Marie Nussbaum

Sexual Addiction: Between Pleasure, Suffering, and the Quest for Connection

Examining the modalities of pleasure and relationship to others

Sexual addiction, far from being a mere excess of desire, challenges the modalities of pleasure, the relationship to others, and the body. It can be a source of enjoyment, but becomes symptomatic when it imposes itself as the sole mode of psychic regulation or expression—at the cost of suffering, isolation, and compulsive repetition.

Contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives

Contemporary psychoanalytic literature, including the work of Vincent Estellon, Joyce McDougall, Patrick Carnes, Aviel Goodman, Shere Hite, Martin Kafka, and Laurent Karila, explores the archaic roots of these behaviors. Estellon describes a “defensive sexualization”: a way to ward off the terror of loving and being loved by substituting affective connection with repetitive, often affectless sexual scenes.

Clinical cases and repetitions

Consider Corentin, who cycles through female partners with one obsession: making them climax. Yet as soon as emotional depth threatens to emerge, he vanishes. He is less interested in the other than in the effect he produces. He experiences himself as disposable, seeking proof of his worth through repetition, never allowing himself to be touched. The orgasm of the other becomes a substitute for love—a fleeting validation of existence, devoid of attachment.

Tony grew up with an impotent, absent father, unable to embody a figure of transmission. His compulsive sexuality, marked by a drive for performance, seems to respond to a castration anxiety. He seeks to prove his masculinity, but no act suffices to fill the void left by paternal failure.

Codified practices and ritualizations

Ari and Jean frequent only swingers’ clubs. Swinging, unlike libertinism, involves the codified staging of the couple, where mutual exchange is central. Libertinism is broader, encompassing diverse sexual practices often driven by exploration or transgression. For Ari and Jean, swinging has become ritualized—a repeated scene where the conjugal bond is tested. Beneath the intensity lies a difficulty in encountering each other outside performance.

Garance and Éluard, married for thirty years, now connect only through the thrill of upcoming sexual freedom. What began as playful complicity has become a crutch. One partner begins to suffer, no longer recognizing themselves in the practice. The balance falters—not because of the practice itself, but due to a loss of meaning, absence of dialogue, and growing solitude within the bond.

Omnipotence and dispossession

Anna, a brilliant academic, consults for unexplained fatigue. She quietly discloses her BDSM practices, where she submits to younger men, often in precarious situations. She finds relief in this surrender—a form of dispossession. Yet her submission seems to replay an ambivalence: the social and intellectual power she cannot inhabit, delegated to the other in intimacy. Again, the practice is not inherently pathological, but its repetition, exclusivity, and lack of affective connection raise questions.

Karim spends exorbitant amounts on sex work. He can no longer form romantic bonds. The financial transaction becomes the only space where he feels permitted to desire. “At least there, I know what I’m worth,” he says. Payment becomes a ritual of control—a shield against rejection and a way to fix the relationship in a reassuring asymmetry.

Distinguishing pleasure from symptom

These forms of pleasure are not inherently pathological. They may express singular desire, self-exploration, or consensual play. But when they become the sole mode of connection, accompanied by suffering, isolation, shame, or chronic dissatisfaction despite multiple partners or stimuli, they signal a psychic conflict worth exploring.

As McDougall notes, such patients often experienced early intrusion or abandonment, constructing powerful defenses to survive annihilation anxiety. Kafka describes hypersexuality as an impulse control disorder, while Carnes emphasizes its addictive and compulsive nature, often rooted in early trauma.

Clinical and therapeutic perspective

Engaging in clinical reflection on these practices offers a space for the subject to question what repeats, what escapes, and what causes suffering. It also acknowledges that sexuality, in its complexity, can be a site of connection, repair, or loss—depending on how it is inscribed in the subject’s history.

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