Talk Sex with Annette
Talk Sex with Annette
Where desire meets disruption—and pleasure becomes power.
Hosted by sex and intimacy coach Annette Benedetti, Talk Sex with Annette is the go-to podcast for bold, unfiltered conversations at the intersection of sexuality, identity, and empowerment.
From kink to connection, self-love to sexual healing, Annette dives into the topics most people are too afraid to touch—with expert guests, raw storytelling, and a feminist lens that challenges shame and reclaims pleasure.
Think smart, sexy, and radically real: this is the cultural conversation around sex that’s long overdue.
Talk Sex with Annette
Is Sex Addiction Even Real? What the Science Actually Says
Is sex addiction even real?
In this bold and much-needed episode, I’m joined by Dr. Sue Milstein and her co-host Charlie for a raw conversation that takes on the myths and misinformation around hypersexuality and so-called “sex addiction.”
We talk about:
– Why “sex addiction” isn’t actually a clinical diagnosis
– How pathologizing pleasure fuels shame and repression
– The difference between compulsive behavior and healthy desire
– What queer folks, women, and survivors need to know about how this label has been weaponized
– And how we can stop framing desire as a disease
Whether you’ve been told you’re “too much,” “out of control,” or “addicted” to sex—or just want to understand how shame shapes our sexual culture—this one’s for you.
Pleasure isn’t the problem. The story we’ve been told about it is.
You can listen to Unzipping Taboos here: Check out Unzipping Tabboos: https://open.spotify.com/show/0W4qb8B7nZW8O3GMoQUZ5E?si=3cd730666f3d499a
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Cheers!
Do the sex pleasure and desire Around here. Nothing's off limits. These are the kinds of conversations we save for our boldest group chats, our most trusted friends and, of course, the women's locker room. Think raw, honest and sometimes unapologetically raunchy. If you've been here from the beginning, thank you, and if you're new, welcome to my podcast. Where desire meets disruption and pleasure becomes power. Now let's talk about sex Cheers.
Speaker 1:Today's Talk Sex with Annette topic is the truth about sex addiction and hypersexuality. Today we're shaking things up in the best way because this episode is a collaboration. I'm joining forces with Dr Sue Milstein and her co-host, charlie from Unzipping Taboos for a raw, unfiltered conversation about one of the most misunderstood and misused terms in the sexuality world sex addiction. You can listen to this conversation right here on Talk Sex with Annette, or over on Unzipping Taboos. Either way, buckle up.
Speaker 1:We're diving into the big questions what actually counts as sex addiction and who gets to decide? Is hypersexuality just a label slapped on people who want more sex than society is comfortable with? Why is shame baked into the diagnosis and how does it hurt more than help? And finally, how do we support people who are struggling with compulsive sexual behavior without pathologizing desire? This one's packed with nuance and plenty of real talk. Whether you're skeptical, curious or personally impacted, you're going to walk away with a deeper understanding of what's really going on behind the label.
Speaker 1:Let's end up the taboo and tell the truth about sex desire and the stories we tell about both. But before we dive in, I want to remind you I'm over on OnlyFans and that is where I'm sharing my sex and intimacy how-tos, demonstrations and audio guided self-pleasure meditations. You can also find me on Substack doing a lot of the same, and you can find me on both with my handle at TalkSexWithAnette. You can also scroll down to the description of this episode, and you're going to find all the links that you need there, including the link to my co-host's podcast. Now, again, before we dive in, sue and Charlie, can you tell my listeners just a little bit more about you?
Speaker 2:Sure, so I am Dr Sue Milstein. I am the co-host of Unzipping Taboos, cans and Conversations About Sex, a podcast that Annette has been our guest on before. In addition to that, I am HeyDrSue on social media, so you can find me on Substack, medium, youtube, instagram all the places folks submit anonymous sex questions to me and I answer them once a week. But to give you a little bit more about my background, so I have a PhD in human sexuality education, I'm a certified sexologist. I've been doing research and writing and teaching in this area for a while. I've also worked in reproductive health clinics and done education in the community, and so Charlie is my co-host and I will let you introduce him.
Speaker 3:Charlie is my co-host and I will let you introduce him. I am indeed, hi everyone. I am Charlie. I am the co-host of Unzipping Taboos, as Dr Sue said, and I am someone who is generally, has always been generally curious about the human condition, challenging societal norms, especially as a woman in society, challenging taboos, talking unashamedly about things that I've been told I should feel ashamed of or embarrassed to talk about openly, and then just generally curious about and like to talk about human psychology as an amateur. So that's me in a tiny little nutshell.
Speaker 1:Well, welcome both of you. I'm excited about this conversation and, listeners, you're going to want to stay to the end, because I think that the word sex addiction gets thrown around a lot and I know oftentimes when you hear it most it can be when infidelities take place in relationships, when we have partners who maybe watch porn or want sex more than we do. So it's really important that we get dialed into what the truth is about sex addiction, and then difference between different desire levels and what that means and how we navigate it, especially in relationship. And so by the end of this podcast, you're going to have more information and you're going to have some tools to navigate desired differences as you move forward in your relationships. And if you're someone who wants to bang a lot, maybe we'll ease some of your anxiety around whether or not you have a sex addiction or not. So let's get ready to dive in.
Speaker 2:Cheers, cheers. All right, let's kick this off. Sex addiction.
Speaker 1:Sex addiction. Let's talk about sex addiction.
Speaker 3:Tricky way to modify that song.
Speaker 1:I kind of want to start with asking Sue in particular, because you're the, you're the one with come on, you're the doctor in the room right Like is sex addiction an actual diagnosis? No, it's next right.
