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A significant proportion of the population is grappling with a new and controversial disorder: compulsive sexual behaviour, a new study has found. And it’s not just men, as a surprising number of women say they have trouble controlling their sexual urges.

Of 2,325 U.S. adults surveyed, 10 per cent of men and seven per cent of women met the clinical cut-off point for “compulsive sexual behaviour disorder,” a newly named category of sexual pathology that involves a persistent inability to control intense, repetitive urges and feelings, resulting in repetitive sexual behaviour “that causes marked distress or social impairment.”

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Until now, rough estimates pegged the condition’s prevalence at somewhere between one and six per cent of the population, with men assumed to be between two and five times more likely to suffer from the disorder than women.

The researchers hypothesized 20 to 30 per cent of those who met the clinical cut-off point would be women. But the new study, published in JAMA Network Open, found women accounted for 41 per cent of those who qualified for a CSBD diagnosis.