The perfect romantic drama—a billion dollar industry in film and a perennially popular book genre for women—has the right amount of desire, the perfect portion of sex, and far more fantasy than fact. These dramas turn on women finding and maintaining power while managing to reveal themselves as vulnerable in a way that doesn’t put men off. Popular culture is rife with women, household names, some of them legendary icons, whose personal trade is upholding the picture of male longing and female aspiration—from yesterday’s Marilyn Monroe to today’s Scarlett Johansson. These stories and these stars are so popular perhaps because they are vessels of a cultural obsession about what a woman should hope for, be and come to possess.
When we look at carefully scripted storylines and examine the expertly airbrushed photographs of celebrity women, we fail to see ourselves reflected back in whole. The parts of us that are sometimes too tired to feel sexy, too overworked to look glamorous and too traumatized to maintain functional relationships don’t show up in the images and stories we want to emulate, so it isn’t any wonder that when women find themselves addicted to sex or sexually codependent, they face a reality in which they are fractured from whole and healthy sexuality. These women may turn to obsessive fantasy to self-sooth, and to sex to gain power and control, using denial to buff and blur an image of themselves that they’d rather not identify with, even if their reality is more universal than they realize.
The Sexually Addicted Woman
Author and sex addiction expert Charlotte Kasl has provided a definition of addictive sex for women: “Addictive sex occurs when a woman mistakenly uses sex to express anger, to feel powerful, to be held, to relieve tension, to hide from feelings or to create a false bond of intimacy. Sex addiction is when the mistaken use of sex for love or power fits into an escalating pattern of behavior that the woman feels powerless to control.”
Sex addiction creates harmful consequences, such as obsessive thoughts, distorted thinking, depression, anxiety, self-loathing, alienation, inner conflict, fears of abandonment, denial, deception (of self and others), remorse and intense shame. Sex addicts experience problems with impulsive behaviors related to their sexual compulsions and may engage in high-risk or dangerous sex. Their relationships, personal and professional, may be harmed as a result of their addiction, and they frequently struggle with other forms of addiction as well—including substance use, eating disorders, OCD and other behavioral addictions. Sex addicts often experience a contradiction between their personal values and their expressed behaviors. They promise themselves they will cut back or quit, but repeatedly fail to keep these promises. It is not a simple matter of willpower or low morality, but one of obsession, often created by internal conflict or trauma.
Sexually addicted women tend to mistake their own attractiveness to someone as a sign that they are valuable or worthy. Sex addiction is an intimacy disorder, causing sex-addicted women to seek connection to others through sex rather than through sustained emotional closeness. Through seduction, and sometimes withholding, sex addicts learn that they can control others, which allows them to feel powerful. They may desire this form of power because of faulty core beliefs. I am powerless; I am worthless; no one will love me. The number of women with sex addiction who experienced abuse or trauma in early life is quite high. (The same goes for men.)
The Sexually Codependent Woman
Sexually codependent women have a problem saying no to sex even if they don’t desire it (rape is a separate issue and should never be blamed on sexual codependence). These women often have sex they don’t want as an attempt to prevent abandonment; out of fear, obligation or guilt; or to pacify a partner. They tend to place a partner’s sexual desires above their own emotional needs. It is common for sexually codependent women to believe that sex is the only way to receive the affection and attention they desire, and the only time in which they are wanted and needed by someone they love.
Sex Addicts Can Be Sexually Codependent
Female sex addiction and sexual codependency are not mutually exclusive; a woman can experience both at the same time. Many do. Sex addicts experience a cycle of “binge and starve” related to their addiction in which they go through “periods of intense sexual activity followed by periods of sexual numbness during which they worry about their sexuality and ability to have a relationship,” Kasl says. Sexually codependent women experience similar fears related to sexuality and relationship and the underlying difference for many is a focus on emotional security. As a result of early trauma, the sex addict’s coping mechanism may be to become emotionally aloof and independent, perhaps telling herself, “I don’t need anyone.” She is likely to leave others before they have a chance to abandon her, whereas the sexual codependent’s response to early trauma is to believe she can only feel safe or secure when attached to someone, whether or not that attachment is healthy or ultimately good for her.
When looking at a woman’s history in order to understand her sexual addiction, sexual codependency should be examined and vice versa. The issues are inherently intertwined but reveal real differences. A woman who experiences either stands the best chance at recovery when her particular trauma, and resultant core beliefs and self-soothing strategies, are understood clearly. Recovery is possible, and it often hinges on the reintegration of elements that have been split apart or disenfranchised by a society that requires an unrealistic ideal from women.
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