It’s not about the sex.

I was asked if someone could/would engage in cybersex behaviors without actually meeting a partner in real time/face to face as Rep. Weiner acknowledged. The short answer is, “yes.” The reason is that the cybersex behavior isn’t always about the sex. Why do it then? To that question, there is no easy answer. Below is a list of other reasons that people might use to engage in cybersex behaviors.

1) Boredom
2) Loneliness
3) Fear of cheating
4) Shame
5) Jealousy
6) I didn’t cheat since I didn’t meet
7) It’s a break from the hard work of the day.
8) Horny
9) My partner isn’t around
10) It’s just a fantasy, it’s not real.
11) No one will find out.
12) Excitement

One of the tasks in treatment is to figure out the deeper motives that shape an individual’s behavior. It is a process of discernment and discovery. In the workbook, we highlight 3 groups of reasons: thinking errors, feeling triggers, and high risk situations. Each then becomes a source to intervene in the cybersex beahviors.

What does a relapse in sexual addiction mean?

In the field of sexual compulsivity treatment, addressing the reality of a relapse is important. It is highy probably that you will experience some type of relapse around your high-risk situations, feeling triggers or thinking errors: you will move into a realm of acting out behaviors somewhere in your process. Why? Most likely because you’re HUMAN! Being human acknowledges that perfection is not possible. Here are a few suggestions to help you address a sexual health relapse.

1) In the process of moving toward sexual health, to assume that you will never make a mistake sets you up for the cycle of shame and guilt that is probably a big part of your cycle at this point. Now, this doesn’t mean being human is permission to relapse (nice thinking error), but it does provide a starting point toward self-forgiveness.

2) It is remarkably easy to relapse. Depending on the circumstances, the ease by which a relapse occurs is shockingly easy. If sexually explicit material is a form of relapse, simply walking in a mall could lead to a relapse (Seriously, have you seen the display windows!). Recognizing the ease by which triggers occur helps frame a plan for ongoing sexual health.

3) Relapse can help you learn. By examining the relapse, you can uncover new factors associated with your acting out cycle as well as set up plans to address these factors. In many cases, the relapse can help prioritize treatment issues.

4) The degree of relapse is a sign of progress. Often what happens is that the intensity of acting out decreases. Rather than hooking up with someone via a website, the behavior this time might be limited to viewing sexually explicit material. While still something to be addressed, this is progress in my book. (For a more formal discussion, search out the term harm-reduction). (As with #1 above, you can’t use this to justifying acting out.)

5) Telling on yourself when a small or large relapse occurs is a reflection of the treatment progress. By using your support network, you demonstrate the ongoing skills to move toward health. The amount of disclosure to your primary network is a measure of your progress. Your ability to learn from the relapse is also a measure of your progress.

High Risk Situations

High Risk Situations.

The final component to review in the first box of the acting out cycle is a high risk situation. Of all the therapy work in treating sexual compulsivity, this is the easiest component to identify, the easiest component to create prevention plans, and the least successful at reducing sexual compulsivity. Don’t get me wrong; it is very important, but between thoughts/thinking errors, feeling triggers, and high risk situations, clarifying and reducing high risk situations simply require structural interventions that can easily be circumvented if the other issues aren’t addressed.

First, let’s define a high-risk situation. It is the setting in which an acting out behavior occurs. Assume you take a snap shot of the behavior. In that snap shot, you have the setting that can easily be described. Based on the following snapshots, you can start to see how easy it is to identify a high risk situation.

I was home alone.

I was surfing the internet for work.

I was taking a walk in the park.

I was chatting with friends at the bar.

I drove by the __________ (fill in the blank, it could be bar, strip club, book store, park, etc).

I had a fight with my partner.

I was fired.

I was just got a raise/made a big sale.

I stopped at the gas station and they had magazines.

I saw the inserts in the newspaper.

I saw something on TV.

Snap shots simply describe the setting. As you picture your behavior, simply describe what is going on in the environment. The classic questions of Who, What, Where, When, and How are the tools for identifying high risk situations.

What where you doing right before?

What was going on?

Where were you?

Who was with you?

What time is it?

When did it happen?

How did it happen?

Second, developing a prevention plan is simply a matter of developing a structural intervention; a structural intervention is something that gets in the way or removes the high risk situation. So, for example, if you’re surfing the internet, you can identify an intervention such as an internet blocker, or an internet tracker, or have someone watching over you, or don’t have your house connected to the internet. These are all interventions to reduce the possibility of accessing pornography online. These types of interventions are simple to identify and are a matter of brainstorming ideas. In my opinion this is a necessary but not sufficient intervention in treating sexual compulsivity.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the interventions can be easily circumvented. Take the online pornography use. Even if you put all of those interventions in place, it is possible to use the cell phone to access pornography. You might have access to the internet at work. Thus, all the tools at your home become ineffective and require additional structural interventions. Or, with the amount of explicit material in our culture some people struggle with underwear or swim suit magazines as a high risk situation. Thus all of the internet interventions fail to address the reality of access to explicit media.