don't actually display sexual activity but do promote inaccurate information about sex. Consider how some soap operas portray sexuality and relationships. From them we learn twisted ideas of commitment, intimacy, sexuality, friendship, and faithfulness. It is important to recognize that, especially for sex addicts, pornography is more than just the hard-core material the Supreme Court would identify as pornographic. It starts with inaccurate and subtle messages that promote false teaching about marriage, family life, relationships, romance, intimacy, and sexuality. Pornography and the Internet In recent years, I have been horrified at the rapid development of the Internet as the world's number one source of pornography.
A variety of studies have found that two-thirds of all Christian men have visited Internet pornography sites and struggle with them. Studies also reveal that 40 percent of pastors use the Internet to view pornography, and one-third of those had looked at Internet pornography in the last thirty days. More and more women are also accessing Internet pornography. The Internet has become a crisis for the Christian community. Every day people lose their jobs, are arrested for illegal activity, and many churches lose pastors because of involvement with Internet pornography. I have never seen sexual addiction take hold in a person's life as quickly as it can by using the Internet. Gary, for example, acquired a new computer and Internet access last Christmas. By February, he had spent over $100,000 on Internet pornography and maxed out his credit cards, several of which were newly acquired. Several factors make the Internet a powerful and dangerous source of addiction. Psychologist Al Cooper has written extensively on Internet addiction. He describes three factors called the Triple-A Engine—Accessible, Affordable, and Anonymous.1 The first A is that the Internet is so accessible. Anyone with access to a computer and a phone line can use the Internet. Many public places now have Internet access. Kids can access pornographic material on computers in their school or public libraries. Adults can get involved at work. An unpublished study revealed that at one Fortune 100 company, 60 percent of the time male employees spent on the computer was devoted to pornography. It used to be that a person had to go to less-than-desirable places to buy pornography. Today the worst filth can be accessed on the computer from the comfort of one's home or office. The second A is that the Internet is so affordable. While most sites require users to purchase material, they also offer free pictures to get the viewer hooked. A person can literally spend days, weeks, and months looking at free material. Membership fees for most of these sites are relatively inexpensive. Perverse material that used to cost hundreds and thousands of dollars is now accessible for a fraction of the cost. After accessing the free and cheap material, however, addicts are drawn into incredibly expensive materials as their appetites increase.
The third A is that the Internet is anonymous—or it seems to be. Users can access pornography from the privacy of their homes on personal computers. No one watches or is aware of what they're doing. Those who might have been embarrassed to buy pornography in public places can now get it without having to go anywhere. Historically, women have been reluctant to purchase pornography in public places. However, the Internet has eliminated the inhibiting factor of public exposure. This may be one of the reasons an increasing number of women are becoming addicted to Internet pornography. The truth is, the Internet is anything but anonymous—many organizations routinely monitor Internet usage. Businesses, schools, and churches now have monitoring software that tracks Internet use, including every site a user accesses. The former director of the FBI once told me that his agency has access to online services that could trace virtually anyone's Internet use. The Internet is not anonymous at all. The Internet is an example of a tool that can be used both constructively and destructively. At the same time that it enables communication, research, and relational connection, it also gives lonely and isolated people access to material that promotes destructive and addictive activity. MASTURBATION The third building block of sexual addiction is masturbation. This activity often begins in childhood, when children are naturally curious and explore their genital areas. Most people learn from this self-exploration and develop a healthy sense of their bodies. Sex addicts, however, become preoccupied with masturbation. Addicts learn early that genital touching is pleasurable. As children, this may be the only pleasurable touching they receive. Some sex addicts are never touched in nurturing ways by parents, and touching themselves is their only source of physical nurture. It may be that the pleasurable feelings are the child's only escape from painful family chaos. One sex addict told me he was so good at secretly masturbating as a child, he could do it in the middle of the living room with lots of people around and no one noticed. Masturbating can become so repetitive addicts actually injure themselves. An eighty-year-old pastor's wife was admitted to the hospital for surgical repair of lesions in her genital area. Her husband was physically unable to father children and became impotent.
He refused to discuss this with her and, if she ever expressed feelings of loss or grief, he quoted Scripture to her. She masturbated daily for fifty years, and the abrasiveness of that activity created the lesions. For some, masturbation is only an occasional experience used to escape feelings or give expression to fantasies. But for others, masturbation takes place daily. In one extreme case, I worked with a sex addict who masturbated twenty times a day. The compulsive need to masturbate can take so much time it causes addicts to lose valuable work, family, and social time. A frequently asked question is whether or not masturbation is a sin. This can be a particularly distressing question for Christian single adults. Many Christians correctly note that masturbation is never mentioned in the Bible.
However, to effectively address this issue, it is important to consider overarching biblical principles as well. For most, the physical act of masturbation follows sexual thoughts or fantasies. In Matthew 5, Jesus teaches that looking lustfully at another person is equivalent to committing adultery. The overarching biblical principle concerns lust and fantasy. In light of this, the real issue with masturbation is what a person thinks about. If a married person masturbates while thinking about someone other than a spouse, that is sinful. If a person masturbates to fantasies of a spouse but the activity is not based on connecting to the spouse spiritually and emotionally, that is also sinful. My challenge to those who ask whether or not masturbation is sinful is to ask in return, "Can you masturbate without thinking of something sinful?" 2 If the answer is no, then masturbation is something to avoid.
A VICIOUS CYCLE The vicious cycle of fantasy, pornography, and masturbation may satisfy the physical need for sex, but it never satisfies the emotional and spiritual hunger deep in the soul. Addicts never learned to feed that hunger in healthy ways. Instead, they seek to gratify their needs in the easiest and most accessible ways. Sex at that moment allows the addict to escape and thereby cope temporarily with unwanted feelings. Over time, more and more sexual activity is needed to escape negative emotions. However, more and more sexual activity also creates more negative feelings. This vicious cycle makes sexual addiction a degenerative process. It gets progressively worse. Some sex addicts can turn off or slow down their sexual activity for periods of time, but during the course of their lives, some kind of sexual activity will get worse. In alcoholism this is called the "tolerance factor." It takes ever-increasing amounts of the addictive substance to satisfy the habit. In sexual addiction, this tolerance, along with many other factors, may lead the addict to more of the same sexual behavior or to other forms of sexual activity. The following chapter examines additional sexual behaviors sex addicts may engage in.