thedarksiren2 | Speech Finals

My speech class requires us to do a very small research paper and a group presentation in which we role-play a conflict situation and the possible resolution of that conflict. My group chose sexual addiction as its topic.

I was supposed to be meeting with a girl from my group today at Cuyahoga Community College west because I do not have a printer, so she agreed to type out what I had written, and thus get out of her having to do much research herself. But she failed to show, which is why I now sit in the TAC.

The following is what I came up with, and am going to turn in. I just think that this is an interesting subject, and wanted to share what I have come up with, at least in part.

Sexual Addiction Defined

The word addiction is commonly associated with dependency upon and/ or obsession with someone or something. A sexual addiction is often overlooked by society, although studies have found it to be the underlying, or foundation, upon which other addictions, such as drug or alcohol abuse, are based. In this core-addiction, the person separates his or her emotions from the act of sex, objectifying the individuals he or she is intimate with, and sadly, exteriorizing themselves as well. Sex is simply an act performed in search of a high found only through the touch of another’s flesh, and the imagined power in that touch.
Many times, a sexual addict can be viewed as searching for feelings of control and/ or attachment; there is a need to feel as though he or she is a part of something greater than him or herself, to feel included and important to someone other than the self, similarly to the drug addict or alcoholic. In many instances, the person’s actions are a way of concealing painful memories and/ or experiences, and the emotions associated with those experiences, which he or she may feel helpless in overcoming. Unfortunately, the high sustained during addictive behaviors becomes self-defeating once the addict has peaked, or reached orgasm in the case of the sexual addict, and begins to lose the effects of that peak, or come down. The end result is a person left feeling more lonesome and isolated from society, more vacant spiritually, and many times, repulsed with him or herself.

(Two pages later...)

Kasl explains that “sobriety eventually becomes a synonym for a loving, self respecting life” (300), and that taking the focus off of the actual act of sex and the body, and focusing more upon the spiritual needs of the self, is the most essential step in recovering, rediscovering “the sacred self, the source of one’s love and power” (309).