SEX ADDICTS VERSUS NON-ADDICTS SEX ADDICTS a Case study

Introduction: 'Sex addiction' appears to have been largely accepted within clinicalfields and popular culture. However, despite its 30 year history, the conceptremains ill-defined and lacking in empirical data. Indeed, proponents of sexaddiction continue to debate its terminology, definition, nosology, and aetiology,with a coherent model of the 'disorder' yet to be offered. An alternative accountpresented by the social constructionist model argues that the reason for thiscontention is because, rather than a pathological disorder, sex addiction representsa social construction. Those who argue from this perspective suggest that sexaddiction has been created to pathologize sexualities which fail to promotedominant sexual norms. Whilst this argument appears convincing, it is not clearwhy some may be more influenced by these dominant sexual norms and thuspathologize their sexuality, whilst others do not consider their sexuality to beproblematic. The answer to this may lie in certain individual differences, inparticular, personality, thinking dispositions, sexual attitudes, and religiosity.Aims: This was an exploratory piece of research which aimed to compare sexaddicts (SAs) to 'non-addicts' (NSAs) on the dependent variables: sexualbehaviour, the Big Five personality traits, categorical thinking, sexual attitudes, andreligiosity.Design: A convergent parallel design was employed, using questionnaires tocollect quantitative and qualitative data.