Kiwi women most promiscuous

Internet dating is turning sex into a game and Kiwi women are the biggest players.

A OnePoll survey last week confirmed an earlier study which showed New Zealand women were the world's most promiscuous with an average of 20.4 sexual partners.

And Kiwi men, with an average of 16.9 partners, feel threatened, says Sex Therapy New Zealand director Robyn Salisbury.

The Palmerston North-based clinical psychologist has seen a rise in male clients shocked at how many women aren't interested in having a proper relationship and want multiple sexual partners.

"They'll say, 'forget about getting involved mate, I just want some good sex and I want a casual partner I feel safe with'," Salisbury said. This could be a reaction to being hurt in relationships, she said.

Salisbury is currently supervising research by a New Zealand honours student on out-of-control sexual behaviour (OOCSB), commonly described as sex addiction. The study is due to begin next month.

There has been a distinct shift in recent years from sex as an intimate act to one of leisure, Salisbury said. She believes this is directly related to the rise in internet dating, which makes it easier to meet new people.

She said people have to identify whether their sexual behaviour is life enhancing or destructive. "All of my team have worked with people who have had a period of time of having multiple casual partners and get sad about that or realise that was a buzz but say `actually I'm quite lonely and want to share my life with someone', and the realisation that takes much greater commitment."

Salisbury says OOCSB is compulsive sexual behaviour whereas addiction is a physiological dependence.

"While there is some elements of similarity in that people feel out of control and feel a real compulsion to have sex several times a day it doesn't fit an addiction model fully," she says. Salisbury is currently treating three people with OOCSB and says the defining characteristic is destructive sexual behaviour. She says there is no one cause for the behaviour but many people get hooked on a kind of excitement not matched in other parts of their lives. Others use sex to mask an underlying problem.

"A lot of people uses sex to relieve anxiety or depression, as an escape or an avoidance or a temporary release," she says.

One court-referred client had broken the law to fund compulsive visits to prostitutes.

"He visited a sex worker for a momentary bit of escape and felt much better when he'd done that so did it again later that night and then next day did it several days."

Others fail to achieve intimacy so go for more and more sex to try to achieve satisfaction or become hooked on pornography.

"Pornography can be the cocaine of the sex world, a few people have a taste and then they are hooked but for most people there are more factors. There's that thing about it's the best buzz you get so you keep doing it."

Most clients arrive at her clinic when they acknowledge their behaviour as a problem.

Some have lost jobs and relationships because of the time spent looking at pornography, visiting sex workers or cheating.

Others may find their behaviour at odds with their own morals or have risked their health and safety for sex.

"Sometimes people can become quite ill because they are spending so much time in sexual activity each day they neglect to do other things to care for themselves. Some people take huge risks in order to get an increasing buzz."

Treatment varies from person to person. Salisbury's team use a comprehensive approach which includes a dynamic understanding of how people operate in relationships, in combination with cognitive behavioural therapy and skill building.

Salisbury taught a man addicted to sex with prostitutes how to deal with his grief. "What he needed was help to develop the capacity to grieve well and then there was nothing else we had to do."

- © Fairfax NZ News