Speaker 2:It's made up kind of kind of it is and it's so funny because my students that's what I tell them I'm like there's no such thing. There is no diagnosable condition known as sex addiction. And they stare at me and I'm like I don't know how to tell you that something doesn't exist. Like when we talk about diagnoses, most of the times in the US, we go to the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and that's where we have all the codes and that's where we say this is what it is and here's a diagnostic criteria. There are no diagnostic criteria for sex addiction. It does not exist in the DSM. Not that things that we associate with it may not be things that are diagnosable, and not that it's not a problem for some people. But the answer to the question is it an actual diagnosable condition? The answer is right now, in 2025, it is not. I think that's important. There's your definitive answer.
Speaker 2:That's the answer and that's the end of the podcast no.
Speaker 3:But I want to point out that the DSM is also an involving manual.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because up until 1973, being gay was in there as being a mental health condition, a diagnosable condition?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely so. What are your thoughts on the potential evolution of that? Is there any kind of I don't know feeling or direction of the wind that gives you an impression that it may become one? Or is that not even worth contemplating?
Speaker 2:right now. I mean I don't want to, I don't want to upset anyone, but when they write that thing they do not consult me.
Speaker 3:I mean they're missing a huge opportunity right.
Speaker 2:I do know that it was proposed for inclusion in the last one and and I would like to think I don't know actually how it's done, but I would like to think I don't know actually how it's done, but I would like to think that professionals take a look at these things and make decisions, usually by committee. It was actually proposed for inclusion and they chose not to because of the lack of diagnostic criteria. I think that, and even actually hypersexuality, which I know we're going to because sometimes they use those terms interchangeably. Annette, do you want to jump in?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want. I want you to explain the difference to me between hypersexuality and sex addiction and to be like completely transparent with everyone. I've definitely been called a sex addict in my life and I've definitely been accused of being hypersexual. I like sex. I'm a 50-year-old woman and I get horny, Like literally my pussy talks to me and says you know, take care of me. Multiple times throughout the day. I like sex. I like all kinds of sex and I'll have it. I have it often with myself, Like I like to masturbate. Sometimes I have days where I can masturbate a couple times a day and then, if my partner is here which I do not currently live with a partner I will have sex in the evening, and I think that throughout my life, people have like classified that as oh, you know, you have a sex addiction, or like something was wrong with me for liking sex. So much so, and I've been called both hypersexual and a sex addict. So go ahead and let me know which I am.
Speaker 2:So my one question for you do you feel like there's something wrong with you? Do you feel like your urges are uncontrollable? Do you feel like it runs your life? Wow.
Speaker 1:No, In a bad way. I mean now it does it kind of makes me money, but am I upset about it? No, I mean, I guess that's the thing is throughout my life like the only did it cause problems?
Speaker 1:Yes, but that was because people were shaming me and because not because it kept me from doing anything or because it felt bad in my body, but because of external factors that were playing. You know, even when I'd be in a relationship with somebody and I just want to have sex with them. I had one boyfriend fresh out of college. He should have been hot to go and he just didn't have much of a sex drive and he would make me feel like I was slutty because I wanted to have sex with him a lot Does it interrupt my day sometimes, like if I have a task I have to get done. Sometimes I'm suddenly horny and I'm like maybe I should go masturbate instead. But if I go masturbate then I come back and I nail the assignment. So I would say maybe it's actually helping me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so that's that's. The big thing is that when we're looking at some of the and, interestingly, hypersexuality is is one that you can't always find clear criteria on depends on where you look, and in prepping for this I was I wanted to make sure like everything was legit on what I I you know. It's been a few years since I was in school and I was amazed at the number of legitimate sites that would say hypersexuality, sometimes called sex addiction.
Speaker 2:And I'm like you are a legitimate site referring to something that does not actually exist. So the thing with hypersexuality is that it's you've got these urges and these behaviors and you feel like you're out of control with them, which it doesn't sound like for you, or there's regret, or you feel them, which it doesn't sound like for you, or there is regret, or you feel guilty, which it doesn't sound like there is for you. If anything, if I were to diagnose anyone, it may have been the rest of the society for calling you a slut, but also for that partner you were talking about, that sounds more like desire, discrepancy more than anything else, so like nothing. And again, I can't. I have a PhD. I can't actually diagnose, though. I diagnose people in my brain all the time. Nothing you've described would ever lead me to think it's hypersexuality, because there's no feeling of loss of control, there's no guilt about the role this is playing. If anything, you're super proud of it, which is, I think, something most people should actually like, try to do.
Speaker 1:I guess.
Speaker 2:my question is, though if guilt is like part of diagnosing it, that's fucked up, because the only reason why someone's going to feel guilty is if, like someone's shaming them of it, unless it's like, oh, I feel guilty because I didn't get my work done today because I was masturbating in the office bathroom or you know whatever, seeking out sex instead um I missed the deadline because I was I was masturbating too much, or I missed the deadline because I was trying so busily to hook up, or I was supposed to be at this family function and I I didn't make it because I had to go out and hook up with somebody.
Speaker 1:And maybe that's a good decision, though Maybe that's maybe missing the family function to fuck.
Speaker 3:What if it?
Speaker 2:compromises your job. Yeah, it's that kind of thing. It's that's the kind of guilt. I think that the guilt we shove onto people, especially women, for having a healthy sex drive, that's, that's society's problem and that's what we're all working to undo in our own ways. Yeah, um, so I think it's about the guilt in terms of the negative ramifications for your life, rather than the negative ramifications life is throwing at you. And it's interesting because I always think about how we use it differently for men versus women, because when I've heard it used for men usually celebrities, usually, who've been caught cheating multiple times it's always like, oh, they were a sex addict, they had no control over what they were doing. And then when we talked about women, it's like, oh, those women are just uncontrollable and they just have so many sexual urges. And there's definitely a tone difference when we talk about this thing with men versus women.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's something that popped out to me, annette, when you were talking and giving your story is that you enjoy your desire and your drive and sex and pleasure. But it was the external feedback based off of what they grew up in and their judgments, and not necessarily anything about you doing something wrong, right and and that's exactly what popped in my mind was the difference of using the either one of these terms to classify someone's behavior, to put them in a little bucket so that you can judge them, so that you can say, oh, don't engage with this person because they and especially when it comes to women, who are not ashamed that they enjoy sex and seek sex and are fine having a lot of it.
