Sex Addiction

In the story Bastard Out of Carolina, the main character Bone is sexualized at a very young age. She has a great deal of knowledge about sex and masturbates often to masochistic thoughts. After doing some research on sexual addiction, I found that sex addicts are often sexually abused as children. One description of a sexually abused child fit Bone’s situation well. “The child may have grown up in a hostile, chaotic or neglectful home, or the family may have been very normal but the child grows up emotionally starved for love because affection is rarely expressed” (Ewald). Bone starts the book as a happy child, but when her mother marries Glen and begins to abuse her, she isolates herself and expresses anger toward her family. She is desperate for the affection of her mother, however with Glen in the picture, she cannot receive the love she needs and desires. For abused children, sex becomes a comfort to them in many different situations. For Bone, masturbation becomes an escape from her family situation, a method to fall asleep at night, and possibly a way to make her feelings of guilt more tangible. If the story were extended into Bone’s adulthood, could she become a sex addict, an abuser herself, or possibly partake in an abusive relationship with a man? Many critics believe that Bone is a lesbian in the story, but the abuse she suffers at the hands of her step father would obviously make her wary of men. If Dorothy Allison were not practicing an openly gay lifestyle, would the topic of Bone being a lesbian even be explored?

http://allpsych.com/journal/sexaddiction.html