Many person including some experts fail even to consider that females might struggle with sexual addiction.
The opposite condition—women who are sexually uninterested—is more of the expected problem. In error, sexual compulsivity is still largely considered an
adult male phenomenon, much like alcoholism was initially thought to be exclusively a male disease.
One woman who was studied intensively for female addiction was illustrative of this misconception.
She had arrived early at the meeting site and sat quietly off to herself as others came in. That’s not unusual.
Most of the attendees are initially terrified and withdrawn. But as each successive woman entered the room, this first participant’s eyes grew wider and wider.
Soon tears were streaming down her face. Before the leader could even begin introducing the staff, this woman stood, addressed her sisters, and exclaimed. For years I’ve thought I was the only female who struggled like this. I can’t believe I’m in a room with a dozen other women who admit to being sex addicts!
Nobody talks about this sexual stuff going on with women. For the first time in my life, tonight I don’t feel all alone.
Here, I belong. Indeed, one reason for the myth that females are not sexually addicted is because women themselves fail to talk about their struggle. Fear of being alone in their behavior keeps many women silent about their disease.
Even those women who are in recovery are rarely open about their history.
The enormous shame that still surrounds sex addiction in general, and the even greater stigma which is applied to female addicts, maintains the silence and contributes to this first myth that women are somehow exempt from this disease.
A diagnostic instrument that fails to include females’ experiences of sexually compulsive behavior would only perpetuate this myth. Without informed and conscious intent to address the specific ways female sex addicts differ from their male counterparts, a diagnostic tool would likely miss the identification of many addicted women.
