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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I used to think that I was the problem. Now I understand that it was my behavior and how I conducted my life that was the problem. Despite the bad choices of my past, I now understand that I am a man who is worthy of love and a good life, simply because I exist. Understanding this fully has not made day-to-day recovery easier, but it sure helps me get through the rough spots and gives me hope about life, and for myself as being a useful and good man.

- Damien, a former Sexual Recovery Institute client

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Sexual Sobriety

In sexual addiction treatment, clinicians help clients carefully self-define the sexual behaviors that do not compromise or destroy their meaningful personal values, life circumstances, and relationships. Clients then commit in a written sexual sobriety contract to only engage in sexual behaviors that are permitted within the bounds of that predetermined pact. As long as the client’s behavior remains within his or her concretely and mutually defined boundaries, that individual is sexually sober. (I have written extensively about “boundary plans” in a previous blog) But how can we help sex addicts deal in healthy ways with the people, places, and things that trigger them to act out? After all, every time they leave the treatment setting the real world awaits-with all the same temptations as ever (and, thanks to the ever-expanding Internet, probably a few new ones).

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Women, Love, and Addiction

Valentine’s Day is once again upon us. For most happily paired individuals, February 14 is a day of chocolates, roses, and intimate time with a spouse or partner. However, for some more emotionally vulnerable single individuals, V-Day can feel like a cruel, frustrating, unjust reminder of their loneliness and unhappiness. The greatest sufferers are those who rely on an intimate relationship as their primary means of emotional stability and affect management. And while some men do struggle, SLA (Sex and Love Addiction) issues are more often a challenge faced by women, specifically those women for whom not being partnered can destabilize an already fragile ego state. For these “love addicted” ladies, the experience of romance, sexuality, and emotional closeness is, at best, a wildly emotional challenge beset with exuberant highs and painful lows. Living in emotionally chaotic, sometimes desperate worlds of emotional need and psychological despair, they fear being alone, being rejected, getting stuck in the “wrong” relationship, and most of all that they will never find that special someone – or, worse yet, that they will find the “perfect partner” and be deemed unworthy.

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In recent months I’ve written extensively about individuals struggling with the all-too-common interplay of stimulant drug abuse and sexual acting out. However, I’ve not spent much time discussing WHO we are dealing with in terms of this treatment population. In this blog, I examine one segment of this growing clientele – a man I call “The Executive Player.”

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In 2005 I wrote Cruise Control: Understanding Sex Addiction in Gay Men, a book that I took out of print in late 2010 because it desperately needed an update. Essentially, the volume was penned prior to the rise of social media, the explosion of user-generated porn, the advent of smartphone hookup apps, and numerous other advances in digital sexnology. And let us not forget the cultural changes “gay marriage” (and its effect on “gay monogamy”) has wrought in the past few years. Remember, many in the gay community used to deride marriage as an old-fashioned, demeaning, heterosexual ritual. Now, however, gay marriage is a hard-fought-for reality in several states, and with a forward-thinking president who has spoken in support of it on more than one occasion, other states are likely to follow. This has created a dramatic shift in gay men’s attitudes toward marriage and monogamy, leading in turn to quite a lot of individuals rethinking their sexual behavior, wondering if all the “fun” they’ve been having is actually compulsive and destructive rather than enjoyable.

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I have written extensively about the intersection of technology and sexual addiction, examining the topic in blogs here and here, and in the upcoming book (Summer 2013) “Closer Together, Further Apart: The Effects of Digital Technology on Sex, Relationships, and Intimacy.” Because of that, I was hoping to take a time out from all the “sexnology” writing, but the recently concluded International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas has pushed me toward this all-too-familiar topic yet again.

By most accounts, this year’s CES was a bit of a snooze-fest. Several major players (Apple and Google among them) stayed away entirely, though plenty of smaller vendors were busy hawking Apple and Google related devices. The general consensus seems to be that this year’s CES fell short of past years in terms of completely new technologies to see, enjoy, and make plans to buy. Instead, vendors presented a lot of enhancements and tweaks to existing technology.

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Two Behaviors: One Addiction?

Although the intersection of stimulant abuse and sexual behavior is extremely under-researched, in recent years it has become increasingly apparent that there are many individuals who abuse or are addicted to stimulants who consistently fuse their drug use with sexual activity. It is also clear that when a stimulant drug addict consistently fuses drugs with sex, the sexual fantasy/behavior can both reinforce the intensity and frequency of chronic or binge drug abuse and act as a significant contributor to post-treatment relapse. One recent study (focused on HIV+ gay men and methamphetamine use) strongly supports this idea, finding the leading factor for crystal meth use for these individuals was sexual enhancement, including lowered inhibitions and prolonged duration of sexual encounters.¹ The study concluded that with some addicts it is virtually impossible to separate their sexual behavior from their drug abuse. While this study is limited in scope and focused on a specific population, it is not unreasonable to assume that as further, broader studies are conducted these findings will translate across the board. After all, the plethora of research on stimulant abuse shows remarkably consistent results, particularly in terms of how it affects patterns of decision-making, overall functioning, and social isolation – regardless of cultural background or the specific stimulant abused.

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Some Famous Quotes about Love to Get Us Started:

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” – Sophocles

“To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia.” – H.L. Mencken

“Sometimes love is stronger than a man’s convictions.” – Isaac Bashevis Singer

“Loves makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” – Zora Neale Hurston

So, What is Love?

Romantic love, next to whatever happens after we die, has always been one of mankind’s greatest mysteries. LOVE is difficult to define, differs from person to person, yet somehow is easy for all to recognize. You sure know when it hits you – not unlike the flu. For eons men and woman have philosophized about what love is, how it occurs, and why it’s necessary, rarely coming up with anything more useful than really cool comments like, “Love is friendship set on fire.” Such sentiments make good song lyrics and poetry, but are not much help from a psychotherapy perspective. Nevertheless, despite centuries of vain attempts to fully define it, there is no denying that love exists, and that it’s as natural and essential to most human beings as breathing, eating, and sleeping.

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Mars and Venus

Men and women typically experience sex – both fantasy and reality – in different ways. It has long been known that when it comes to sex men tend to be visually oriented, whereas women tend to be more interested in a connection or relationship. Basically, when a man sexually admires a woman, he is usually focused on certain body parts and their potential use for him (as sexual objects). When viewing pornography, for instance, males are typically most aroused by a rapid-fire succession of images depicting concrete sexual acts and/or specific sexual body parts. Females on the other hand tend to be most aroused by sexual imagery that includes or at least infers some type of emotional connection.

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