When sex becomes an obsession it may be time
to get a sense of proportion, writes Jack Summerside
Illustration C(Aitch)
There
was quite a reaction to the last couple of Sex Pages. Last month I looked
at what happens when your sex drive takes a nosedive, and before that how
to manage situations when you want more sex than your partner. Judging by
your emails it seems common among people with HIV.
But what happens when your interest in sex gets out of all proportion, beyond
feeling comfortable, or starts to affect other parts of your life. This can
creep up on anyone and is a common reaction to stress or anxiety.
Ring a bell?
Tony, 35, was recently diagnosed HIV positive. “At first, the last thing
I thought about was sex. I felt I should be going around ringing a bell, saying
‘keep back, unclean’. As time passed I started going out and picking
people up more and more. I guess I was trying to cancel out those earlier
feelings by trying to get more and more guys to be interested.”
When animals are under stress, they groom themselves. Cats especially will
obsessively groom their coats, sometimes to the point where they give themselves
bald patches and broken skin. People can be a bit like that, although we don’t
necessarily lick ourselves or get furballs. One effect of underlying anxiety
is a need to be found attractive or approved of in some way. Picking up or
just flirting can become a tough habit to break. It becomes a comfortable
place to retreat into, a habitual thing to do that, in the short-term at least,
bolsters your self-esteem.
Some of us struggled with this phenomenon long before getting HIV, certainly
before diagnosis. Though not true of all of us, it’s a behaviour pattern
that led many of us to become infected in the first place. These patterns
can make it even more difficult to manage a sex life healthy
for your mind as well as your body, after an HIV diagnosis.
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Away
on business?
Elizabeth is 42 and got HIV from her husband of 15 years. “He was away
on business trips a lot, it never occurred to me he was sleeping with other
people. We’d always had a good sex life, I didn’t think it unusual
things were a little bit quieter on that front with him working away so much.
Now I realise he was struggling with becoming middle-aged - sleeping with
other younger women. It took a lot of work to build up trust again.”
There are many reasons why someone seeks too much sex:
• Feeling unattractive because of physical changes to your body, like
losing or putting on weight
• Seeking to raise your self-esteem because it seems all your friends
get lots of sexual interest and you don’t feel as attractive
• Because of other stresses and anxieties in your life, work, family
or about money
Your interest in sex may be out of kilter if you:
• Feel you need sex more and more
• Need different people to find you attractive
• Need to create situations where you will get ‘confirmation’
from people that they fancy you
• Withdraw from time with your partner
• Withdraw from time with your friends
• Stopp doing other things you enjoy because the quest for sex has taken
priority
• Feel sex was empty and pointless afterwards
• Find yourself covering up what you are doing, especially to your partner
These are just a few warning signs. If you answer yes to more of these than
you feel happy with, what do you do? How do you get the balance right? What
works for you may not suit your partner, or might vary from one month to the
next.
A common theme in the emails I get is ‘communication’ and how
lack of it can cause serious problems. When one partner’s attention
is directed elsewhere for whatever reason, the other often automatically assumes
they are in some way at fault.
When sex is not discussed openly and freely within the relationship you assume
there is a problem and not talking about it makes it worse. If there wasn’t
a problem before, by the time layers of miscommunication, misunderstanding
and resentment have built up, there most definitely is one.
Truth will out
Stuart 32, recently came out of a two year relationship after his partner
left. “Barry just could not get over the fact that I’d been concealing
my sexual ‘excursions’ for months, while our sex life had just
drifted away. It wasn’t the fact I’d been having sex, it was not
being truthful.
It was that, and the whole business of him abiding by one set of rules, while
I had just gone off on my own choice, that he couldn’t get over. Since
then I’ve done a lot of looking at my life and what’s important
to me”
It would be a shame if it took the break-up of your relationship to make you
have a long hard look at your own life and values. If you are single, there’s
no one else in the picture to be directly hurt by your behaviour - except
for yourself of course.
Having sex too often, and spending too much time looking for it, is a form
of addiction, just like gambling, smoking or repeatedly scrubbing the kitchen
floor. It might be worth seeking counselling or other support to deal with
your addiction. There are numerous workshops and groups that can help.
Everyone needs to feel good about themselves, but getting that positive feedback
from too much sex is ultimately futile. Sooner or later it is likely to be
something you’ll feel uncomfortable with and might regret.
Breaking the sex habit
•Take up a hobby that gives you a sense of achievement
• Set aside at least one evening a week to spend romantic time with
your partner
• Spend time with friends you can talk to, and if you don’t have
them find ways to make those kinds of friendships
• Stop seeking ‘external approval’ by avoiding places where
you seek it. Log off from the internet chatrooms, stay out of bars and clubs
for a while
• Talk to a nurse or doctor at your clinic about counseling or group
support
• If it doesn’t work 100 per cent at first, give yourself a break
and try again.
There is always going to be someone who has more notches on their bedpost
than you; so perhaps you need to ask yourself, who are you competing with?
And if you still feel you need to be in the top ten, think about how unattractive
that might be to other people. After all, who wants to date someone who everyone
else has been with already?
The Sex Pages are taking a break for a while. All this sex has worn
Jack out.
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contents - Issue 131
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