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"  Kerry Cohen can barely remember all of the 40-odd men she&amp;#039;s slept with (her list includes &amp;quot;that guy with the dog&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;the one who kept talking during sex as though we were just hanging out&amp;quot;). In Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity, out in June, Cohen recounts her harrowing litany of hookups through clear, poignant, spare-no-details prose. Now a 37-year-old psychotherapist, she tells MC exactly what she was looking for.   Q: Why was sex such a powerful addiction for you?  A: I felt unloved. I wanted attention to prove I was worth something. The media show us that as girls and women, our bodies and our ability to pull men in are what make us worthwhile. Plus, it&amp;#039;s an easy path; you don&amp;#039;t have to even be that attractive to get male attention. It was default behavior, and to not resist it would have taken a lot more effort. What I wanted was that immediate, gratifying rush of &amp;quot;He likes me. I mean something to this person.&amp;quot; But I found out pretty quickly after every experience that it was just the opposite, that he didn&amp;#039;t care one bit. In the end, I got more reinforcement for my sense that I wasn&amp;#039;t worth anything.   Q: So why go back for more?  A: The same reason heroin addicts go back for a high, even though they always wind up crashing in the end. I went back again and again for those few moments when I felt ecstatically loved. Afterward, I wasn&amp;#039;t consciously processing, &amp;quot;Oh, that made me feel like shit.&amp;quot;   Q: Were you ever worried about being called a slut?  A: I was. But I also thought I was different from those girls because I was trying to have a relationship.   Q: You were dealing with this in the &amp;#039;80s. Is it any easier for girls today?  A: It&amp;#039;s a common misconception that things are different now because sexuality and concepts like &amp;quot;friends with benefits&amp;quot; are all over the media, but the value judgments about the behavior haven&amp;#039;t changed.   Q: You&amp;#039;ve been faithfully married for seven years now and have two kids. How&amp;#039;d you exorcise your inner Loose Girl?  A: I am still that girl \u2014 I still carry those struggles, but it doesn&amp;#039;t control me anymore. One of the ways I had sensed things would be different with my husband is that I didn&amp;#039;t meet him and immediately feel that rush that I needed something from him. We established a friendship, and I was able to just be around him and enjoy who he was. And that allowed him to find out who I was. But it&amp;#039;s not like now I&amp;#039;m healed. All of our struggles are lifelong, and you just find better ways of dealing with them. Now when I feel unloved,I cry, tell a friend or my husband, and wait for it to pass. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/advice/a1407/sex-addict-confessions/>