Are you a sex addict in Gay Thailand?

[TotallyOz]

Reading CNN today about Tiger Woods and I came across the article. I shudder to think of my first trip to LOS and the number of guys I was with. I am now MUCH calmer and no butterfly and stick (for the most part) to my one boy special. But, reading the article, I had to wonder.

 

 

 

(CNN) -- When Jack Rogers first heard media reports of Tiger Woods' multiple extramarital affairs, the first thing he did was say a little prayer for Woods and his wife. The second thing he did was tally up the number of women who claimed to have had sex with the famous golfer.

 

"I said to myself, 'My God, that's some body count,' " Rogers remembers.

 

Jack Rogers -- that's not his real name -- knows a little something about body count because he has one of his own: In the first 20 years of his marriage, he says, he slept with some 50 women. While some view Woods as just an unfaithful louse who was looking for a good time, Rogers sees him as a sex addict.

 

What's the difference? Rogers, who works in the high-tech industry in Washington and has two children, says his whole life was geared around how he would have his next orgasm, in the same way a methamphetamine addict is constantly trying to find his next drug hit.

 

Between women and pornography, "I was having three, four, five orgasms a day," he says. "As soon as I was done with one I was thinking about how I was going to get the next one. Sex was controlling my life, and I was miserable."

 

Confessions of a sex addict

 

Now 49, Rogers says his addiction began at age 16.

 

"I would have sex for hours and hours at a time, and then go look at pornography," he remembers. "Sex was my all-consuming endpoint."

 

While some young men might brag about their sexual conquests, Rogers was the opposite. He kept his sex life a secret, seeking out girls who didn't attend his high school.

 

He says no one suspected.

 

"I was elected all-school president," he says. "I was well thought of. I earned a full scholarship to the University of Washington. If you'd met me, you'd think, 'Wow, I want to give that kid a scholarship.' "

 

He continued to be obsessed with sex in college. "The day Mount Saint Helens blew up, everyone was talking about it. But I didn't even know it happened because I was having sex all that day," he remembers.

 

He was never faithful to a girlfriend, and although he married at age 25, he was never at any point faithful to his wife.

 

"I was having affairs while we were engaged," he says.

 

His quest for sex started at 4 in the morning, when he would wake up to get in touch with the women he was seeing on the East Coast. The rest of the day was spent mapping out his sexual activities. Some of the women he had sex with were colleagues. Others were prostitutes. Some were women he met by chance.

 

"I could meet a woman on the elevator and be having sex in her apartment two days later," he says. "I would just get a feeling, from the amount of eye contact or the type of eye contact, that a person would be open to the idea."

 

He says he usually had two or three affairs going on at one time, but didn't actually derive pleasure from them. "I wanted to stop and I couldn't," he says. "I was miserable. It was a horrible way to live."

 

How do you know if you're a sex addict?

 

Jay Parker, a dependency counselor who runs a program for sex addicts in Redmond, Washington, called "No More Secrets," says an intense interest in sex doesn't mean someone is a sex addict.

 

"It's like with alcohol -- everyone who gets a DUI isn't an alcoholic," he says. "There are people who have errors in judgment -- they're not addicts."

 

So how do you know when someone's behavior has crossed the line into addiction?

 

According to the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health, an estimated 3 to 5 percent of Americans could fall in the category of having an addiction to sex.

 

However, it's important to note that the official handbook of psychiatric diagnoses, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, doesn't include a diagnosis for sexual addiction. Some therapists, like Craig Fabrikant, a clinical psychologist at the Hackensack University Medical Center, doubts such a thing even exists.

 

"I think it's more of a habit than an addiction," he says. "I would classify it as OCD -- more of an obsession or compulsion than an addiction."

 

But professional arguments aside, Fabrikant agrees that people like Rogers who are miserable or dysfunctional because their sex lives are out of control need professional help -- and that the first step is to recognize when they have a problem.

 

Click here to see checklists devised by the Sexual Recovery Institute and the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health to help you determine whether you have a sexual addiction. If you answer yes to a high number of questions on any checklist, you may have a problem.

