Whore: Female Sexual Addiction and Denigration

Sexually-oriented stereotyping is a burden women encounter daily, especially when it comes to compulsive behaviors. This stigmatization is served with a doubled bias regarding any subject around sex. There are female sex addicts, but that does not mean you’re an addict if you are sexually active, have specific values, or are struggling with compulsiveness (Carnes, 2011). How do you know if you are simply exercising your physical freedoms, repeating trauma from past abuse, or are a sex addict?

What is sexual addiction?

There are many definitions of sex addiction. Though still debated by mental health professionals continuously, the World Health Organization (WHO) added it to its list of behavioral health disorders in 2011. Defined as a compulsive sexual behavioral disorder, WHO defines this as:

“Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder is characterised by a persistent pattern of failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses or urges resulting in repetitive sexual behaviour. Symptoms may include repetitive sexual activities becoming a central focus of the person’s life to the point of neglecting health and personal care or other interests, activities and responsibilities; numerous unsuccessful efforts to significantly reduce repetitive sexual behaviour; and continued repetitive sexual behaviour despite adverse consequences or deriving little or no satisfaction from it. The pattern of failure to control intense, sexual impulses or urges and resulting repetitive sexual behaviour is manifested over an extended period of time (e.g., 6 months or more), and causes marked distress or significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Distress that is entirely related to moral judgments and disapproval about sexual impulses, urges, or behaviours is not sufficient to meet this requirement.”

In short, the concept of sexual addiction is still new and controversial. When asked whether sex addiction is a real thing, I reply: yes.

I had the fortune of treating hundreds of cases at The Meadows Gentle Path and Willow House. These opportunities led me to specialize in the treatment of these disorders. I had no experience with the concept of sexual addiction. However, I always knew there are people who struggle with these behaviors. I’ve witnessed them several times in my personal life.

I treated female sexual addicts. But, not all hypersexual individuals fall under the diagnosis of sexual addiction. In fact, most men and women don’t.

In their 2018 study, Dickenson, Gleason, Coleman, and Miner found that 7% of those studied were females who reported severe levels of distress and impairment associated with difficulty controlling sexual feelings, urges, and behaviors. Estimations of men-to-women ratios vary from 2:1 to 5:1 men to women. This field of research is still new and heavily stigmatized. So, there are people afraid to talk about their problems with sex. Differences in men and women in treatment vary, and there are several theories why more men discuss their sex addiction vs. women. For one, women are shoved into a derogatory category whenever they explore topics related to copulating.

Stereotyping Sexual Females

“What a whore.”

Rumors are always my favorite! From middle school on, I had to deal with this childish concept of making oneself look better than someone else by putting that other down. Typically done without the presence or knowledge of that individual at the center of the conversation, these wonderful stories circulated throughout social circles in so many versions.

High school gossip about what I did was so entertaining. I remained on the edge of my seat to find out what I did next. Odd thing: I didn’t have any interest in boyfriends until I was 17. I worked whenever I wasn’t at school. I had no time and I had my own traumas. My sights were set on college graduation. Financial power and control became my first deeply ingrained lesson, learned from the finest of parental examples.

Stigma was strong with us back in the 1990s. It remains today, although improved from my experiences in educational institutions. Work breakrooms remind me of this at times. Some people never mentally graduated high school.

Growing up, there was a fellow student who became pregnant at 13. In this small town we lived in, everyone knew about everyone else’s business. No one knew about the events leading up to it. She had the baby, and is an excellent mother, to this day. People shunned and gossiped about this girl for years. She lost friends, opportunities, and self-esteem. You could feel the change of attitude in the air when she walked by a group of kids.

What no one talked about was the sexual abuse from a familial member that lead her to wind up pregnant in 8th grade, nor the pure hell of recovery she had to stumble through while she should have been growing up herself and enjoying childhood. Of course, these facts rarely exist in the rumor mills. It’s so much more fun to debase (sarcasm).

“Did you hear about….?”

They spread horrific gossip about this girl. She liked it. She wanted it. She asked for it. Watch out, or she’ll spread her legs for your boyfriend. She was only a few years older than my own now, and a victim of some terrifying familial circumstances. A child, left to wander through a mess created by those very people tasked to keep her safe, was abandoned and forced to raise another human life at an age at she couldn’t even get a job legally.

Gossip is a form of harassment, and makes a hostile work, or social environment. It does nothing but detracts from the value of any human life and spreads hate and negativity.

Gossipping continued to surface in various situations throughout my high school, college, and later work circles. I became better at building those boundaries, requesting any and all be conducted without my presence.

Double Standards in Sexual Promiscuity

Whore is defined by Merriam-Webster as someone who is sexually promiscuous or conducts sexual acts for money; a prostitute (Merriam-Webster, 2023). This derogatory term was thrown around with many other labels for women who slept with a lot of men. Rarely did I hear men be referred to negatively for these same behaviors.

Maria Brink explains the demeaning use of this word and the freedom from letting go of the power we let others hold over us. When we buy into their definition of our character through belittling, we let them hurt and control us. Letting go of that is liberating.

It is only a word.

Catfights, female-to-female dehumanization, there was always a scandal around the corner. The affair partner was always blamed whenever someone cheated. The partner in common knowingly had physical interaction outside of a committed relationship-so why wasn’t that one persecuted?

The affair partner typically had no knowledge of the existence of a girlfriend or wife. I have more empathy for the third party since the shared partner was the one knowingly engaging in these boundary violations.

When it comes to men, however, they get the ultimate pass.

