Are you a sex addict?

“At his age, boys tend to have many women in their lives. The hormones are very active, but I had warned him.”

This is how Peter Kabala, the father of the 21-year-old former Alliance High School student Adrian Kabala, described the tragedy of his son’s death.

Adrian had been stabbed five times by his 34-year-old lover Leah Muthoni, who was allegedly jealous because she found him with another woman. Adrian’s father confessed to the media that his son had a unique thirst for (older) women.

Probably, you haven’t had of the term sex addiction, but as it was reported on Adrian’s story, there are people who display high propensity towards sex and everything about it.

“It is no more about sex than an eating disorder is about food, or pathological gambling is about money,” says research psychologist Rory Reid of Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour.

Rory describes sex addicts as people with underlying problems such as stress, anxiety, depression and shame, which often drive them to risky sexual behaviour. The general notion however has been that sex addicts crave lots of sex.

To make the concept more understandable, Reid and many other experts prefer the term ‘hypersexual disorder,’ rather than ‘sex addiction.’ Either way, it’s about people with sexual behaviour that damage their wellbeing and personal development.

Dr John Ong’ech, a reproductive health specialist, says sex addiction is a problem of the mind.

“The sexual act, by its very own nature, is controlled by the mind. Any person can tune their brains to get the body into sexual mode. If the person tends to think a lot about sex, then they are likely to feel sexually hyperactive. In most instances, it stems from psychosocial problems.”

Even so, Dr Ong’ech mentions that sexually hyperactive individuals display unique hormonal levels – like high amounts of testosterone in males. If the condition needs treatment, he quips that psychological counseling would work better than tablet medicine. Reid points out that sexual addiction tends to affect men more than women. The typical symptoms would include: excessive web surfing for porn, soliciting for sex workers, ceaselessly seeking affairs, masturbating or any other sexual other acts.

The dangers of sex addiction, according to Dr Ong’ech, includes the person losing their personal lives, social lives, their jobs, and, with the threat of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, their health.

If not addressed, just like any other psychosocial disorder, sex addicts will continue with their hyperactive behaviours despite the dangers involved. If Adrian’s story is to be taken with the seriousness it deserves, sex addiction could cost you your life too.

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