Overview. Compulsive sexual behavior is sometimes called hypersexuality or sexual addiction. It's an intense focus on sexual fantasies, urges or behaviors that can't be controlled. This causes distress and problems for your health, job, relationships or other parts of your life.
Disinhibited sexual behaviour can include:
Sexual conversation or content Comments and jokes of a personal or sexual nature Inappropriate touching or grabbing Explicit sexual behaviour: sexual propositions • exposure of genitals or nudity in public • masturbation in a public place • unwanted touching • sexual assault.
When we sexualize our feelings (or eat over them), we use dissociative and/or arousing fantasies to self-soothe and distract the mind. Sexualization of feelings is a psychological coping mechanism. Typically, sexualization as a coping skill is learned in childhood and linked to early-life attachment trauma.
For example, many girls and boys are influenced by pornography, which is easily accessible online, and many want to reproduce the images they see there in their personal lives. As a result, girls continue to be objectified in the roles that are projected onto them, and they continue to be victimized.
According to the American Psychological Association, sexualization occurs when “individuals are regarded as sex objects and evaluated in terms of their physical characteristics and sexiness.”
Unwanted Attention or Physical Contact of a Sexual Nature
Looking at your body in a way that makes you uncomfortable, such as staring at your breasts or bottom. Making sexualized comments or remarks on how you look, such as a catcall. Stands too close to you and/or speaks suggestively to you.
In study after study, findings have indicated that women more often than men are portrayed in a sexual manner (e.g., dressed in revealing clothing, with bodily postures or facial expressions that imply sexual readiness) and are objectified (e.g., used as a decorative object, or as body parts rather than a whole person) ...
Objectification takes a person's humanity and autonomy away, which can be done without sex being involved, whereas sexualization can be done with humanity and autonomy in mind.
Sexual objectification is the act of treating a person solely as an object of sexual desire. Objectification more broadly means treating a person as a commodity or an object without regard to their personality or dignity.
Using women's bodies to sell products, giving women animal names, and the sexualization of girls and women are ways in which females are demeaned and objectified in society. For example, women can be judged or rated based on breast size or shape, turning them into sexual objects for the male gaze.
Foucault defined three modes of objectification, which are organizing principles that explain how human beings become subjects. These modes are: dividing practices, scientific classification and subjectification.
Hypersexualized models of femininity in the media affect the mental, emotional and physical health of girls and women on a global scale. Consequences of hypersexualization for girls and women include anxiety about appearance, feelings of shame, eating disorders, lower self-esteem and depression.
Cognitive and Emotional Consequences: Sexualization and objectification undermine a person's confidence in and comfort with her own body, leading to emotional and self-image problems, such as shame and anxiety.
When we sexualize our feelings (or eat over them), we use dissociative and/or arousing fantasies to self-soothe and distract the mind. Sexualization of feelings is a psychological coping mechanism. Typically, sexualization as a coping skill is learned in childhood and linked to early-life attachment trauma.
Hypersexualized models of femininity in the media affect the mental, emotional and physical health of girls and women on a global scale. Consequences of hypersexualization for girls and women include anxiety about appearance, feelings of shame, eating disorders, lower self-esteem and depression.
Hypersexuality disorder is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the American Psychiatric Association's handbook for diagnosing mental health conditions.
The causes of hypersexual behaviour are not well understood. However, sex addiction and hypersexuality may sometimes be caused by traumatic experiences, distress, or by mental illness, such as bipolar disorder. Adults who have been sexually abused as children may display increased sexual behaviour.
Hypersexuality is derived from particular pathways of post-traumatic symptoms. Depression is strongly related to hypersexuality, although gender has an important role in our model. Depression and guilt are serial mediators of trauma-hypersexual behavior relations.
Many people feel hypersexual impulses as their brains are focused on the trauma. They can enter an unhealthy cycle where they seemingly reenact their trauma. As mentioned, this can be a coping mechanism for many.
Unwanted Attention or Physical Contact of a Sexual Nature
Looking at your body in a way that makes you uncomfortable, such as staring at your breasts or bottom. Making sexualized comments or remarks on how you look, such as a catcall. Stands too close to you and/or speaks suggestively to you.
Hypersexualising oneself is when you sexualise yourself more than your standard amount. In the framework of a trauma response, it often comes from internalising the sexual objectification thrusted upon you. This commonly starts from a young age, moulding your self-worth as you normalise this belief.
Use as a coping skill: Hypersexuality can also be used as a mechanism to deal with past trauma. The individual can become compulsive about undoing the trauma, redoing it differently, or understanding it.
Persistent and intense sexual thoughts and urges: People with hypersexuality disorder may experience frequent sexual thoughts or urges that can be difficult to control or ignore. These thoughts and urges may be accompanied by a strong desire to act on them, even if it is inappropriate or risky.