Sex Addiction

As promised, here are the answers to the survey questions. Why not play this game yourselves at home?

Do I have a problem with sex addiction?

Why not read through the statements below to see if any of them relate to you?

1. Have you ever tried to control or cut down the amount of sex you have? Only really when D becomes possessed with overwhelming boredom and starts trying to put his hand up my skirt in the middle of a BBC adaptation of a Jane Austen novel which I’m actually trying to watch, thank you very much!

2. Have you ever had sex with someone you didn't want to have sex with? They all seem like a good idea to begin with but I have occasionally lost interest part-way through and only continued out of politeness.

3. Do you need a sexual relationship to make your life bearable? No, but just making my life bearable seems like a lowly ambition. I was hoping to make my life unpredictable and flamboyant and the subject of a number of conflicting biographies following my death (or disappearance in mysterious circumstances).

4. Do you become anxious or even desperate when you are away from your partner? Only if we’re in a crowded place and I’ve mislaid him, when I instantly revert to ‘four year old lost in a department store’. I do become curious about what he’s up to in weeks like this one when he’s away and that’s sometimes vaguely unsettling.

5. Do you engage in sexual practices that bring you discomfort or pain? If you’ve been reading the blog I think you already know the answer to that one.

6. Do you feel that life would be meaningless without a sexual relationship? In a ‘biological imperative’ sort of way, yes of course it would. I sense the hovering threat of a twelve-step programme behind this question. One of the steps of twelve-step always seems to be God. Oh, they don’t call him that, they call him ‘a spiritual dimension’ or ‘a higher power’ but they mean God. Why should I assume I’m entitled to a meaningful life? That’s the sort of egocentric twaddle religions peddle. There’s no evidence that anyone’s life is meaningful other than for biological reasons. Life is random and I’m unimportant and those are not bad things.

7. Do you spend a lot of time thinking about sex? Other than the time I spend having it, scheming to have it, dealing with the repercussions of it, writing about it and buying unsuitably high-heeled shoes, why no, it hardly crosses my mind.

8. Do you feel uncomfortable about masturbation? I used to a little bit when I still lived at home and had a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the bedroom wall watching me do it. He’s not watching any more though, so it’s OK.

9. Have ever had an important relationship ruined through affairs etc? Not ruined, but I’ve dented it a couple of times.

10. Are you unable to concentrate on other aspects of your life because of thoughts of sex? Isn’t this true of everyone? If you’ve, say, dismantled your food mixer in the spirit of enquiry and then attempted to re-assemble it before anyone notices using only the line drawings in the instructions leaflet as a guide (and I’m not suggesting anyone here has done that, it’s a totally random example, right?) then you’ll know that this is a task that is significantly impaired by daytime fantasies of being tied to the kitchen table with clothes line by burglars and brutally assaulted with the contents of the veg box.

11. Do you feel that you lack dignity and completeness? Completeness? Is that like wholeness and oneness? Is it something to do with positive thinking and healing energy? My only lack of dignity comes from having to live in a world where people bang on about nonsense like completeness.

12. Would your quality of life improve if you were not so driven by sex and romance? Where did romance suddenly come from in a survey about sex addiction? Isn’t that like saying, “the trouble with alcoholics is that they’re driven by an excessive devotion to the intricacies of the distilling process”?

In summary, sex addicts cause distress to themselves and their loved ones by being self-centred and mercenary. They can overcome this by spending a lot of time thinking about themselves and what they could be getting out of life if they weren’t sex addicts. Did I miss out any irony here?