Speaker 1:When you were talking about the difference between how men and women are talked about in reference to sex addiction and well, mostly sex addiction, but hypersexuality, it's like and always with women it's like refers to us as using sex and being so sexual in order to get something too right, so for guys it's like oh, they're addicts, they can't control their urges and they're broken that they the broken up about the fact that when they slipped and put their dick into five different women, it destroyed their families.
Speaker 1:And if it's a woman who does the same, it's like she's a whore and she's using sex to get this guy because she wants his money or his fame.
Speaker 2:Or it's like very it's a very different framework yeah, and if we're talking about diagnostic criteria, your gender should not matter.
Speaker 2:It should be yeah, so there do you check the boxes of the thing, and that's, and that's again, how we use it. I do want to point out that while I'm sitting here saying there's no such thing as sex addiction, I could get online in about two seconds and find like 20 different places that will take all of my money to treat me of the sex addiction, and so that's usually the follow-up question I get. I'm like, oh well, if there's no such thing, then why are there all these treatment centers?
Speaker 2:I'm like, yep, it's because of money They've created a need and if I especially if I'm a man and whoops I stuck my dick in so many people and got busted and my partner's threatening to leave me and break up the family, okay, I'll go to treatment. I'm showing that I'm doing the work and I'm putting my health and my family in front of everything. And handing over all this money couldn't diagnose you in the first place. We also can't prove that we cured you. But that's not what those centers are.
Speaker 2:Most of them, I think there are centers that do help people deal with the compulsivity piece of it, because for some folks who could fit that definition of hypersexuality, there's definitely a compulsivity piece For some people.
Speaker 2:I've had a couple of folks in my life that I feel like I could throw that label on, but one person standing out very specifically.
Speaker 2:He was using sex with folks as a way of not confronting his own past sexual trauma. So he had been raped and molested as a small child and because he didn't understand that it was bad and it was not handled well as a child, he grew up as an adult believing that unless someone was physically loving him, that he was unlovable, and so for him it wasn't about sex addiction and it wasn't about hypersexuality, it was about unresolved sexual trauma, and so I think there are places that can help folks deal with the real underlying root of what it is, unless you're just an asshole who likes to cheat on your wife or your partner. But I think there are times where there is a legitimate thing going on underneath, but I think that gets lost when we just go yeah, sex, you know, sex addiction treatment center, come to our place, stay here for X number of weeks, pay us lots of money, and I think that makes it harder to have a conversation about that underneath stuff.
Speaker 3:And I think that's an important piece to consider. When you do Google sex addiction, the first page of results is treatment centers and treatment groups.
Speaker 3:But the important thing to remember with that, though, is that, if they first, if they take insurance, if they are going to submit a claim to get money for you, they're not sending a diagnosis in of sex addiction because they can't, because they would not get money they have. The diagnosis is something like you were just talking about some other unresolved diagnosable condition, so that's something to keep in mind out there, listeners, if you Google sex addiction, yeah.
Speaker 1:Sex addiction and hypersexuality are often brought up in reference to a couple of things. So, again, something that can occur after someone experiences a sexual assault. So I'm going to refer you back to my listeners, especially to listen to the podcast I did with these two. I will place a link for it below as well, because it was a podcast about sex after sexual assault in which I shared my personal experience, and one of the things that we did talk about there very specifically was hypersexuality and how it's sometimes connected with post-SA survivors. So how much validity is to that, is there, to that? And also, I want to simultaneously wrap up in that adhd so I've also because I also have adhd. I'm a double hitter over here. Um, that there's, uh, the hypersexuality is often thrown in with sort of the symptoms of ADHD for some people. What do you think? What do you think about all that?
Speaker 2:So I think that there is a part of hyper compulsivity, hypersexuality Sorry, I've decided to create my own thing there. There is a part about hypersexuality which does talk about, which does talk about using that term for folks who are using sex to avoid something else. So, whether it's depression or confronting other aspects of their life that they're not ready to, or some other mental health, and in the case of sexual assault, I think you can use it in that capacity, with the idea as if I'm trying to avoid dealing with the trauma, avoid dealing with depression, avoid dealing with all that piece of it and not really moving forward and hiding behind sexual activity. I think there is a part of that diagnosis for hypersexuality that works, and this is one of the reasons I'm not really a fan of sex addiction as a term, in case you haven't realized it, not a fan of the term.
Speaker 2:What I know from people who are addicts and when I'm thinking about addicts, I'm thinking about alcoholics and drug addicts what I know about my friends who are addicts is that their big thing is that they are always addicts.
Speaker 2:Whether they are drinking, whether they are using, whether it's been decades since they've touched a substance, their feeling is that they are always an addict, they are always in recovery, that they will never move past that and that is why I don't like another reason outside there's no diagnostic criteria.
Speaker 2:I want to see how many times I can say that episode because I think it's really important. But what I like about the title of hypersexuality is that you can move past it and I think, especially for folks who are coming out of dealing with sexual assault or depression or whatever other mental health condition is they're using to kind of hide behind the sexual activity label, it's like, oh, that's it, you're an addict forever. But if we give you a, this is hyper sexuality, let's talk about how to move you forward. Then it's a part of your journey. It is not you forever and I think that's a really important distinction, especially for folks who've gone through assault or rape. It gives you a light that you you're going to move past it at some point and we don't see that with the word addiction.