 

Here are some general ways to know you might have crossed the line from healthy sexual interest to sexual addiction or compulsion:

 

1. You lie

 

For Parker, the sex addiction counselor, this is the No. 1 way you know you've crossed the line: when you make up stories to get sex.

 

"If you lie with women to get them to have sex with you, you're a predator and an addict," he says.

 

2. Sex consumes you

 

If your interest in sex runs your life, you have a problem, says Robert Weiss, a social worker and founder of the Sexual Recovery Institute. He says addicts "are always preoccupied with hitting on someone, or picking someone up, or getting home to look at porn before their spouse comes home."

 

3. You're "divorced, dead, fired or arrested"

 

If you continue your sexual activities even under threat of being "divorced, dead, fired or arrested," you're an addict, Parker says.

 

"They ignore the consequences," Weiss adds. "They say, 'I could really screw up myself here, but I'm going to continue to do it.' "

 

4. You have an intense interest in pornography

 

"The pornography piece of this cannot be overstated," Parker says. "Show me a guy who's having sex with three women in one week, and I promise you he has a relationship with pornography."

 

5. You want to stop and you can't

 

Sexual addiction is defined by a loss of control, Weiss says.

 

"I was totally out of control. I tried to stop and I couldn't," Rogers says.

 

Five years ago, when the misery got to be too much, Rogers confessed his addiction to his wife and checked himself into an inpatient treatment program for a month, which included not having orgasms alone or with anyone else.

 

After leaving the treatment center, he continued on outpatient treatment, and has not cheated on his wife again.

 

In treatment, Rogers was not allowed to engage in any type of sexual activity or look at pornography. He also did what he called "psychodrama," looking at situations from his past that might have led to his addiction, including being sexually abused repeatedly at age 7 by an older boy in his neighborhood. In other sessions, counselors helped him understand the effect he'd had on his wife and children, the women he'd slept with, and their families.

 

His wife joined him for two days at the program. He read her his "disclosure letter" describing his sexual activities over the past 20 years.

 

"She knew about the pornography and masturbation, but she didn't know about the affairs or the prostitutes," he says. "So it was very difficult to her to receive this information, just in terms of the sheer numbers of women."

 

In the last week of treatment, he and his doctors mapped out what his life would look like back home after recovery. He sees a counselor and goes to a 12-step recovery program. "In my first 365 days after treatment, I went to 523 meetings," he says.

 

Early on in his recovery he did sometimes look at Internet pornography, but a software program he installed on his computer alerted his wife and sponsor in his support group, and he stopped looking at porn.

 

Gradually, Rogers says, he learned how to have a healthy sex life with his wife.

 

"That's what we aim for," Parker says. "We're not trying to turn someone into a monk. He needs to learn how to have sex like a gentleman."

 

 

 

 

Are you a sex addict? - CNN.com

[Guest beachlover]

"The day Mount Saint Helens blew up, everyone was talking about it. But I didn't even know it happened because I was having sex all that day," he remembers.

 

ROFL... I know it's a serious article but it's hard to read that and not burst out laughing.

 

I have to admit... I'm starting to think I would like to settle down with a long-term relationship with one guy, but think I still have some way to go yet.

[Guest GaySacGuy]

Longterm relationships are great for me so far...but you need to seed you wild oats first and then really settle down.

[Guest beachlover]

Yeah... I guess I'm at the stage where I'm "seeding my wild oats".

 

LOL, reminds me of that movie, "Coming to America" with Eddie Murphy. You know the scene at the start where he's being bathed by his bathing ladies... I wonder what it would be like with a few cute Thai boys.

[PattayaMale]

Longterm relationships are great for me so far...but you need to seed you wild oats first and then really settle down.

 

How long does that seeding process go on? I know people in there 60's and 70's that are in long term relationships with a Thai boy, and still seem to sowing wild oats to this day!

 

Many post on this web site! I am not necessarily one of them of course!

