The essence of all addiction is the addicts' experience of powerlessness over a compulsive behavior, resulting in their lives becoming unmanageable. The addict is out of control and experiences tremendous shame, pain and self-loathing. The addict may wish to stop yet repeatedly fails to do so. The unmanageability of addicts' lives can be seen in the consequences they suffer: losing relationships, difficulties with work, arrests, financial troubles, a loss of interest in things not sexual, low self-esteem and despair.
Some sexually addictive behavior patterns may include: excessive flirting, dancing, or personal grooming to be seductive; wearing provocative clothing whenever possible (a form of exhibitionism); changing one's appearance via excessive dieting, excessive exercise, and/or reconstructive surgery to be seductive; exposing oneself in a window or car; making sexual advances to younger siblings, clients, or others in subordinate power positions; seeking sexual partners in high-risk locations; multiple extramarital affairs; disregard of appropriate sexual boundaries, e.g. considering a married man, one's boss, or one's personal physician as appropriate objects of romantic involvement; trading sex for drugs, help, affection, money, social access, or power; having sex with someone they just met at a party, bar or on the internet [forms of anonymous sex]; compulsive masturbation; and exchanging sex for pain or pain for sex.
Most sexually addicted women have not had parental role modeling for how to have emotional intimacy in nonsexual ways. Research has shown that there often is a combination of rigidity and lack of emotional support in the sex addict's family of origin. The majority of women sex addicts were sexually abused in childhood - 78% in one study.
In 1999, various estimates were that 4-6% of the US population were sexually compulsive.
2. For many people involved is sexual addiction recovery, President Bill Clinton, and his extra-marital affair with Monica Lewinsky, displays all the behavour of a sex addict in denial. The lies Clinton told about the affair aren't just calculated maneuvers by a morally bankrupt man, but the predictable by-products of addiction.