Sleep Sex Disorder

Picture yourself coming out of your local convenience store late at night because of that much needed dose of caffeine. Suddenly, a woman comes walking towards you. She throws herself at you; she tries to take off your pants! Sounds too porno-like? A strange woman approaching you for sex in the middle of the night might sound unbelievable – you’ve dreamed about this, but it never really happens. Turns out there is a group of people who actually do this, but in their sleep. Sleep sex disorder is a sleeping condition that causes patients to engage in sexual practices while asleep, be these intercourse, masturbation, groping and even rape.

Sleep Sex Disorder or Sexsomnia is, in sum, having sex while sleeping. Much like sleepwalking, sexomnia is a strange sleep disorder that has been recently added to other sleep actions, like eating, talking, etc. Unlike sleepwalking however, sleep sex takes place in at a further sleep stage than that where sleepwalking happens, called REM sleep. At the REM stage of sleep, your body is immobilized. However, in those people with episodes of sleep sex, the immobilization part does not take place. Dreaming takes place during REM; since those people who suffer from sleep sex disorder are not immobilized, they are able to act out on their dreams. You could be taking your generic Viaga and not even knowing it.

Experts believe sleep sex – a REM behavioral disorder – may be caused, not by violent personalities but by glitches in the brain waves while sleeping. As for this classification, the disorder is then treatable. The low amount of cases reported, specialists say, are due to people’s apprehension  to reporting the condition out of embarrassment and social stigma. Cases, however, have been reported in both men and women.

Cases in men, though, seem to have escalated in severity in terms of consequences. More articles report on cases of male sex sleep, and discuss the consequences of such acts. Given cases in which men have had sleep sex with women have reached Court under rape charges later dismissed. On the other hand, cases of women who sex sleep have been angled differently, simply as a matter of embarrassment for the sex sleep patient.

After all, sleep sex has long been used by sex offenders as an alternative way out of legal situations due to rape charges. The problem with sex sleep is providing the veracity of the statement you are making: I was asleep and can’t remember a thing. Telling that to the victim, to the police and to a jury is something you would hardly believe yourself. Therefore, the importance of sleep clinics that can determine, via a period of studying sleeping patters, whether or not you are in fact asleep and unaware of your acts.

A sex sleep disorder can include manifestations like loud and disturbing moaning to violent, bruising masturbation, rape-like attacks and other violent action against that with whom you share your bed. Reported cases include an attempted strangulation while a sex sleep episode took place. Another reported victim attempted stopping a sex sleep behavior by restraining himself to a bed; the outcome was two broken fingers while attempting to escape from his restrains.