If you watch the Charlie Rose series on the brain with each episode at least 5 scientists sitting around the table speaking about their study and research into the various parts of the brain (I am not good with the words used to describe the various areas of the brain and what they do) anyhow there is a part of the brain something the Caligula and the Hippocampus that control our emotions and the desire for more of what feels good.
It is not just making someone a victim by overpowering them for sex - in other words it is not just the sex it is the feel good of the sleuthing - keeping it a secret - it is also about power-over especially in children - think about it - there is no good sex with kids and there is no satisfying sex with someone you have terrorized - as to tweeter it is like phone sex that is less damaging to the chosen partner - but like all addiction it is hard to break. It starts because, like any habit, for a brief time you are not thinking, worrying, being reminded of what is painful in your life - you are simply performing and the result feels good.
It is like the drug addict or drunk who temporarily escapes however, this part of the brain comes into play and like all habits it automatically will not respond to the same impluse but requires more or greater acts - there are habits that do not hurt other people as well as, those that do. Yes, in a way these obsessions are selfish because they do protect the addict from painful memories long buried but still there. That pull is greater than can be fixed like using a patch to stop smoking.
That is why anyone who knows AA or Al-anon learned that as damaging as the obsession seems like sex, gambling, drinking, drugging, it is not just breaking the habit - going cold turkey by those who stop their obsession without therapy - it is stopping all the behavior around the obsession. That is why so many who know are laughing at the California Mayor who is assuming a two week clinic is going to cure him. All the damaging behavior must be explored, understood, and alternatives adapted or we have, as they call it, a Dry Drunk or a Dry ____ fill in your word for what is the obsession.
Sex without consent has a power-over component where you are in control and like a spy you secretly go after the prey that will be easiest to manipulate or over-power. As to online or phone sex there is as much power in titillating another as there is being titillated yourself.
Only yesterday watched the old movie the Thomas Crown Affair - a very wealthy man who was addicted to outwitting and robbing banks with a choreographed smart system - he was addicted to matching his wits against the best and proving their protection system had holes. Last week saw the old movie The Collector. The protagonist collects thousands of butterflies and goes on to collect women. A young women he hold prisoner dies and he satisfies the loss without his conquest because of her superior social position - then, he goes after a nurse who ministered to him in the hospital for an injury.
These movies were made before we knew so much about the brain and before the knowledge gained by 60, 70 and now just under 80 years of attempting to heal addictive behavior so that we saw Thomas Crown as charming and sexy where as, the Collector was considered in the movie psychotic. Now we know that an addiction is a mental state that requires greater and greater stimulation and if an addiction is stopped cold turkey it pops up as another addiction or as another version of the first.