Because having sex is manly. Social scripts of machismo influence how boys are raised. Have sex with as many women as possible so you can show everyone just how much of a macho man you are. If you are rejected, force it.

Supra-masculine ideologies are discussed in depth in Mosher and Tomkin’s 1988 article “Scripting the Macho Man: Hypermasculine Socialization and Enculturation.” As described here, Tomkin’s script theory defines the process, support, and reasons for hypermasculinity.

This polarized view of the world sets men up for failure. As Mosher and Tomkins noted, “His polarity contrasts the humanist’s faith in the intrinsic value of human experience and potential with the normative’s faith in the ceaseless human struggle to live up to an ideal essence beyond man’s power to set or measure.”

Men are encouraged to be dominant, and aggressive, and to push out any form of perceived feminine qualities. Feminine qualities include emotionality, and despair, all seen as weak. Man’s fears of shame, contempt, and distress, drive them to conform to societally acceptable behaviors. Boys are taught to be strong, stoic predators. Women become viewed as weaker prey. Strong or weak, these teach them to act in ways that develop unsustainable relationships, unhealthy patterns, actual emotional imbalance, and potential criminal situations.

Machismo masculine men have 3 traits: (1) entitlement to callous sex, (2) violence as manly, and (3) danger as exciting. Mosher and Tomkins discuss in great detail how masculinity is distorted in the social realm through these lenses of what is socially favored. Where men are encouraged to display anger and excitement, women are depicted as distressed and fearful. Instilled from birth, men enter these rights of passage by stepping through layers of The basis for what we call toxic masculinity today, this remains an enculturated behavior that persists to undermine relationships. Being sexually callous and aggressive is one of those.

Sexuality is not Sex Addiction

The topic of sex addiction does not include pathologizing people with alternative sexual preferences. Dr. Stefanie Carnes does well to explain our concept and approach to sexual addiction in the 2015 “Guest Blog by Stefanie Carnes,” from Counselor magazine. As a certified sexual addiction counselor (CSAT), I differentiate between cultural behavior, that which may arise from other areas like personality or mood disorders, traumatic events, or numerous other differential diagnoses.

Sex addiction, like any other, is a way to medicate one from experiencing worse emotional states such as pain, anger, or terror. It is merely a maladaptive coping mechanism developed out of a conglomeration of environmental and genetic factors.

CSATs do not pathologize nontraditional forms of sexual expression like kinks, homosexuality, bisexuality, non-monogamy, or anything else defined as non-traditional, vanilla sex. We don’t take our personal beliefs or religious values and project them onto our patients. What I define as normal for me is not normal for everyone else.

As a therapist, I hold the mindset that these individuals have the capacity to figure out what is a healthy version of themselves and reach for that goal. I don’t set those goals, they do. And so, each treatment plan is tailored as such.

There are numerous ways one can develop problematic sexual behaviors. Trauma repetition, for example, has nothing to do with sex addiction.

Mark Schwarts defines trauma reenactment refers to the recreation of ritualized expressions of unresolved trauma (1996). These repeats of disguised events allow the patient to revisit unconsolidated and incomprehensible events in a futile attempt to master the original trauma. In compulsive sexuality, these repeated traumatic situations are the person’s way to gain control over an incontrollable, horrible event.

What does trauma reenactment look like? There are several movies based on this idea. Fearless with Jeff Bridges, tells the story of a plane crash survivor whose life changes immediately after the accident. He loses fulfillment from daily life factors such as family and begins to live as if he is invincible. Replaying similar events with dangerous factors, he is unable to recognize this cycle until the end of the movie until he reconciles with it near the end.

Sexual trauma looks like a person repeating relational or physical patterns with the same type of person. Women who chronically pair up with abusive partners, or men who find dominant and unopen women. These cycles repeat throughout eternity until this person comes to the realization that they are attracted to this unhealthy pattern.

Women who report compulsive sexual behaviors are more likely to report histories of sexual abuse.

So, how do you tell the difference between lifestyle and compulsion?

Namely: distress and inability to control impulses. The individual must have some form of life suffering and inability to cope for a lengthy period of time, usually 6 months or longer.

To recap, these criteria have nothing to do with someone’s sexual orientation, the existence of kinks, casual sex, bisexuality, having affairs, or religious values or practices. These have nothing to do with the definition of addiction.

Having offending behaviors, mood disorders, or religious beliefs that define certain relationships as immoral are not considered to be sex addictions. Celebrities like Harvey Weinstein and Tiger Woods who claimed their problems resulted from sex addiction were not sex addicts necessarily. As therapists, we determine this diagnosis based on several criteria.

Regardless, it is something that is treatable. There are answers and support. You are not your behaviors, and you can change this.

If you are a woman and struggling with any of these issues, please don’t believe the stereotypes. You are not defective, doomed to this role forever. You can heal.

Don’t listen to the masses. Find yourself. You are not broken, only wounded.

References:

1. World Health Organization. ICD-11 for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics. Accessed 2/20/23 from: https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http%253A%252F%252Fid.who.int%252Ficd%252Fentity%252F1630268048
2. Carnes, Patrick J. Recovery Start Kit: Therapist Manual (p2). Gentle Path Press, 2011.
3. Dickenson JA, Gleason N, Coleman E, Miner MH. Prevalence of Distress Associated With Difficulty Controlling Sexual Urges, Feelings, and Behaviors in the United States. JAMA Netw Open. 2018 Nov 2;1(7):e184468. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.4468. PMID: 30646355; PMCID: PMC6324590.
4. “Whore.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whore. Accessed 20 Feb. 2023.
5. Schwartz, M. Reenactments related to bonding and hypersexuality. Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, 3(3), 1996.