Sex and the walking sleeper

[bigmicka]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/13/1097607301349.html

Sex and the walking sleeper
By Julie Robotham
October 14, 2004


By day, she was a respectable, middle-aged woman who lived with a steady partner. By night, she crept out of their house to seek random sex with strangers.

But the woman was unaware of her own double life, which was conducted while she was asleep, said the Sydney doctor who diagnosed and treated her.

"Incredulity is the first staging post for anyone involved in this - including medicos," said Peter Buchanan, a sleep physician at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. "One has to maintain a healthy degree of scepticism."

In this case, though, it was immediately clear the woman's story was not an ingenious cover for clandestine sexual liaisons. The patient was baffled; her partner was distraught.

"He was aware of some sleepwalking and there was circumstantial evidence, including the unexplained presence of condoms around the house," Dr Buchanan said. "On one occasion he awoke to find her absent from the bedroom and searched until he found her - engaged in such activity."

Her condition, known as sleep sex, is a recently identified form of parasomnia, or sleep disorder, Dr Buchanan will tell the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australasian Sleep Association in Sydney this weekend.

He said sleep sex was increasingly being recognised as a real and personally devastating condition. He expects it will be included in the next revision of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders, giving it the final stamp of legitimacy.

The disorder is fraught with personal danger through risky sex practices, and legal danger if the sufferer commits sexual assault while sleepwalking.

Dr Buchanan said it was difficult to diagnosis, as staying overnight in a sleep laboratory would generally inhibit the behaviour. But in the woman's case, brain tests showed she was likely to rouse from deep sleep without passing first through lighter sleep patterns, a phenomenon linked to all types of parasomnia.

Almost half of sleep-sex cases were associated with psychological problems, and the woman was treated successfully with psychotherapy. But the fact that the condition manifested as aberrant sexual behaviour did not indicate sexual abuse or any sexual problem, Dr Buchanan said, and it was a sleep disorder, not a sexual disorder.

Sleepwalking is the most common parasomnia, affecting up to 3 per cent of children and fewer than 1 per cent of adults. But sleep sex, while rare, might be more common than is realised, because sufferers might be too embarrassed to seek help.

[BJ_M]

and who are the guys/gals hanging outside the house ready to jump these sleeping people ? apparently outside ...


just to weird to be true

[BJ_M]

well maybe in Australia its not to weird ..

[Tommyknocker]

Biggest crock I heard of lately. Lots of condoms around the house? She wasn't too far out of it to practice safe sex.

[northcat_8]

Did anyone give an address or general vicinity of where this woman lives?

I could just see my wife's face if I tried to tell her some bullshit like that..."but honey, it is sleep sex, it's an affliction, I'm sick"
Wife: "BANG BANG BANG, sleepin now aren't you MFer?"

I'm going out on a limb here, but if I suddenly notice "unexplained presence of condoms around the house" I'm pretty sure I can put 2 and 2 together...Jesus, who'd she marry? That guy who always calls Mr. Obvious?

[BJ_M]

you mean Mr. Gullible on the Amanda show (no i never watched it : )

[northcat_8]

No.

Mr. Obvious, it's on the Bob and Tom radio show.

[bigmicka]

Tommy,

i didnt know that women wore condoms during sex, i thought it was men who did?

so you have the case of a guy putting on a condom to sleep with a woman who sleeps with alot of guys who took advantage of her.

i would be wearing a condom too.

mic

[tweedledee]

and who are the guys/gals hanging outside the house ready to jump these sleeping people ?

How many times have you been walking down the street at night only to be seduced by a snoring woman? It seems I'm missing out on something here.

[ChrisX]

Sleep sex walking is pretty weird and terrible if she can't remember a thing about having sex during the night.

What a woman just like a sex worker and she a sleep sex walking about for a sex partner.

At least she's using condoms to protect herself.

She must have an incredible condition. It is unbelievable that she can do this as to sleep walk for sex.

I hope she would get treatment for it. She'll get over it.

[northcat_8]

Does anyone know where one could find a register of all women afflicted with this illness?

[tekkieman]

...and if she's not waking up during the sex, what kind of loser men is she sleeping with?

[Devanshu]

My favorite superhero...normal woman by day, sex hound by night.

[CoasterCreator]

yeah I used to have this condition in my dorm days but it was caused mostly by alcohol

[Capmaster]

And I always only get people who park rudely as neighbors :P

[curlyween]

I could just see my wife's face if I tried to tell her some bullshit like that..."but honey, it is sleep sex, it's an affliction, I'm sick"
Wife: "BANG BANG BANG, sleepin now aren't you MFer?"

Excellent! I like it....

[thayne]

what a load of BS!

[Doramius]

Is she interested in buying a bridge I got for sale?

[BJ_M]

i am !

[Tommyknocker]

I understand he also has some land in Florida you may be interested in as well.

[Doramius]

Yeah. with a Great ocean view.