Discerning Whether Sexual Compulsion/Addiction May Be Present

image Unlike other compulsions and addictions, sex and porn addiction is more easily concealable as there is often no tangible evidence. We can smell alcohol abuse and observe altered behavior from intoxication and drug use. Shopping, gambling and food disorders leave physical traces. But sex and porn addiction can be rendered imperceptible, especially in the digital age.

Sex addiction, especially when it combines with the use of Internet activity, can easily be disguised and kept secret. History and caches can be erased and alibis created to cover for lost time. This is why it is difficult to detect symptoms of sex addiction. Witnessing character changes in your partner without much solid evidence is enough to make a partner feel they are losing their mind.

Even though most porn users believe that their partners cannot be hurt by their porn usage—whether it is concealed or not—a percentage of users do become addicted and addiction is devastating to relationships. And eventually characteristics like those listed below start to surface in the Sex Addict/Compulsive (SAC). Addiction involves the addict and those around him, therefore, the partners are most certainly affected by the porn addict's behavior even if the addiction is not identified as such.

We printed this list of symptoms of sex addiction so you can gain some solid tips to help identify and then link his behaviors to a possible pornography compulsion. By adding personal anecdotes we also intend to show you how cunning the SAC can be in his cover-ups. Please note: We are not medical professionals and do not intend to provide official diagnostic statements or criteria here. Where some descriptions get graphic, please be assured we include them here only to provide a guideline. Many women are trained not to discuss their sexual lives with others and as a result, some are confused as to what constitutes "normal" requests in bed.

Signs of possible problems with pornography or other sexual acting out

  • Loss of interest in sexual relations with you
  • Takes you a lot more work and time than usual to get him aroused once he does decide to engage in sexual relations with you
  • SAC's distractibility during sexual act
  • SAC's insatiable sexual appetite
  • Introduction of unusual sexual practices featured in porn, which may be perceived by the partner as "insensitive" (some examples might be: his asking you to engage in anal sex, wanting to ejaculate on your face/body, cajoling you into multiple-partner scenarios such as threesomes, asking you to watch hardcore pornographic movies together which offend you, trying to photograph or film you or sexual acts (possibly to upload later onto pornographic websites), using uncharacteristically crude language in bed, giving instructions or orders in an insensitive way in the bedroom…in other words, anything far out of line with what you as a couple did ordinarily. This unusual behavior ideally is distinguishable from a respectful discussion a man might initiate with his partner about ways that would feel good mutually to reinvigorate a sexual relationship possibly in need of some refreshing
  • Sexual behavior that feels rushed, detached, rigid or passionless. Or he may seem distracted throughout
  • Preference for masturbation over sexual relations with you (this may be difficult to ascertain as it will likely occur only when he has complete privacy)
  • Spending more and more time on the computer and/or buying more devices with Internet access
  • Evidence of hiding computer usage
  • Moving the computer to a more isolated area like an office, den or basement and positioning it so the screen faces away from anyone walking into the room
  • Quickly switching off the screen he was looking at, to another innocuous-looking page when you walk in
  • Increased isolation and withdrawal from you, family and/or friends
  • Detectable increase in happiness or even slightly giddy when you announce you are going out for awhile, as a new opportunity to go online uninterrupted now exists
  • You notice he is "scanning" more and more. Scanning is the term we use for his surveying other people when you go out together for the purpose of searching out the potential sexual partners. Once he spots them, he often becomes fixated on them, maybe even jockeying to get a better view. In some men, this takes the easily identifiable form of head-swiveling, though most are too discreet and/ or paranoid that their partners will detect this. In its more obvious form, if this happens at a party or BBQ, for example, he might ask the host about her, rearrange his seat to accommodate a better view or start plotting to casually try to make the woman's acquaintance. Strolling past the Victoria's Secret store with its window-dominating, soft-focus panels of photos with models in barely-there lingerie, seductively beckoning with their eyes is where you'll get a full dose of a SAC's scanning behavior, and many a POSA prefers to steer a wide berth around those shops when the partner is along or risk feeling very hurt by his ogling. Most frequently, though, partners will notice a general increase in his attention span towards any and all attractive females. This can often be distinguished from the more usual quick noticing of an attractive person nearby, which occurs as part of our human wiring. That form of noticing does not hijack his attention or render him unable to finish the sentence he was midway through before spotting her. Generally speaking, most SACs cannot curtail their scanning until they are well into Recovery—as it is the fuel for the fantasy engine of sexual compulsion
  • Unexpected or discreetly marked packages in the mail (these may be pornographic DVD's or other sexually explicit material or products)
  • Discreetly-named charges on his credit card or phone bill. Strip clubs try to hoodwink suspicious mates whom they know might spot a partner's credit card bill, so they'll often give euphemistic sounding names to their business, such as: Regal Restaurant Group. What mate would suspect that? Yes, they serve steaks, but they also serve…well, you get the idea…. (I, Lili, once noticed a not-so-discreetly-labeled item on my ex-SAC's credit card bill from X-Y-Z Fantasy Corp, which, when I investigated, turned out to be a phone-sex company he was using. Oops…busted!)
  • Unexplained absences (Terre's ex-SAC would sometimes wait till after she was asleep and then disappear for two hours. She awoke one night to him being gone, stayed awake till he got back and then enquired as to his whereabouts. He claimed difficulty sleeping so he was just out walking. Upon her investigation, she found he was hooking up with women he'd arranged to meet on adult hook-up sites. And, if he was out of luck in that department, he'd sometimes sneak off to a swingers club)
  • Unexplained financial transactions
  • Diminished intimacy in any realm: emotional, physical, spiritual, social, intellectual
  • Neglect of responsibilities
  • Easily irritated, irregular mood swings or depressed mood

