In the last few years, famous personalities who have been exposed with having extramarital affairs have later on declared that they have an addiction to sex, apologized and had gone to treatment for the condition.
However, sex addiction is not included in the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This is in spite of criticism of the DSM update over the years have included more and more conditions as disorders.
Googling "sex addiction" shows many offers of clinics to rehabilitate the condition. There is also a sex addiction anonymous which lists the following description:
"Sometimes an addict has trouble with just one unwanted behavior, sometimes with many. A large number of sex addicts say their unhealthy use of sex has been a progressive process. It may have started with an addiction to masturbation, pornography (either printed or electronic), or a relationship, but over the years progressed to increasingly dangerous behaviors."
http://saavancouver.org/index.html (look under "what is a sex addict")
What is an "unwanted behavior"? Is my preference for garlic foods a problem because someone do not like the smell of garlic?
What is "unhealthy use of sex"? Is having sex for recreation and not for procreation unhealthy?
Is masturbation now a sign of sexual addiction?
Perhaps an audio versions of erotica is okay since printed or electronic versions may be classed as material as starting point for sex addiction? Definition of pornography?
Relationship - seems obvious that sex outside of marriage must be part of sex addiction?
Dangerous behaviors - when does behavior becomes dangerous?
It may seem that I may be overly skeptical here in picking at their description and making the point that it seems vague. Look then to the solution for this addiction (the 12 steps referenced in the "how" for the same website) which they claim to be tried and true......
Step One: We admitted we were powerless over addictive sexual behaviour — that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step Seven: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
Step Eight: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step Nine: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step Ten: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step Eleven: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other sex addicts and to practice these principles in our lives.
Seems like we need god to decide whether we are addicted to sex or not.
It also seems dangerously easy to judge anyone to be a sex addict or worse, some proclaimed spokesman for god may do the judging.
Perhaps clinics are making good money on this and celebrities are finding a way to claim it to be a "medical condition" that they can recuperate from?
Contrast all this with the equally difficult to define issue of "female sexual arousal disorder" on the other side. It is in the DSM version V as a disorder but feminist groups have criticize it as an attempt by pharmaceutical companies to make money selling drugs to remedy a condition that does not exists.
What is "normal"?
For a couple who is having difficulty with differing level of sexual interest among the two, is the male having a sex addiction problem or the female having a sexual arousal disorder?
May be god can have a word with the psychiatrist and work this out.
There are so many groups that attrack sex addicts, I mean, friends who promote sex as a natural way for man and women to be. Meet, get married, have kids, work and talk about all the great sex you have with your significant other. You, Complete ME. Is the biggest reason to have sex, that I have ever heard, especially around the office!
ReplyDeleteThat's the biggest addiction ever, and so MANY people think that's NORMAL. To be anything else is a disfunction. SOcially, even morally.
YUCK! Doesn't justify my need for companionship or to belong with "others"
But, for some its more then enough!
VTS
I just this week went to a 12-step group that deals with all sorts of failures and fears towards healthy and holy living. It is assumed that holiness and health are compatible. Group rules include confidentiality and other strictures. Must sex always be practised with love and sex without love be mere addiction and/or fornication (a very old word for any sex outside marriage)? Is there a revival of Puritanism? Can self-help deal with the whole person? Many questions arise... CL
ReplyDelete