Cybersex – Implications for Therapy

1. Cybersex – Implications for Therapy By Patti Higgins

2. Cybersex use • Defined as any form of sexual expression accessed through the computer or the Internet, has increased dramatically over the past few years. • Cybersex poses little threat to people who do not have tendencies toward love and sex addictions or other compulsions. • However, for those who are predisposed to various obsessions and compulsions, cybersex can become devastatingly addictive. • Cybersex addiction is a serious, harmful problem that can affect not only the addict, but also his or her spouse, family, friends and employer.

3. Prevalences • 60 percent of all visits on the Internet involve a sexual purpose (Schneider & Weiss, 2001). According to Klein (2001), the most common group of activities on the Net involves sex. • Cybersex activities include viewing, downloading pornography along with masturbation, reading and writing sexually explicit letters and stories, e-mailing to set up live sex meetings, placing personal ads to meet sexual partners, visiting sexually oriented chat rooms, and engaging in interactive online affairs which include real-time viewing of each other using electronic cameras hooked up to the computer (Schneider & Weiss, 2001).

4. Cybersex & pornography • Cooper (1998) reports that clients with cybersex disorders tend to be successful, workaholic Silicon Valley executives and engineers who are trying to compensate for emptiness in their lives or a disorder of intimacy. • Pornography is often utilized to ‘self-medicate’ against feelings of anger, disappointment, boredom, stress, anxiety, loneliness or sadness” (Line & Cooper, 2001).

5. Why cybersex? • Some people use cybersex as an outlet for aspects of their eroticism, for example a desire to explore more aggressive sexual encounters or mild fetishes, that they are not willing to discuss with their partners” for fear of rejection and disapproval (Crooks & Baur, 1999, p. 421). • People participate in cybersex for different reasons including the opportunity to experiment with new things, share fantasies, see themselves through a new lover's eyes, and receive anonymous sexual gratification (Klein, 2001).

6. Cybersex addiction • The Internet provides users with the three A's: access, affordability and anonymity (Cooper, 1998). • Given the current cybersex addiction rate, researchers can foresee that such intensified virtual reality sex will become as addictive when the technology becomes available to the general public (Rathus et al., 2001). • Cooper, Delmonico, & Burg (2000). Approximately 71% of their respondents changed their ages, 38% changed their races, and 5% have changed their genders online.

7. Categorizing cybersex users • Researchers divided cybersex users into three categories - recreational users, "at risk" users, and sexually compulsive users (Cooper et al. 1999). • People with tendencies toward problematic sexual behavior on the Internet fell into one three groups: discovery, predisposed and lifelong sexually compulsive (Carnes et al., 2001). • Of 9177 subjects, 5.6% scored as highly sexually compulsive, 10.9% scored as tendency toward sexual compulsivity, implying some degree of difficulties with sexual behaviors, and 83.5% were non-sexually compulsive (Cooper, Delmonico, & Burg, 2000).

8. Problems for cybersex addicts • Adverse effects of compulsive cybersex use include devastation of the participant's emotions, social life, work, finances, legal status, as well as harm to the user's significant other and children (Schneider & Weiss, 2001). • Cybersex addicts usually won’t address their problems until they’ve lost jobs, isolated family and friends, gone into bankruptcy from porno site charges and ruined relationships. Then, ashamed and threatened they may begin to seek help, but even then they can't always stop (Klein, 2001).

9. Co-addicts & significant others • Schneider (2000b) found that co-cyberaddicts and significant others become heavily involved, almost obsessed, in helping the addict to recover. • Specific phases of prerecovery of sexual coaddicts described by Milrad (1999) follow the similar patterns. The three stages of ignorance/denial, shock/discovery, and problem-solving attempts in Schneider’s study reflect similarities with Milrad’s (1999) two phases of denial and active solutions.

10. Underlying causes • Frequently, cybersex addicts have underlying issues of love and sex addiction. They simply express their addictions online whereby, traditional love and sex addicts act out in life physically instead of virtually. Whereas, symptoms of love and sex addiction include being detached or unhappy when out of a relationship, cybersex addicts feel detached and unhappy when waiting to get back online for cybersex (Weiss, 2001). Addicts feel desperate and alone unless they have a real or virtual partner to reassure them of their worth.

11. Cyber affairs & infidelity issues • “Virtual reality is no longer a game. Its impact is real and we, as consultants and experts on human relationships, may increasingly be asked to help our clients cope with their virtual lives” (Freedman, 1997, p. 71). • People have affairs and cyberaffairs to fill emotional voids, their sense of attractiveness, and sexual needs not being met in their primary relationships (Crooks & Baur, 1999). • Several partners in Schneider’s (2000b) study who had dealt with both cyberaffairs and live affairs said that both were devastating.

12. Therapy • Knowledgeable therapists gave appropriate diagnoses, guidance about how to stop the behaviors, referrals to 12-step programs and encouragement to involve spouses or partners in therapy. Overall, most respondents found therapy very instrumental to their recovery processes. • Therapists should treat the disease similarly to other sex addictions. Schneider (2000a) notes that “initially, the addict needs to be helped to break through the denial that a problem exists and to recognize the impact of the behaviors on the partner and family; stop the behaviors and associated lying; stop blaming the significant other; learn problem-solving; and develop strategies for dealing with sexual urges.

13. Couples therapy • Maheu (2001b) suggests some basic steps to help recovering cyberaddicts enhance their marriages and other committed relationships. Maheu (2001b) proposes recovering cyberaddicts talk to their partners about “what you would like to create (not what you find missing) in your relationship and try to make that happen with him/her”. Making time for romantic dates can reignite sexual sparks.