Speaker 1:So, okay, but how does that fall in line with no-transcript, especially with yourself? I'm a real big promoter of self-sex sex with self, making yourself your own best lover and masturbating a lot and frequently and whenever you can. But I also believe that sex with yourself and with someone else can be super healing and specifically for things like anxiety and depression and in my case I would even say trauma. I think that the orgasm and that the release and sort of the layers that having sex, or especially with yourself, and becoming orgasmic and integrating back into your body after being separated from it through something like a sexual assault, using sex to do that and pleasure to do that, is a really powerful healing tool, right? So you see, what I'm getting to here is if it is a problem to cover up the stuff from sexual assault, and how does that somehow sit with my assertion, my belief that it can be healing for things like that.
Speaker 2:I think it's how you're using it. So if you're like I'm just gonna have lots of sex and feel an instant connection and it's gonna give me what I need to give me and then I'm gonna move on, like and just that's it, that's the end of my dealing with it, I think that's where it becomes more problematic than I'm going to use sex to reconnect with my body, whether it's sex with myself or sex with someone else. I'm going to engage in sex play as a way of connecting with my body and I'm going to feel the feelings and I'm going to deal with the feelings and I'm going to process the feelings and I'm probably going to cry a bit during the feelings and all the feelings. But if it's part of the process of healing and an acknowledgement of what happened and an acknowledgement of how I move forward, to me that's very different from I'm just going to be hooking up randomly to avoid feeling anything, does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think it's how it's being used, because I think you're absolutely right. I think I think learning how to be a sexual person after trauma, I think, whether that trauma is rape or sexual assault or being raised in a culture that tells you you shouldn't enjoy sex especially if you're a woman who's ever been told that this feeling is bad to learn how to have pleasure from it and acknowledge this process for you. I think it's the process that makes it different from just hiding behind it and what about adhd?
Speaker 2:so I have to admit, I'm not as well versed in adhd. Um, I'm not, as, yeah, I think I need to sit there for a second I am not as well versed in adhd and I especially. I love the fact that you're I was gonna sound like a weird sentence I love the fact you're diagnosed, because we so often don't diagnose women when they should have had that diagnosis. Um, but I'm not sure how that relates to. I think you might be a better expert on how it might play into hypersexuality. Well, I think.
Speaker 1:I use hypersexuality, but I think what they say is that women, specifically women, not men, of course with ADHD, because part of ADHD in women and I'm specifically talking about women here is impulsive behaviors.
Speaker 1:I certainly struggle with impulse control, which is fine, it's fine folks. But and then what I think they do is apply that to sex. So someone with ADHD may be more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior or impulsive. You know, you're out, you're hanging out, you meet a guy or a girl or a couple and it's getting sexy and instead of being like, ah, maybe I should sleep on this and then revisit whether or not I want to have sex with him, you're like, fuck it, let's go do it. You know, maybe that's more likely with someone with ADHD.
Speaker 1:Supposedly I'm not blaming anything on my ADHD. I think I make these choices out of my own preference for life and how I'm going to live it. But that is sort of the connection, and I have interviewed somebody on this topic. You know how someone with ADHD might have sex differently than someone who doesn't. And some of it rings true with me just being like, like, I'm kind of ready to do this stuff. I'm ready to like jump in and try new things. I'm not, as you know, restrained, and I don't know if that is more about just. You know, I'm like we're all like-minded women. We're more likely to be open to ideas of what sex can be like and having fun with it, whereas someone who's not where we're at is more likely to you know. Hit pause before they whip out all the toys and tie each other to the walls, consent to engaging with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I feel like what you were describing before about the just kind of jumping into doing the things.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's more ADHD from the diagnosis than hypersexuality. But for the folks who are listening, I think if you have a poor mental health practitioner or one who subscribes to the idea that women should not be having open, happy sex lives, they are way more likely to slap that label of hypersexuality on you, and I don't think it would be appropriate in that situation. So I think that's part of it. So many times when people are like, whatever the topic is, I know I'm different and I don't know why, and you get a label, it's like I have a label and that validates that what you're going through is real, and the problem is when you get put with the wrong label. So for someone who's doing impulsive behavior, I feel like that would be more an impulsive behavior thing than hypersexuality. But I think that we're more likely to label especially women with it because it's a way of controlling them to label especially women with it, because it's a way of controlling them.
Speaker 3:I think that's also a very important piece of this conversation is who is telling you that it's too much and who is telling you who is stigmatizing it in your circle? Is it a healthcare professional? Is it a mental health professional? Is it your family? Is it what you grew up with? Did you grow up in a religious household that for lack of a better term demonized sex and pleasure and desire?
Speaker 3:And so how is that kind of informing, a readiness to accept a label of addiction or hypersexuality? Because, as you say, dr Sue, you get that nice little term, nice air quote, you get that term, that succinct term that gives you an answer, but then it also limits you and kind of boxes you in in a way. And then for many people, if it's, if that's what they're pointing to, there are unresolved, untreated things in the background that you just sort of accept this as a characteristic of yourself and you don't have an opportunity to go any further or dig any deeper to really understand. Is it, is it hyper sexuality, or is it that I? I'm impulsive and I have an openness and and I enjoy it? I those aren't inherently bad things right, and is it, is it?
Speaker 2:because this is a very specific situation, with someone I worked with after a community event. She and her husband had been going to couples counseling and to what she was describing to me was desire discrepancy. He was just kind of like meh, whatever, had no interest in trying new things, like you know, same old, same old crap, like same time every week. It felt like from what she was describing, and so he would go to therapy and be like there's something wrong with my wife. She wants sex too much. There's a problem with her. We need to diagnose this, and the therapist did use a term like hypersexuality, and when I was talking to her about oh like, is the therapist trained in sex? The answer was no, and you can become a mental health professional with zero training in sex. So you have this place where the fact that the mental health professional was taking cues from the husband was a little discouraging for me. But you know, there she and her husband are actively trying to work on an issue.
