My last three blogs have been about sexual offending. Frankly, after completing the series I’d hoped to move on to lighter topics. Unfortunately, the recent situation in Ohio – Ariel Castro allegedly kidnapping and repeatedly raping and torturing three young women for more than a decade – requires comment, particularly in light of Castro’s statement to police that he is a “cold blooded sex addict,” along with his reference to sexual addiction in an attempted suicide note.

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In two previous posts I’ve written about clinician prejudice toward sex offenders and ways to effectively treat sex offenders. It was satisfying to see these blogs being well received, and it is my sincere hope that this effort has helped in some small way to pull back the covers on a topic that is often avoided, overlooked, and/or flat out ignored by the therapeutic community. This third and final (at least for a while) blog on sexual offending is intended to briefly address a few remaining offender-related topics.

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Are Sex Offenders Treatable?

Last week I wrote about clinician prejudice toward sexual offenders. As part of that writing I introduced the four main categories of sexual offenders:

1. Violent offenders
2. Fixated child offenders
3. Regressed child offenders
4. Sexually addicted offenders

I also mentioned the some of the most damaging misconceptions that most people, including many psychotherapy professionals, have about sex offenders.

1. All sex offenders are treatable.
2. No sex offenders are treatable.
3. All sex offenders are sociopaths

None of these beliefs is correct. The reality is that most but not all sex offenders can benefit from proper treatment. In fact, the recidivism rate is actually quite low, provided the offender is paired with the most effective form of treatment. It’s all about good assessment and knowing who needs what and when.

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Perverts and Rapists and Creeps, Oh My!

A couple of weeks ago my colleague Jenner Bishop posted an open letter on the IITAP (International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals) listserv about clinician prejudice toward sex addicts and sex offenders. Jenner had just come from a “suite meeting” for an office she’d recently rented, at which she’d been bombarded with angry questions from the other therapists about how they were supposed to protect their clients from her “unsupervised” sex addicts and offenders. She had explained that she doesn’t work with violent offenders, and that the offending behaviors of her clients were typically something along the lines of hiring prostitutes and/or looking at illegal pornography – which the other therapists’ clients were probably also doing, even if the therapists weren’t aware of it – but Jenner’s fellow professionals just wouldn’t let it go.

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Technology and the Changing Face of Relationships

Modern technology affects virtually every aspect of human existence. For starters, the world is rapidly becoming a much smaller place. This is not to say that our planet is physically shrinking, it’s just that we can now travel from place to place more easily and affordably than ever before. And even if we’re not willing to hop into a car or onto an airplane we can still communicate almost instantly, IRL (in real time), with practically anyone, anywhere, at any time thanks to ever-evolving digital tools like computers, laptops, pads, smartphones, e-readers, and the like. Not surprisingly, this relatively recent and ever quickening onslaught of new technology has drastically changed the ways in which we view and value intimacy with our significant other, and even our ideas about what a “significant other” actually is.

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I’ve decided to take a much needed week off from blogging, as I’m currently attending, along with many wonderful colleagues, the US Journal Training Conference on Sex and Love Addiction in Brooklyn. Jeff Schultz, a talented sex addiction counselor from the Phoenix area, has agreed to step in.

—Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S

Guest post by: Jeff Schultz
www.sonorancounselingservices.com

Is there a difference between the person who carries on with one secret sexual affair after another and the person entranced by Internet pornography?

Are sexual behaviors like affairs, sex with prostitutes, and anonymous sex a greater risk of harm to an individual or a relationship, or is pornography the greater risk?

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Doing It Until We Need Glasses (Or Not)

There are a great many statistics – not all of them obtained scientifically – regarding the frequency of sex among long-term committed/married couples. A quick Internet search will yield a surprisingly wide variation in what is thought to be a “normal” or “healthy” amount of sex for married people. So much for Internet searches. That said, the most scientifically reliable data comes from the General Social Survey, which has tracked American sexual behaviors since the early 1970s. According to the GSS, married couples of all ages have sex an average of 58 times per year. But this number lumps 29-year-old newlyweds into the same survey sample as 70-year-olds who’ve been married half a century, and I’m guessing that those in the first blush of love tend to get it on a wee bit more than couples who’ve been together for twenty-plus years with two or three kids and maybe even some grandkids to show for it. Recent GSS studies support this, finding that couples in their twenties have sex 111 times per year on average, with that frequency dropping steadily as couples age – perhaps as much as 20 percent per decade. Basically, younger married couples have sex twice per week, give or take, slowing over time to once or twice a month with the occasional extra session thrown in to acknowledge birthdays, anniversaries, and major holidays. That said, the frequency of sex varies widely depending on health, available time, and external circumstances (new kids, caring for a senior parent, etc.), not to mention each individual’s very specific sex drive.

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Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage, Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage…

- Song lyrics by Sammy Cahn, music by Jimmy Van Heusen (Copyright Barton Music Corporation)

Mommy, What’s a Housewife?

For much of the 20^th century young women dreamed of little pink houses, white picket fences, two (or maybe more) kids, and a cute, cuddly, calendar-worthy pet. And, of course, a faithful, clean-cut, high earning husband. Or so the story goes. In other words, young women were expected to have a “steady,” get pinned, get engaged, get married, get pregnant, and become a stay-at-home mom, at which point they could experience the joys cooking, cleaning, and generally catering to the needs and whims of their busy husbands and children. Barefoot and pregnant, educated just enough to make interesting dinner conversation, yadda yadda yadda.

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Faux Intimacy?

In today’s tech-driven world, young people (digital natives) are as likely to communicate in the digital universe as they are to communicate face-to-face. In fact, more likely. A Pew Internet & American Life study conducted in 2012 found that texting is now the primary mode of daily communication between teens and their friends and family, far surpassing phone calls, face-to-face interactions, and emailing.ⁱ So in some ways it’s only natural that teens and young adults do much of their flirting online, too. A recent University of Michigan survey of 3500 young adults (ages 18 to 24) confirms this idea, finding that for this age bracket texting and sexting are simply another way of getting to know potential romantic partners and possibly advancing a relationship.ⁱⁱ

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Fantasy vs. Reality

On January 21, at Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration, millions watched as pop music star Beyoncé belted out our national anthem, accompanied by a live orchestra. But what we saw and what we heard were not the same thing. As it turns out, the pop star’s voice and the orchestra were mostly muted, with a studio version of the anthem pumped out to cover any potential imperfections in the live performance. A few days later, at a press conference for the Super Bowl – at which Beyoncé was the halftime entertainment – she said, when asked about her “performance” at the inauguration, that she is a perfectionist and she wanted to sound her best, especially at an event as important as that one. She’d not had time to fully rehearse with the orchestra, she’d not had time for a proper sound check, and the weather (30 degrees) was not great for her voice. Thus, she opted to “sing along” with her prerecorded track.

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