Sarebbe questo il «sintomo» di una nuova sindrome che sta facenda venire un vero mal di testa ai ricercatori. La condizione è stata chiamata dagli anglosassoni «sexsomnia» , e gli scienziati stanno cercando di capire qualcosa di questa rara patologia.
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Le indagini su questa curiosa variante del sonnambulismo , nel quale chi sta dormendo farebbe avance sessuali a qualcun altro del tutto sveglio, non sono facili. E non è arduo capire il perchè: chi ne soffre ne è talmente imbarazzato che fa parecchia fatica a parlarne col medico.
Molti esperti inquadrano la sindrome nell'ambito del sonnanbulismo, ma chi ne soffre resta a letto invece di alzarsi e camminare. Il sonnambulismo colpisce dal 2 al 4% degli adulti, mentre la sexsomnia è ritenuta pittosto rara, anche se un sondaggio fatto nel 2005 in Canada suggerisce che i casi siano più frequenti di quanto si possa pensare.
"When Jan Luedecke of Toronto was arrested and tried for sexual assault, he had an unusual defense—he did it in his sleep. Really. It may sound farfetched, but Luedecke, who was 33 at his 2005 trial, had a history of sleepwalking. On the night in question, he'd been drinking at a party and found himself sacked out on the couch with a woman he'd met there. Hours later, she jolted him awake and demanded to know what he was doing. Luedecke claimed he was unaware he was having sex with her. "Under the law, if there's no intent to commit a crime, you haven't committed a crime," says Dr. Colin Shapiro, director of the Youthdale Child and Adolescent Sleep Center in Toronto, who testified for the defense. Luedecke was acquitted (to the outrage of women's organizations in Canada), and the case is now on appeal.
Add sex to the roster of unlikely sleep behaviors known as parasomnias, which range from sleep driving to sleep eating. Last week psychiatrist Carlos Schenck and neurologist Mark Mahowald of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center published a review article in the journal Sleep on what they call "sleepsex," or "sexsomnia." Think of it as a more advanced form of sleepwalking. It covers the full gamut of sexual activity, from fondling to intercourse, with one crucial difference. The patients apparently have no conscious awareness of what they're doing and, when wakened, have no recollection of it."