Speaker 2:She gets slapped with this label by someone who may or may not know what they're talking about, and now it's become her problem instead of. He was just really boring in bed and didn't want to do anything else. And that's like you were saying like that's a label and okay, I can do something with it. Instead of he was just really boring in bed and didn't want to do anything else. And that's like you were saying like that's a label and okay, I can do something with it, but what about all the crap that comes with that label?
Speaker 3:And that it was an inappropriate label.
Speaker 2:So do you find both of you. What comes to mind with me with these terms is that it becomes a way to gatekeep sex and pleasure For women, yes, for men no Well for men.
Speaker 3:I feel like it gives them an excuse. Yep, and then it's a way to, especially if it's men who have cheated with women. It still is a way to make the woman responsible for his infidelity when she didn't make any commitments to fidelity with that man's partner.
Speaker 2:So that's a whole other episode. I jumped right in there. Annette, did you want to give your two cents on that? I jumped right over you.
Speaker 1:I'm going to take a moment to flip the script gender-wise here, because another thing I've seen a lot of, so a lot, of women, and I think we all can agree here that there are many, many, many more women and I'm being very heteronormative in this conversation but who don't want to have sex, don't enjoy sex, have had really bad sex, are in marriages and they're trying to get out of sex with their spouse, right, because of the way we've been taught to have sex and of course, sex. You know. Look at the orgasm gap. You know the, the. The number of women having orgasms during sex, heterosexual sex with men, is abysmal. It's terrible, terrible, terrible. I can't even remember the numbers, but like 90 something percent of men are coming and whereas like just a massively lower percent of women aren't. So a lot of women think they don't want sex. I argue that they do. Once they start experiencing pleasure, then they're like me, then they can't get enough of it, right.
Speaker 1:But what happens oftentimes when the term sex addiction comes up this is when I've heard it the most is when a woman who is married and avoiding, you know, doling out the once a week or once every other week or once a month sex. Catches her husband on the computer and finds all the porn he's looking at, or that he's hiring webcam girls, or that he's going to the strip club and suddenly he's a sex addict, they go straight to like something's wrong with him. He's addicted to porn, he's a sex addict. And they just dig down if they, if they find like little porn magazines or whatever. And I would argue that it's easier for them to accuse the husband of being a sex addict than to look at the relationship and the the intimacy issue. They're having their pleasure list life, that they're maybe feeling filling up with something else, like wine nights with girlfriends or you know whatever else the relationship may be. Maybe it provides financial stability. So it's like, okay, I'll dole out the bad sex once a week, but I get to have the house and the car and the vacations, right? I'm just going to argue that that is oftentimes wives in heteronormative relationships or in, even if not married, partnered.
Speaker 1:It's easier to throw down the accusation of sex addiction, porn addiction, whatever in men than to go. I hate having sex with my husband because it sucks and I don't enjoy it and and but yet it makes me feel like less of a woman if I see him looking at porn that has women who are enjoying sex in it. So this is the only way I can handle it and I don't feel like. Catching someone watching porn or masturbating a lot or going to the strip club equals sex addiction. It equals someone trying to fill their own need some other way. I know I'm sorry, ladies, I am a woman's woman, but I just need you to like. I want you to have more orgasms and be more pleasure filled, so that you don't have to deal with that, am I?
Speaker 2:in the wrong or right here, I agree with you. I would actually argue that's another desire discrepancy issue, because he wants a lot more sex than she does. But desire discrepancy makes it sound like there's something wrong with me, so it's way easier to say my husband's a sex addict. But I absolutely do think there are women who use that term to describe their husband or partner who is having what we might consider a normal sex drive and just not having their needs met. And I, yeah, go for it.
Speaker 1:But an important part of this and I just want to know what you guys think about that is I don't. I think that a lot of the desire discrepancy between men and women is there because women aren't experiencing pleasure from sex. Every time a man sticks his dick in something, he's very likely to have an orgasm. Women oftentimes experience pain because the guy who's sticking their dick in her vagina she's not wet, he's shoving his dry dick in there and from day one it hurts, right, and there's no orgasm. There's no pleasure. Why would you develop desire? You're being conditioned to sex equals pain or discomfort, whereas men are being conditioned to sex equals pleasure. Of course they're going to want more of that. So I have this issue with desire discrepancy.
Speaker 1:So, may I real quick yeah I just want to.
Speaker 3:I want to, yes, and that because I think it's not that the experience of sex could be something that informs that lack of desire, but it is also how we, as women in this society, are conditioned to think about our sex and sexuality, and it's something that we're meant to keep, and keep a hold of and gatekeep ourselves, and then men get to take it in this heteronormative sense, and so a lot of that, I think, is are that those are the roots of the issue.
Speaker 3:One of the roots of the issue leading to you know this well, my husband's a sex addict, or my, my partner's a sex addict, because I like, because I found all these things, but the thing with the desire discrepancy there's no ownership, there's no one person that that it. It owns that it is. It makes it conversational in in many ways, and I think it goes back to what we've been talking about, this, this episode is that that is the. It's not the outcome, but it is a symptom of all of these other things, and so, and those are the symptoms that we can actually point to and and help people navigate through to get to their desired desire state and pleasure state and and have an understanding of what that is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was actually also going to go down the mental load idea. Like you want me to take care of the house, you want me to do the cooking, you want me to do the cleaning. If there are kids involved, you want me to take care of the kids. And oh, now you want sex and I'm fucking exhausted and I haven't gotten a break and I'm going to need a little bit more than you going, I'm hard. You know, we know that I don't want to say all women, because I definitely know women who aren't like this.