[Guest fountainhall]

Jack Rogers -- that's not his real name -- knows a little something about body count because he has one of his own: In the first 20 years of his marriage, he says, he slept with some 50 women . . . He was never faithful to a girlfriend, and although he married at age 25, he was never at any point faithful to his wife . . . "I could meet a woman on the elevator and be having sex in her apartment two days later," he says. "I would just get a feeling, from the amount of eye contact or the type of eye contact, that a person would be open to the idea."

There is definitely something wrong here! Our friend Rogers (most appropriate name ) claims he was sleeping around during the first 20 years of his marriage, and he only slept with some 50 women? Come on! An average of just 2 /12 per year? No way is that possible judging from the description of his all-consuming desires. 50 per year might be somewhere close, but I guess probably even more.

[Guest beachlover]

That's a good observation. The descriptive part of the article doesn't match up with the figures... I mean if he was getting up at 4am to arrange hook ups and hooking up with girls he met in the lift... surely over 20 years, he should have scored many more. Say he did one a week. This would make for 1,040 women.

 

Maybe he didn't confess fully.

 

Back to the 12-step process for Roger!

[Guest GaySacGuy]

How long does that seeding process go on? I know people in there 60's and 70's that are in long term relationships with a Thai boy, and still seem to sowing wild oats to this day!

 

Many post on this web site! I am not necessarily one of them of course!

PM..I think with some the process never sowing never stops...but I would say they are probably not is too much of a long term relationship..LOL..at least not a committed one!!

[Guest beachlover]

How long does that seeding process go on?

 

I'm asking myself that right now!... But at least I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel now (for getting bored of one night stands and short relationships and wanting to settle down).

[Guest GaySacGuy]

I'm asking myself that right now!... But at least I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel now (for getting bored of one night stands and short relationships and wanting to settle down).

It wasn't that I decided to end the seeding..I just found someone special that affected me in a totally different way than other boys!!

[Guest beachlover]

Yeah... I think I'm getting closer to finding that someone special.

 

But it's still very early days for me. I think I still have a few years of single life left before I should settle down.

 

I met one Thai boy recently. I asked him if he had a boyfriend and he said, "no, I enjoy my single life" and grinned.

[Guest fountainhall]

LOL, reminds me of that movie, "Coming to America" with Eddie Murphy. You know the scene at the start where he's being bathed by his bathing ladies... I wonder what it would be like with a few cute Thai boys.

Since you visit Bangkok roughly every two months, I'm rather surprised you have not been able to organise that in a sauna or your hotel room.

[Guest travelerjim]

Since you visit Bangkok roughly every two months,

I'm rather surprised you have not been able to organise that in a sauna or your hotel room.

 

OMG fh...

 

Just what would beachlover's grandmother say when she found out?

 

"Some things are best left to the imagination", so it has been is said.

 

To hell with that,

bring on the tub, hot water, bubbles and double down Thais too.

 

tj

[Guest fountainhall]

Just what would beachlover's grandmother say when she found out?

"Been there. Done that!"

[Gaybutton]

I don't know if I am a sex addict or not, but if I have to be addicted to something, I'll take it!

[Guest beachlover]

Since you visit Bangkok roughly every two months, I'm rather surprised you have not been able to organise that in a sauna or your hotel room.

 

I wouldn't mind doing that here:

 

http://www.peninsula.com/Bangkok/en/default.aspx#/Bangkok/en/Accommodation/The_Terrace_Suite/

 

Your own private, outdoor jacuzzi with stunning views overlooking Bangkok... The ultimate romance pad.

[Guest fountainhall]

I wouldn't mind doing that here:

But my point was: you are a regular visitor. So, since you "wonder what it would be like with a few cute Thai boys" (your words), why have you not bothered to try it up to now? You can do that anywhere, not just at The Peninsula.

[Guest beachlover]

It's not high up on my list of priorities. It's just one of those fantasies you wonder about, but don't actually do.

 

Actually the Peninsula jacuzzi would be nice with just one special boy... or perhaps hosting a few cute friends having fun (not necessarily sexual).

[Guest fountainhall]

It's not high up on my list of priorities.

Nor on mine, frankly - although perhaps some years ago I might have been more tempted. But I wonder - what are your priorities, apart from disco dancing, which we know about from another forum?