The trickiest symptoms to decipher

The last three symptoms are the trickiest to directly link to compulsive porn use because even if you identify these characteristics in your partner, he can easily deflect your suspicions by blaming other things: work stress, family issues, worry about finances, and so on. This was my experience (Lili's). I thought something seemed "off" for a while but kept being told by my SAC that he was stressed out and that perhaps if I took a more loving approach, his stress levels would diminish.

Loss of interest in sexual relations with you, as well as your inability to get him aroused in a reasonable amount of time are also symptoms that, if you bring them up, he may blame work or other stressors.

And increased isolation is another symptom that he can easily redirect by saying he needs his "alone time" or "me time" because he's under stress. What loving partner would refuse this request so he can regenerate himself? Of course, what we meant was: Regenerate, not degenerate.

We encourage you to begin following through on your intuition after securing the support you need to face whatever you may discover.

We Recommend:

Books:

Untangling the Web: Sex, Porn & Fantasy Obsession in the Internet Age by Robert Weiss, LCSW, CAS and Jennifer Schneider, M.D., Ph.D. This book is a must-read anyway, and contains many examples of how surreptitious acting out on the web can be.

Out of the Shadows by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D. gives examples of SAC's behaviors that are generally more extreme than pornography use alone,* but is instrumental in helping you understand how SACs think and then often, act. This book may help you demystify a partner's behavior that you suspect may be indicative of secretive sexual activity.

* Please Note: We at PoSARC do not downplay that pornography use alone often is extreme in its content, frequency of use, and/or subsequent effects on the user and partner. But since Out of the Shadows was the first book I (Lili) read on sexual compulsion and since compulsive porn use was all I suspected in my relationship and here it was hardly mentioned in favor of the "harder" acting out behaviors, I ended up questioning whether I had a "right" to feel as I did about my SAC's hidden porn addiction when other PoSAs had so much "worse" to contend with, like STDs, etc. Still, this book is very well worth your time to read. But if a partner's porn use is the key issue, I would suggest reading Untangling the Web first. You'll find plenty of validation for your feelings about pornography there.
—Lili