Speaker 2:Women tend to need more of a ramp up time, like unless they're already ready to go. Usually it's more of a like they need to be able to relax and feel safe and feel like they can have this moment and enjoy it. And when you're just like let's do this in the five minutes we have before we go to bed, or like you were saying, and when you're just like let's do this in the five minutes we have before we go to bed, or like you were saying, annette, every other time we've done this, it hurts and or I'm not and or I'm not having an orgasm, so like, fine, let's just do it and get it over with. So I think in either of those cases using that term, I think it I think the desire discrepancy sometimes it should be neutral, but I think a lot of times we do kind of put more of it on the person who wants sex. More or less I think it goes towards one way or the other, depending on who's in the conversation.
Speaker 2:But I do think it's easier to talk about desire discrepancy and be like hey, there's a problem here, like and it may take us a while to figure out that it's because you don't bother paying attention to me until you want sex. That's still, in a lot of ways, easier to have conversations, work and work towards dealing with and going well, he's an addict, I'm an addict, you know it's that addict just kind of gives up that like well, there's nothing we can do. And so the desire discrepancy at least opens that door to have more conversations about like hey, you want sex later. Why not send me a text during the day? Send me some dirty text during the day, call me and leave me a dirty message, let me know that I'm. Give me something that lets me know I exist in your world until you just want the bad sex. And so I think that there's more room to work. I think the problem is again with the label. We stick the label on people and go desire discrepancy and then we don't go. Okay, how do we move past it?
Speaker 1:Right. Or we don't even get to that label and we're stuck at. He's a sex addict.
Speaker 3:Right, labeled as a sex addict and then, depending on the resources available to you or your understanding, or even buy into the sex addict label, because it's not a diagnosis, so it's a label the resources around you, are they going to be quality? Are they going to actually identify that? Well, no, this isn't addiction. This is not diagnosable addiction.
Speaker 2:This is Well, no, this isn't addiction. This is not diagnosable addiction. This is compulsive behavior based off of unresolved XYZ. So they've kind of tapered off their sex life with you, so you're turning anywhere else to get it. Yeah, and that's. The problem is that while we say people are in treatment, unless they're actually getting into that stuff, it's never going to be addressed. And I think that once we put a label on it, depending on the label, sometimes that label is free reign. Now I'm an addict, I have no control, I'm not responsible for my behavior, whereas I'm not being a great partner. That's something I can probably work on, and so part of it is also the ownership behind the concept that we're laying on them.
Speaker 3:I just like cheating. I like the taboo and the thrill of cheating, and whether or not I'm going to get caught, that's not to me that's not addiction. That's almost a kink in a way. You know.
Speaker 1:That's where swinging comes in. But I do have a question. Yeah, cause you can do it, but it's not cheating. Yes, so there are fixes for that, folks, all right. So here's a good question at this point in the episode If sex addiction isn't a real diagnosis, then then how the fuck are they treating it?
Speaker 1:What are the treatments? And are those treatments going to do more harm than good? Because, like in this case of, let's say, the husband gets caught with, like, all the porn sites he's been checking out, I would be in so much trouble if anybody got on my computer, jesus Christ, computer, jesus Christ. And so, or he's had an affair because you know his wife, just you know, no one wants to have sex with someone who doesn't want to have sex with them. But if you can't have sex with anybody else because you've promised your life to someone who's refusing to have sex with you, like well, it's kind of like there you are right. So now he's cheated, but he doesn't want his family to fall apart. So he's like, yes, I'm a sex addict, right. And then he goes and they treat him for it. Which means what? Now he learns how to desire sex and intimacy less.
Speaker 2:Or he's learned that I get to pay this money and go off into a nice, you know, rehabilitation center that's somewhere lovely and have my meals cooked for me and be able to do the social stuff, but then he comes back to real life eventually.
Speaker 1:He comes back to real life eventually, yeah. So he's got to either learn how to hide it better or leave the relationship, or it just it's going to be, it's going to happen again, or he learns how to, you know, push down his desire, which also is a terrible thing.
Speaker 2:Right, that's not. We don't want people pushing down desire. We want people enjoying what's happening. But it's yeah, from my what am I very limited. What was?
Speaker 1:that I'm sorry. What is the treatment? Do you know what the treatment is?
Speaker 2:no. So for my very limited I was gonna say for my very limited experience with this, I had someone actually do a project on this and like call a center and be like, oh, my husband has, you know, totally fake, my husband has sex addiction. Like what? Totally fake, my husband has sex addiction. Like what's going to happen? It's like, oh, we're going to do like behavioral and cognitive behavioral therapy and lots of group sessions and talking and they'll be in a place where they can meditate and refine their center and I'm like they're going on vacation. They're going on vacation with a little group chat.
Speaker 2:Now it could be that when they got there I don't want to say that every treatment center is bad If the label sex addiction is what gets you into a center and there are issues with, like, overcoming trauma, or there are issues of not knowing how to deal with the desire, discrepancy, or like I'm a shitty lover, if there are ways of addressing that. So let's go with someone who's been through trauma, you know, and they do do the counseling and they do do the therapy and they do look at how people may have been using sex to avoid dealing and coping and they work through that. That's great. But unless you lay out a really good treatment plan for a thing that does not exist, I don't really think a lot's happening at most of these treatment centers. I'm sure we're going to get a whole lot of hate mail now from so many of these treatment centers yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, what is the treatment for people with hypersexuality or compulsive?
Speaker 2:sexuality. So what that's going to be is really having people look at what is it if you're having a lot of sex to avoid something. What is it that you're trying to avoid? What is it that you're trying to avoid? And then, once we can name it, how can we work through it? If it's you don't feel connected to humans unless you're physically having sex with them, where did that come from? How do we work through that? How do we move you on to a place where sex isn't being used to cover a negative emotion? And I think there's some legitimate work that can be done there.
Speaker 2:If it's I'm having all this sex because I don't want to deal with the guilt that I experience when I'm having, you know, I have all these thoughts about sex and then I feel guilty about it. Well, let's talk about why you feel guilty about it. Why are these urges making you feel guilty? Because hypersexuality isn't just about sexual behavior. It's also about fantasies and urges that feel uncontrollable. So why does it feel uncontrollable? Why do you feel guilt? How do you know? Is this because of the way you were raised? Is this because of something a partner said to you that has absolutely changed the way you internalize yourself and how you view sex.
