Red Flags of Love Fraud #3: Sexual magnetism

Great sex. Many people who have slept with a sociopath say it was the best sex they ever had. I surveyed Lovefraud readers for my book, Red Flags of Love Fraud – 10 signs you’re dating a sociopath, and 78 percent said “sexual magnetism” was characteristic of their relationship. Why is that? 

First of all, sociopaths are hard-wired for sex. Secondly, sociopaths are frequently good lovers.

Rating sex with sociopaths

People who have had sex with sociopaths almost always rave about it. “Swept off my feet by the most intense sexual experience,” wrote one respondent to the Lovefraud Romantic Partner Survey. The sentiment was echoed over and over again. I asked, “If you had sex with the individual, how would you rate it?” Here are the answers:

Sex with sociopaths

• Extraordinary — 30%
• Satisfying — 15%
• Dissatisfying — 6%
• At first satisfying, later dissatisfying — 30%
• He/she was satisfied, I was not — 12%
• Abusive — 4%
• Not applicable — 3%

These responses show that 75 percent of survey respondents rated the sex as satisfying or more than satisfying, at least in the beginning of the relationship.

Why are sociopaths so hot in bed?

First of all, they’re born that way. Sociopaths have a lot of energy. They crave excitement and stimulation — it’s an integral part of the disorder. They’re always looking for the next thrill. Sex, of course, is one of the most stimulating activities a human being can enjoy. Sociopaths want it. They want it early and often. So they start young and engage frequently.

The flip side of relishing excitement is that sociopaths get bored easily. So although conventional sex with a steady partner is okay for a while, what they really want is variety in their partners and sexual experiences. So they push the boundaries of what their partners find acceptable. If the partners won’t do what sociopaths want, they find someone who will. When normal sex is no longer interesting, they seek the taboo. 

And they seek aggressively. All sociopaths, both male and female, have high levels of testosterone. This hormone affects behavior in many ways. One is that it drives people to compete for sex partners and then mate with them. In sociopaths, high testosterone means high pursuit of sex.

Here’s another way in which sociopaths are hard wired for sex: Besides craving excitement, they are also born without fear or shame. Consequently, they fail to develop guilt, inhibitions, a conscience or a sense of morality. Social proscriptions against particular acts mean nothing to them. They don’t care about the discomfort of their partners either.

So what does all this mean for sociopaths and sex? They have voracious appetites; they get a lot of practice and anything goes. In pursuit of their desires of the moment, some engage in coercive sex, including rape.

Search for sexual variety

In their pursuit of sexual variety, sociopaths seek all kinds of partners, and all kinds of experiences.

We used to call people who slept around “promiscuous.” Researchers Steven W. Gangestad and Jeffrey A. Simpson developed a concept called “sociosexual orientation.” They said that in regard to sexuality, human beings generally fit into two groups: Those who require a relationship and love before engaging in sex with a person have what the researchers termed a “restricted sociosexual orientation.” Those with an “unrestricted sociosexual orientation” are quite comfortable having sex with one-night stands, multiple partners and with strangers.

Some people who have an unrestricted sociosexual orientation are simply free spirits. It was a popular approach to sex during the “free love” years of the 1960s and 70s, before AIDS became a worry. Further research on this personality type, however, has shown that unrestricted sociosexual orientation tends to be associated with grandiosity, a lack of agreeableness and a tendency to lie, especially in men.

Not surprisingly, sociopaths have unrestricted sociosexual orientations. Because they also have no conscience and lie to the extreme, they frequently engage in deceptive sexual strategies.

In today’s society, most people make their own decisions about what they want out of sex. If some people enjoy activities that are different from typical sexual experiences, and their partners agree, that’s fine — as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult. But when individuals are not honest about their proclivities and desires, and engage in behaviors surreptitiously, unknowing partners are betrayed and damaged. And, due to sexually transmitted diseases, their health and very lives are at risk.

My experience with a cheating husband

This is what I experienced. While seducing me, my sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, admitted that he’d cheated on previous romantic partners, and had sexual relations with many, many women. But after meeting me, he declared, he was certain that he would never feel the need to stray again. And before we ever became intimate, I asked Montgomery if he had been tested for AIDS. He claimed that he had tested negative, and added, “There’s not a gay bone in my body!” 

Well, he lied. When I left him after two and a half years, I learned a lot about his sexual activities:

• He had sex with at least six other women during our relationship.
• He was heavily into Internet porn.
• He solicited gay male prostitutes.
• He tried to arrange threesomes and looked for swinging couples.
• He advertised online for sex. He wrote that he was jaded about sex with women, and desired a man who wanted to experience sex like a woman — the thrill of the totally forbidden.
• He was not tested for AIDS.

While we were married, believing that my husband was monogamous, I consented to unprotected sex. I did not consent to the risk that I was subjected to due to his cheating. 

More reports of cheating

It is a common problem with sociopaths. In the Lovefraud Romantic Partner Survey, many respondents reported that their sociopathic partners were deceptive about sex:

• 75 percent said their partners cheated on them. 
• 46 percent found that the individuals were secretly into pornography.
• 40 percent said that the sociopath’s sexual demands made them uncomfortable. 
• 20 percent became infected with a sexually transmitted disease. 

Almost half of survey respondents reported that the sociopaths they knew were “secretly into pornography.” An interest in pornography does not automatically make someone a sociopath. Plenty of people — men and women — enjoy looking at pornography from time to time. With sociopaths, however, the interest in pornography is often extreme, both in quantity and the level of deviance. “Sick stuff,” commented one survey respondent. “He was very heavy into pornography and his habits surrounding this just kept getting more extreme,” wrote another.

Believing in love

Physicians and researchers have long known about the “placebo effect” — people in clinical trials frequently experience the benefits of the new drug, even though they are taking the placebo. Because patients believe they are taking the drug, they believe they will get better, and they do.

This is not just an imaginary improvement. Research has shown that when people believe they are receiving medication, their brain chemistry changes, even though they aren’t actually receiving the drugs. In other words, belief can be just as strong as actual medication. Your thoughts affect the structure of your brain.

Why am I bringing this up? Because the same thing happens in romantic relationships. If you are attracted to Mr. or Ms. Right, and you feel the pleasure of having your interest reciprocated so that you form a love bond, you experience all the psychological and biological effects of attachment — even if the object of your affection is a sociopath who is toying with you.

“Sociopaths and psychopaths are con artists,” Dr. Leedom wrote. “They entice others to form attachments to them through deception and trickery. The problem is that our unconscious minds do not distinguish between attachments made after deception and those made legitimately.”

Therefore, the sociopath says, “I love you,” and you believe it. The experience is very real to you, you form a love bond, and your brain is rewired — even though the sociopath doesn’t love you at all.

Learn more: Red Flags of Love Fraud — 10 signs you’re dating a sociopath