“Sex Addiction” is the diagnosis du jour. I think it gets thrown around so people that hurt other people with this so-called sex addiction don’t have to be held accountable for their actions. “Oh well I have an addiction and addiction is a disease so please forgive me for cheating on you dear, it was bigger than me.” Give me a break….it’s such a cop out and sure fire way of getting to have your cake and eat it too.

@ Kim – I agree. It’s extremely important to look at each individual person’s situation. On that, Coolen’s comment (about the celebrities) seems (to me) to show her doing just that – acting the “armchair diagnostician” that you mention. It’s almost as if she’s saying, “Oh, well, these celebrities are giving people who really might have it a bad wrap,” but who’s to ssay these celebrities aren’t dealing with something like it? Still, I’m interested to see how much deeper the research will go and if, in the future, there will actually be a way to test it.

Some very interesting thoughts, guys. Thanks for chiming in

@ Mariah – That’s a really good point. I’m sure lots of money, fame, and people eager to be your friend in one way or another can lead to a lot of behavior a person might not engage in if s/he were, say, an everyday non-celebrity citizen. Drugs, excessive drinking, partying, etc. – these are things we see everywhere, from every demographic – but it seems likely that fame and money and tons of fans might increase the chances of that happening. Decrease self control, maybe. Or judgment.

It’s squishy. Really, really squishy. At least a lot of the time.

Granted there are some forms of sexual addiction that are objectively harmless. An overwhelming and uncontrollable desire to have nonstop sex with a wood chipper fits this category. Same thing with unprotected sex with prostitutes, in this age of AIDS.

Other than that? Tres squishy. I have a friend who went to Sexaholics Anonymous for three years…until he met a partner who thought it was great to incorporate the pornography he absolutely loved into their sex life, instead of seeing it as some kind of disorder or insanity.

Guess what? “Addiction” over, he married her, and they’re one of the happiest couples I know.

Go figure, right?

I’m very fascinated and as usual disheartened by how this is all about men, men who cheat, and then… men. Women are totally overlooked, and many of us suffer in silence and lead half lives rather than get help. Cheating men are not the proper poster boys for this addiction and if anything it’s a ten steps backward crying shame the way the press uses it. Sex and love addiction is real, and it destroys your life and your ambitions. David, what you said is very astute. Sex addicts might pretend to enjoy sex but we often don’t, in fact most of the time we disassociate and hate ourselves after and go through periods of denying any sexual encounters before the next binge. Pinning it to a brain problem is denying the very obvious connection to abusive or neglectful childhoods and gets a lot of people off the hook who should be firmly strung up on it. But the scientist is actually connecting the brain to a compulsive desire to have sex, which is actually not what sexual addiction is but just an uninformative shorthand of a more complex issue.