Speaker 2:So I think for some of that, depending on what it is, I think there is some work that can be done. But unless you lay out that plan for someone and you can't know it until you talk to them, you know, unless you have this conversation be like, okay, you know, I've talked to you two or three times and what I'm hearing is that you're having what feels like uncontrollable urges, or these fantasies just get in the way of you functioning. So let's talk about how to get you to a place where you can function, still have fantasy, but function. It's going to be very different from someone who's using this to not cope with their anxiety or not cope with the lingering effects of whatever trauma they went through. So I think there are ways of treating someone for hypersexuality, but it's much more individualized.
Speaker 3:It's almost like what I'm hearing is that the hypersexuality is the symptom of something. So for treatment centers to label a sex addiction treatment plan, well, you, to your point, you can't really have a plan if the addiction a treatment plan if the addiction doesn't exist. But if I have a friend that I'm concerned about because I'm just noticing this risky sex play behavior, then if I'm noticing these behaviors, these compulsive or impulsive behaviors that are endangering your life, that's a different conversation than saying I think you're a sex addict. Than saying I think you're a sex addict, it's. I think it opens. Ideally it would open the door to. I'm here by your side. Let you know I could help you. I'm here to help you find a mental health professional. Let's figure out what's going on. So you at late, if you're feeling out of control and this is one thing you can control let's figure out what's contributing to that, what haven't you been able, what can control. Let's figure out what. What's contributing to that, what haven't you been able, what haven't you been given space to heal from right.
Speaker 2:And the only reason I would like the term sex addiction if I had to pick a reason why I like the term is it's something people have heard where if you go, you know something like you've been doing a lot of hooking up, like no judgment, you want to hook up, hook up but you're not going to work or you're feeling so much guilt afterwards that you're having problems functioning. I don't. Most people aren't going to be able to be like I think it's hypersexuality or they're going to say, hey, I think you're coping, it's going to be sex addiction and if that's the term they use to find a way to get help that's the only reason, I'd be OK with it, and I I'm definitely going to get hate mail after this.
Speaker 2:I'm not a fan of the idea of a 12-step program for sex addiction Because, again, it's like this idea that you can use a 12-step program to help you with this thing. That does not really exist and there are so many other things underneath it. So I think that the term can be helpful if it gives me a launching point to learn more, but I think we have to be really careful about like treatment centers and 12 step programs when it comes to this.
Speaker 3:It's almost like it keeps it at the surface level, right For some of those treatment centers and those 12 step programs. Is that it?
Speaker 2:it is a band-aid, it it doesn't get to the root of what is leading to your desire to engage in that, in that behavior yeah, and I think I don't want to get too much down the 12-step route, because I I know some people whose lives were changed by alcoholics anonymous absolutely changed and they've been sober for decades. I also know people who really it didn't work because it wasn't getting at the underlying issues usually depression and anxiety, but not always and so I think it's just. I think it's hard to just say here's the thing that's going to work for everyone, but I think when we go treatment center for sex addiction, I think we're probably losing more people than we're helping. And if you've got numbers and you're from a treatment center, send me your data. I'd be happy to take a look at that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I worry about anything, especially when it comes to women and sexuality and women enjoying and embracing their pleasure and sex, anything that might steer women away from that. You know not that. I don't know, and I absolutely have known women who had some compulsivity around their choices with sex. But I don't think that the answer to that is to turn off the desire and turn off the want for sex. I really think that the fix to that is to reconnect with your body and be in your body and be present with each decision you're making around sex.
Speaker 1:I think one of the reasons especially why women who have been through sexual trauma keep seeking another partner and another partner and more sex and more sex is because then they get into bed and they go out of their body and they're not feeling it and so they get done with it and they don't feel satisfied and it just feels like another bad interaction. And it's when you truly reconnect with yourself and you get to be present and and your body, the sensation wakes up and and you feel it, um, that it's empowering and you can start to heal that. But if someone's telling you you're something's wrong with you because you want a lot of sex, then that's's, if anything, that's going to throw you even further, right away outside of your body and and and make it you so much further away from any kind of healing yeah, and we don't want anyone to feel ashamed of their sexual behavior.
Speaker 2:We don't want anyone to feel well, unless it's not consensual which I know we always say no judgment at the top of the show and then we're like judgment. If it's not consensual which I know we always say no judgment at the top of the show and then we're like judgment. If it's not consensual, that's not them.
Speaker 1:No, we can't judge that. We can judge non-consent Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but. But what we're saying is that just and I love that I was actually thinking the words be present right before you said it the idea of being present and understanding and why you're doing what you're doing and not like you have to do a deep, meaningful, like I'm about to hook up with this person a whole self-psycho analysis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me do some five minutes of reflection and figure out what it is. But I know one of the things I run across with my college students is that they tell me that they're kind of sick of hooking up, which is it's fascinating, because the hookup culture thing didn't really exist, but whatever. Um, but they, they, they don't feel good after because they were doing it to feel like someone wanted them and so they got that validation in the moment and that afterwards it didn't feel good. So they're swearing off sex and I'm like whoa, like those are two so you can still enjoy sex. But you should probably look at that validation piece a little bit. But there's no reason why, like the last thing I want these folks doing is walking out, going. Sex is bad, I hate sex and sex is no good for me. Like that's the last message. If that's what you're getting from the show, start again, because that is absolutely not the message we want you getting.
Speaker 1:Right? No, I think sex can, can, be like just as incredible. Like for me, for sure, it's once I stepped away from the shameful aspect of it and embraced the yeah, I like to have sex, I like to have it a lot.
