A quarter of people with problem debt have confessed to spending money on sex or pornography, a report by the UK Insolvency Helpline shows.
The group said between January and September that 10,251 - or one in four - callers to the helpline aged between 25 and 49 had visited a brothel or strip club, or paid to view pornography.
The sex industry now lies in third place, behind drug and alcohol abuse and shopping addiction, in the table of most common reasons for getting in to debt.
Seventy-five per cent of callers were single men, the report claimed; perhaps more surprisingly, the remainder included both married and single women as well as married men. The average age of callers was 42.
The report warned that sex addiction could adversely affect personal finances in a number of ways, with some people running up high debts from paying for prostitutes or lap-dances, through charges for online pornography or premium-rate phone sex.
The report warned that, in extreme cases, people lost jobs after sex obsessions proved too much of a distraction. Others found themselves in debt after paying legal bills related to sexual harassment cases.
Divorce or separation caused by sex addiction could add to financial woes, it added.
Richard Sorsky, social policy co-ordinator at The UK Insolvency Helpline, said: "We feel that as computer, satellite porn and prostitution become more widespread it will give more men unrealistic expectations of their love lives and threaten couples' relationships.
"This has become apparent due to the number of men admitting to using prostitutes and our referrals to divorce or marriage counselling organisations."
