If you've been looking for love in all the wrong real-time places and turn to the world of cyberspace, surf carefully or risk the grip, say therapists said to be helping growing numbers dealing with Internet-related sex addiction troubles.
Cybersex compares to telephone sex in one sense, says Sexual Recovery Institute of Los Angeles clinical director Robert Weiss to APBNews. "It involves frank discussion of sexual acts in real time as they are occurring," he says. The institute is said to treat some 125 patients a week - half of whom, Weiss says, have an Internet side to their sexuality.
David N. Greenfield of the Center for Addiction Studies in West Hartford, CT, tells APBNews the Net lets people be "much more readily consumed" by sexually explicit involvements than they'd be otherwise. "The potential for addiction for those who are on the edge is so much greater - like pouring fuel on a fire," Greenfield says.
But APBNews says existing sex addiction isn't the only way to surf into online lust. Many other psychological or social problems can start it.
"People who have some kind of marital problem, stress or depression can start to use the Internet as a coping mechanism," California psychologist Dana E. Putnam tells the online crime news service. "The husband can start looking at pornography on the Web, or go into a sex chat room and look for people to talk to -- the Internet is a new area to vent [such] problems."
"Based on a study of 18,000 people published in the September 1999 issue of the Journal of Cyberpsychology and Behavior, I came up with an estimate that 5.7 percent of Internet users are using it in a compulsive manner," Putnam continues. "That [is equivalent to] several million people [nationwide]. A large percentage of obsessive-use patterns have a sexual component -- porno sites, sex-related chat rooms and cybersex."
Putnam, in fact, estimated there are some 300,000 adult Net sites, cybersex sites, and sex chat rooms online.
The variety of sexual material easily available is a new fact of modern life, Pennsylvania psychologist Kimberly Young tells APBNews. "In a minute you can download pornography or go to a sex chat room," she says. "In real life, that kind of access is much more difficult to come by."
But what of the fallout? APBNews says serious cybersex addiction can break off sexual intimacy with one's spouse or primary lover, as well as "engaging in sexual situations in which you would not ordinarily find yourself" to financial trouble if you lose your job for downloading porn or racking up big fees on pay sites.
Young says a spouse can find out what the other spouse is doing online and that can even lead to divorce. "(And) that can become an issue in child custody cases," she tells APBNews. "And people who download child pornography material or go online to meet children with sex in mind can become targets of FBI or police sting operations."
"When you're engaging in cybersex, you're sexually aroused and get caught up in the moment," Weiss tells APBNews. "You're less likely to think about your actions and might make a decision that you would otherwise not make, to cross a boundary that you wouldn't otherwise cross."
How to attack it, then? Those who fear their online sex fascination is getting out of hand can find treatment, APBNews says, adding that there are several Web sites offering help for cybersex addiction, from counseling to couples, group, or individual therapy.
As you might expect, treatment begins when either an unhappy partner insists or an addict runs into trouble on the job or with the law, APBNews continues. From there it depends on the individual problem. "If there is a pre-existing condition, you have to address that first," Greenfield tells APBNews. "If it is depression, you must treat that. If there are marital problems, you must start dealing with the marriage."
But it's also important to try breaking the obsessive use cycle, he continues, "immediately, if possible…(P)ut in a difficult password for Internet access, and [don't] tell the person [with the addiction] what it is."
