Sexual Addiction (see earlier article for definition) versus healthy sexual functioning is largely a management issue. The nature of human sexuality, whether it is managed effectively, or whether it is mismanaged to the degree of sexual addiction, requires us to negotiate a “duality”. The duality of sexuality exists in almost every aspect of sexual functioning. There is a duality socially between what we acknowledge and discuss with others, and what we actually think and believe and do in our sex lives. There is a duality in our sexual relationship with our sexual partner that exists between what we acknowledge and disclose to our sexual partner, and what we actually think, feel, and do sexually with them. There is a duality with ourselves between what we acknowledge to ourselves about various aspects of our own sexuality, and how we allow ourselves to consciously think, feel, and do sexually. We filter, screen, and withhold our sexual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from others in social settings, in our sexual relationships with intimate partners, and even intra-psychically, within ourselves. This is the nature of human sexuality.   Our society (conservative and liberal), our sex education and training, and our own individual psychological characteristics encourage us to create and maintain the duality. Sometimes there is a great variance between what we acknowledge outwardly and what we acknowledge inwardly, and thus, the duality is strained. Sometimes, there is a closer correlation between the inside and outside. Most often, however, we work to maintain the separateness between what we disclose openly and what we keep to ourselves, and we rarely acknowledge the existence of the duality or the psychological strain that it creates for us, and we pretend that it does not exist!
It is difficult to manage what we do not acknowledge and what we do not understand. The duality has existed as long as humans have had conscious thought. It exists in the biblical creation story, and it exists in the story of evolution, and it exists in our tabloid journalism stories, and it exists inside you, the reader of this article. Lack of acknowledgment and understanding of our sexual impulses and desires renders us more apt to mismanage our sexual selves and default to a “just do it” strategy. As explained throughout the sexual addiction literature, many of the greatest costs …and tragedies… of sexual addiction is a result of “unintended consequences” related to the poor choices that we make in our sexual lives when managing our duality.  Such lack of awareness of ourselves, and lack of the process, creates a denial and thus a disregard of the possible tragic consequences that might likely impact ourselves and others. Once the health, marital, familial, economic, and/or occupational, legal tragedy occurs, and once the facts are reviewed, there is often disbelief at the level of irrationality exercised by the sexual addict. “What was he (or she) thinking?” “He was thinking with his penis.” “How could he do this?, etc. 
Examples of thought mismanagement and what he/she was thinking:

• If no one else discovers what I am doing, then I will be happy and no one else will suffer.
• This is for me and I deserve it and no one else understands.
• I am in love and I must be with this person, because we are soul mates and we should be together, even though we are trapped by the circumstances of our lives.
• I cannot get this type of satisfaction otherwise, and I must keep doing what I am doing to keep my family and my life intact.
• I am secretly unhappy, but if I do this, I can cope with unhappiness and I do not have to hurt anyone else or upset my family…so I am doing it for others.
• The only relief that I get from stress and anxiety is when I realize that I have no control and I give in to my impulses.

Most often, other individuals involved with the sexual addict, including “co-dependent partners”, are able to penetrate the denial process once confronted by severe consequences and tragedies. However, the sexual addict has created and developed sufficiently resilient “rationalizations” and excuses in an attempt to justify and balance their illicit behavior against the high levels of risk and potential destruction in their lives and in the lives of their significant others.

D. Jerome Meers, Ph.D.
Consulting Psychologist