Online Sex Addiction Quiz

Thank you for taking our sex addiction quiz! We've added some additional information below about sex addiction that you may find useful.

What is Sex Addiction, or Hypersexual Disorder?

Compulsive sexual behavior, also called hypersexuality, hypersexuality disorder, or sexual addiction, is an excessive obsession with sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors that sufferers struggle to control. It can cause great distress and negatively affect your health, relationships, and daily life.

Hypersexual disorder untreated can cause damage to a sufferer's self-esteem, relationships, career, health, and also other people.

Signs of Sex Addiction

Because sex addiction is yet to be officially included in the DSM-5, there's debate about what criteria constitute an addiction.

A person may have a sex addiction if they show some of the following signs:

• Not being able to stop or control their behavior
• Feeling guilt after sex
• Disregarding danger to themselves or others due to their behavior
• Obsession with having sex, even when it interferes with productivity, work performance, school performance, and/or daily life
• Compulsive sexual behavior with multiple partners
• Obsessive sexual thoughts and fantasies

DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Hypersexual Disorder

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), or DSM-5, does not yet include hypersexual disorder. However, it has been proposed with the following criteria:

A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent and intense sexual fantasies, sexual urges, and sexual behavior in association with 4 or more of the following 5 criteria:

1. Excessive time is consumed by sexual fantasies and urges, and by planning for the engaging in sexual behavior.
2. Repetitively engaging in these sexual fantasies, urges, and behaviors in response to dysphoric mood states (e.g., anxiety, depression, boredom, irritability)
3. Repetitively engaging in sexual fantasies, urges, and behaviors in response to stressful life events.
4. Repetitive but unsuccessful efforts to control or significantly reduce these sexual fantasies, urges, and behavior.
5. Repetitively engaging in sexual behavior while disregarding the risk for physical or emotional harm to self or others.

B. There is clinically significant personal distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning associated with the frequency and intensity of these sexual fantasies, urges, and behaviors.

C. These sexual fantasies, urges, and behaviors are not due to direct physiological effects of exogenous substances (e.g., drugs of abuse or medications), a co-occuring general medical condition, or to manic episodes.

D. The person is at least 18 years of age.

Specify if: Masturbation, Pornography, Sexual Behavior With Consenting Adults, Cybersex, Telephone Sex, Strip Clubs

According to Rory Reid, a research psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry at UCLA, hypersexual disorder is a real mental health disease:

“The criteria for hypersexual disorder that have been proposed, and now tested, will allow researchers and clinicians to study, treat and develop prevention strategies for individuals at risk for developing hypersexual behavior.”

Sex Addiction Treatment

For mental health professionals who say they treat sex addiction, one or more of the following methods are recommended:

Inpatient treatment

Many treatment centers offer inpatient treatment programs for sex addiction recovery. A person suffering from an addiction may require the removal from their daily lives for a certain period of time to regain control over their impulses and to start the healing process.

12-step program

Some programs like Sex Addicts Anonymous follow a similar approach to Alcoholics Anonymous that can be very helpful in addressing sex addiction.

According to Sex Addicts Anonymous' website, their purpose is to stop

"addictive sexual behavior and to help others recover from sexual addiction. Recovery was possible for most of us only when we accepted the fact that we were powerless over our addictive sexual behavior and that we were incapable of changing without help from outside ourselves. Many of us came to this realization when we started attending SAA meetings. In that setting we heard stories similar to ours and realized that recovery from our malady was possible. We learned through the SAA Fellowship that we were not hopelessly defective."

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is helpful in treating an assortment of mental health conditions, including helping a person identify triggers for their sexual impulses and to teach ways to alter their behavior. You can find mental health professionals who use cognitive behavioral therapy here.

Getting Help with Sex Addiction

If you need help, there is hope! Reach out to a sex addiction therapy health professional.