Speaker 2:I like to have it in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1:I've enjoyed having it with many people, yeah, and I've enjoyed having it with many people, different genders and once I stopped being afraid of that and what it meant to the rest of the world and stopped like it's a very healing thing and it's just so hard. It's like to teach people that when they're like in a society that really weaponizes sexuality and pleasure and sex for anything other than procreation, like it's really Like it's really hard. It's really hard to teach people that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's go ahead, charlie. That's the other exception I take to this term of sex addiction is that it it continues to reinforce that shame to want to engage in desire or feel unashamed about desire. It's a way to try and say, well, you don't feel ashamed, are you sure? Because I think you're an addict, you know, and ashamed. Yeah, yeah, we really should, because I mean, you should feel so ashamed. Look how many programs are out there for this. You should, you know. So I think that's why I take exception to it as well, as I just want to keep honing in on this piece of it doesn't address the causes. It doesn't get to.
Speaker 3:If you're someone who has been told that you're a sex addict and maybe you're going to, maybe you're doing group work You're only ever talking. I imagine I don't have experience so I will throw that out there but I imagine you're only ever talking about it in that, about the addiction level in a group setting, and that it because perhaps you've been, you're doing that and you aren't really getting to the. I had affection withdrawn from me at a young age and so I equate sex with affection and so I constantly seek sex and I make certain decisions to do that and it's impacted me in a way. Whatever it's really just that that sex addiction continues to reinforce shame around sex and it just feels like more another avenue to continue to reinforce the purity culture that we have here in America.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And if we had more people who were like trained on how to deal with the underlying issues. But again, we don't. You can become a mental health professional in this country with zero training in anything related to sex, and so it's much easier to be like, well, you've got an addiction and I can't really treat that, so I'm going to send you on to an addict specialist. But if we had more people who are well-versed and like, let's talk about the stuff behind it. And so I think it's.
Speaker 2:I think absolutely it ties into the purity culture. I think absolutely it's tying into let's just throw out all the things like it's trying into the the double standard for men versus women, and I I think it's just playing into this idea that we have a system that doesn't openly talk about sex and doesn't help you. If you legitimately need help around the subject, you don't know how to like pleasure your partner. There there are people who have videos on only fans who can help you learn technique. But then you've got to be okay with the idea that you're going on only fans and we have a whole culture that tells you that if you know, you've got something wrong with you if you're going on only fans, and if you're on only fans, as a creator, obviously there's, you know, some unresolved childhood issues.
Speaker 2:So I think it's just this whole I mean not not to point fingers, but I I think it, I think it just. It just shows like the bigger issues that exist in this culture that aren't going away anytime soon right.
Speaker 1:I think that this, also this topic, has been a really beautiful way to illustrate how the patriarchy, how purity culture and the patriarchy as is the woman who is, you know, is going to suffer as much as perhaps her partner, who can't understand why, even though he's trying to meet her needs, she's going out and seeking out more. Like it hurts just everybody, everybody, and you can look at it from whatever gender you identify, as you can see a way in which this is not helping anyone get their needs met and lead a fulfilling life. Yep.
Speaker 2:And heal, right. Yeah, and that's really what we want. I mean, we want people to have the sex lives that they want, or the ones that they imagine they can have and they've never actually experienced. It's like we want people to have those sex lives that make them feel whole, and I think a lot of times, this conversation, the conversation about sex addiction, just slams down the conversation and stops it, and that's the problem. Yeah, and the fact that there's no diagnostic criteria, because I don't think I've said that for 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:I was wondering. I think that's an important like let's put that stamp on it, so folks, we know it's. This is not a legitimized diagnosis. Sometimes, let's just be real, Some diagnoses, even though they are really like called illnesses, are bullshit anyways. But I will not digress.
Speaker 1:But this is a totally different episode, but this one really isn't, and and it can cause harm, so much harm, so much harm when, when sex is weaponized, it harms everybody, sometimes mostly women, but everybody. And I think that the label sex addiction is a great illustration of that. Yep, yep, so orgies for everybody. There we go. I'm just joking. Sex is good, sex is good, okay, folks. Well, I think if you are not yet convinced that sex addiction isn't real, I don't know what to tell you. But here's what I do want to say If you are concerned about being a sex addict or that you are dating a sex addict, or you know a sex addict, take time to sit with the information you just had. Perhaps instead you've got a friend or a loved one who's struggling with something deeper and needs help, so you can support them in that way. I want to thank my guests for being here and, before we go, dr Sue and Charlie, can you let my listeners know where they can find you? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Do you want to take this one? Go for it, dr Sue. So you can find us both at Unzipping Taboos, candid Conversations About Sex, which is our podcast that's available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and probably everywhere else you can find a podcast. And if you just want to submit a question to me, a sex question that you want answered, you can find me at HeyDrSue on Instagram, medium Substack. Just put in HeyDrSue and see what comes up. I think that's all of it for us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we're on Instagram as well. I'm Unzipping Taboos, charlie. The podcast is on Instagram, so you can engage with us there. And Dr Sue, I think what's your name? Heydrsue? There you go, there you go. So yeah, you can engage with us there and Dr Sue, I think what's your name. Hey, dr Sue, there you go, there you go.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you can engage with us there too. Now, if you think you're a sex addict, or that you're with one, or you've listened to this podcast and you've had some feelings about it, you know how to get in touch with me. You can go. If you're a listener, you can head over to my YouTube channel where you can watch this and see our beautiful faces, and you can drop a comment below the video and that way we'll know that you want to say something specific about this episode. You can drop a comment or a question. We will try to get it answered. You can also reach out to me at Annette, at TalkSexWithAnnettecom. You can scroll down to the note section below and hit my speak pipe and send me a question. Again, I will do my best to get back to you and answer that question. Until next time, folks, thanks for joining us and we'll see you in the locker room. Cheers, cheers, cheers room, cheers.
Speaker 3:Cheers, cheers, cheers.