The disorder is not about how many sexual partners a person has or how much sex they have; rather, it is when someone’s sexual behavior becomes a “central focus of the person’s life to the point of neglecting health and personal care or other interests, activities and responsibilities.”
The disorder may interfere with someone’s ability to go to work or finish school. It can hurt relationships. And although someone with this disorder may want to resist their constant need for sex, they’ve been unsuccessful. They may not even get pleasure from the repeated sexual activity.
A person with this disorder has had to be dealing with it over an extended period of time, according to the definition, which gives an example of six months or more.
What compulsive sexual behavior disorder is not, according to the definition, is “distress that is entirely related to moral judgments and disapproval about sexual impulses, urges, or behaviours.”
“When I have someone who looks me straight in the eye and says ‘My life is miserable because of this, and I’m suicidal, and my relationship is broken, and this is hurting my health,’ there is something there,” he said. “Our mission is to help that person, and now we have the language to give that person a better understanding of what that is, and it’s absolutely critical to have a common language so scientists can better understand this too.”
There are still no national studies documenting how many people have this problem. Some regional and local surveys suggest that it could affect 5% of the population. Fong says that would mean more people struggle with this issue than with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or pathological gambling.
Research is limited, in part, due to a lack of funding and an inconsistency in the definition of what compulsive sexual behavior disorder is. This decision from WHO will probably help.
“It’s really important to have a diagnosis, especially with sexual issues,” he said.
Weiss was involved with the committee that determined that compulsive sexual behavior disorder should be left out of the DSM, a decision he thinks is a mistake. Having the definition in an international text will help make the argument that it belongs in the DSM, he said.
“It allows us to better articulate who has a problem and who doesn’t, and it takes it out of the hands of the client or the culture or the church and puts it squarely on the science,” Weiss said. “It tells us that this is unrelated to sexual orientation or gender identity, and we didn’t have that before. It takes out all that judgment.”
Often, it’s the anticipatory fantasy, the recall of the act itself, the excitement of the chase that allows them “to lose themselves completely” rather than think about their spouse, their kids or their boss yelling. But unlike treatment for alcohol addition, it’s about helping someone have a healthier relationship with sex.
“You don’t want to repress the desire. Sexuality is a part of being human, but you want to guide it,” Weiss said.
News credit : Cnn