We spoke with sex addicts: "I saw a body and I didn't care who it was, I felt trapped."

PalmLola's contact list is extensive, filled with names of men; fleeting lovers of a single sexual encounter. "I masturbated up to 18 times a day to self-regulate, and I also had sex whenever I could. I've fucked all of Palma. I only wanted to experience orgasms, not create any bond," she says.

During her treatment for sex addiction, Lola discovered she suffers from alexithymia, a disorder that prevents her from identifying, recognizing, and expressing her emotions. She also has difficulty differentiating between bodily sensations and emotions. She grew up in a home with absent parents. He abandoned her, and her mother suffered from depression. In this context, she seeks refuge in the orgasms offered by masturbation and ends up seeking them out with men on social media and dating apps. "I feel trapped. I don't know how to connect, and sex allows me to do that. I would see a body and it didn't matter whoever it was. After the encounter, I felt a huge emptiness; dirty and unaccepted. I was in a bubble in my relationship with the world, and sex allowed me to break it. Keeping it a secret was very hard. Orgasm allowed me to get into this rhythm. Many times I told myself it would be the last one, and I repeated it without knowing why I said: 'I don't know who we are anymore.'

Impulsive pattern

Sex addiction is behavioral, without substances, although they can exist as an addition to the problem. "It involves an impulsive and persistent pattern of behavior, despite the consequences it entails for the individual. It interferes with different areas of life: personal, family, social, and even physical," explains Projecte Home psychologist Fran Antonete. One of the most common symptoms is loss of control. "Sex, which should be pleasurable, ends up becoming the center of their lives, with repetitive behaviors and an ever-increasing investment of money and resources. Behaviors emerge in inappropriate settings, such as consuming pornography at work, in public places, even while driving," the specialist continues. As with substances, the patient develops "quantitative tolerance" (investment of greater time and resources) and "qualitative tolerance." It involves "an escalation of increasingly potent stimuli, such as moving from conventional pornography to more extreme content such as bestiality or even with minors."

Each person develops different behaviors such as "sex with strangers, sex through dating apps, compulsive masturbation, or prostitution."

Luis is 30 years old and, after two years in treatment, has completed the Projecte Home program, where sex addiction is the most common behavioral addiction after pathological gambling. Its incidence has grown in recent years, especially among young people. Luis's story is filled with ellipses when he talks about his childhood. He confesses that he had "family problems" and that the first time he accessed pornography, he was eight years old. "My sex education was nonexistent, and pornography appeared very early in my life. It became central, an outlet for all the emotional distress; in short, a way to manage myself alone," he summarizes. When he becomes independent, he moves from the virtuality of the screen to real encounters. He starts a relationship and is unable to stop. "I was dating a guy, and the anxiety and lies reached a point where they were intolerable. Actual sex didn't meet my expectations. It wasn't healthy. It wasn't a loss of control. On the one hand, I want to stop, and on the other, I'm unable to. I felt tremendous guilt. I felt tremendous guilt. It's very hard. It's true that today I realize that I didn't want to continue that relationship, but instead of ending it in a healthy way, I dealt with it by having sexual encounters," she continues, before adding: "People weren't the protagonists, that made me feel guilty, astic,"

The search for sex becomes "an emotional regulator," Antonete points out. "It's not used to feel pleasure, but to deal with negative emotional states: boredom, sadness, and anger. Everything is an excuse to turn to sex as an escape route, and the problem is the relationship that is established with it," she adds.

Most Projecte Home users have "a pornified and objectified sexuality." "They treat their sexual partners as objects, with a great lack of empathy. Immediate pleasure prevails, often linked to violent practices. Sexual performance also plays a role, generating complexes and sexual dysfunctions derived from the anxiety of not meeting these standards," explains the expert. The most frequent profiles are divided between "a more introverted one, with difficulties socializing, and a more seductive one, who bases their self-esteem on conquest, with infidelity very much in mind."

Without a mobile phone

The digital environment has multiplied access to sex in different forms, which are becoming increasingly diverse and "act as constant triggers." Luis has identified them. That's why, during the first phases of treatment, he banned access to his cell phone. "I was conditioned by soft porn, which always appears in the endless carousel of social media content. For example, a personal trainer who sells his sports plans. The algorithm knows I consume that content and offers me more attractive, sexualized bodies. If I continue here, I end up masturbating, entering one feeling bad. And, perhaps, the trigger, in my case, was an unresolved conflict with a friend," he says. Luis acted, he admits, like an automaton. "I didn't know how I had reached that point because I wasn't aware of it."

Experts describe sex addiction as an invisible addiction because it occurs in private. Stigmatized. Many times, it only explodes when there are external consequences, such as a discovered infidelity or a relationship conflict. It can even have legal consequences. "From the consumption of child pornography to assaults and reports of abuse. They may also have suffered sexual abuse in childhood, which generates early hypersexualization," reveals Antonete.

The therapeutic approach begins with an assessment of the problem and the patient's level of awareness. This is followed by work on motivating change and offering resources to control their impulses. A period of abstinence reduces hypersexualization and creates a baseline. "We re-educate their sexuality, identify triggers, resolve past traumas, and offer strategies, in addition to preventing relapse," explains the psychologist. Luis has had them for two years. "Of course, but it doesn't mean you go backwards or the work you've done stops being useful. It's part of the process," he acknowledges. He has completed the puzzle, developing social skills thanks to living the problem "with full awareness." And what has he learned? "I can enjoy sex without feeling guilty, connecting with the other person. I've achieved it."