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Topic: Too Much Sex? No Such Thing -- Why Sex Addiction Is Total B.S. (Read 1181 times) |
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Sat
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Too Much Sex? No Such Thing -- Why Sex Addiction Is Total B.S.
« on: 2010-03-08 11:39:07 » |
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The idea of sexual pleasure as a harmful addiction parallels the most perverse aspects of Western religious history. SOURCE - http://www.alternet.org/sex/145922/too_much_sex_no_such_thing_--_why_sex_addiction_is_total_b.s.
American befuddlement over matters of sex is on the increase, in spite of the fact that one can hardly imagine the subject becoming more befuddling to the people of this country than it already is.
Sex addiction is the latest star in America’s sexual burlesque. Sex addiction has of course been a malaprop from its first usage. Addiction was originally and properly defined as a physiological dependence on a substance to which the body had grown accustomed, such as alcohol, nicotine, heroin and various other drugs. The cure was to end the dependency and abstain from further use of the substance in order to avoid a recurrence of the physiological dependency. These treatments do work and many people have been cured of their addictions and never returned to the addictive substance.
Applying such a metaphor to sexual pleasure creates a misleading and ominous innuendo. Sex is not an addictive substance. It’s a human interaction on which the survival of the species is dependent. It is also possibly the most pleasurable and sought after activity known to humankind, and arguably an experience no one should be deprived of. Most normal people consider more rather than less sexual pleasure to be a major objective in life.
Following the substance abuse mode implies that the only cure for an addiction to sexual pleasure would be a celibate or monastic life, a complete renunciation of the alleged addictive sexual pleasure.
The very idea of sexual pleasure as a harmful addiction plays precisely into the hands of one of the most perverse aspects of Western religious history, namely the teaching that sex is a work of the devil redeemed only by the act of procreation itself. Reliance on the notion of sex addiction in counseling and psychiatric treatment is ominous.
Christianity as a world religion has much to commend it on balance. Nevertheless, its posture toward sexual pleasure has been abysmal. In that respect it should be noted that Christianity, of all the major world religions, is the only one to cast sexual pleasure in such a negative light. Never mind that Christianity’s distaff side - Protestants and others - challenged such negativity toward sexual pleasure. They were eventually and unfortunately drowned out in the debate. It is no coincidence that currently the most Christian of nations, the U.S., is also the most negative toward sexual pleasure. (And at the same time the most confused sexually.) Europe as gone blessedly post-Christian.
We must suspect that the sex addiction proponents unconsciously wish to rebuild something like the medieval Christian social order where virtually every cultured and literate person was bereft of sexual pleasure for life, save for sexual pleasure in the service of procreation
Some psychiatrists are now getting into the fray, offering treatment for sex addiction. However, the Bible of psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), is currently being prepared for its 5th edition, and is wisely declining to introduce sex addiction to its manual. It does, however, come close by introducing the category of hypersexuality as a mental disorder. This neologism is the editors’ own special, and arguably less troublesome, substitute for sex addiction. But as the saying goes, it walks like the proverbial sex addiction duck.
The pundits are now weighing in on the new DSM 5. Allan Frances in The Los Angeles Times is worried that philanderers and rapists will now be able to claim mental illness as a defense of their anti-social behavior and thereby escape punishment. George Will in The Washington Post astutely raises the problem of medicalizing the assessment of character, which he unaccountably blames on liberals. I thought I was a liberal, but I’m as concerned as Will about defining character or the lack thereof as a burden of psychiatric diagnosticians. And by extension, character as an expected outcome of proper medication.
So now according to the working version of the new DSM-5, psychiatrists will be able to assess whether one is having too much sex, or even whether one simply wants too much sex. Or too little. They will presumably have some kind of measuring rod to determine what is too much or too little.
This new project, of assessing who might be wanting or getting too much sexual pleasure, or too little, should create many more jobs for psychiatrists. We’ve been needing something to improve the job market. Maybe this will do it. Perhaps psychiatry will now join hands with the worst elements of Christianity and recreate the medieval Christian dream, a world where the only sexual pleasure allowable is that accidentally associated with the desire to procreate.
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Too Much Sex? No Such Thing -- Why Sex Addiction Is Total B.S.
« Reply #1 on: 2010-03-08 12:55:47 » |
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Sat,
Hah, very interesting. I suppose my take on it - if its not leading you to compulsively lie and dissemble - then it isn't a sex addiction. If it is leading you to compulsively lie and dissemble the it probably isn't a sex addiction either, but rather a fundamental character flaw, likely something hypocritical and/or dogmatic. Just because some people have a greater appetite than others does not equate with addiction. If one is compulsively having unprotected sex, thats definitely a health, birth control, and perhaps even a mental health issue, but not an issue of appetite. Personally I think people copping out to "sex addiction" are simply looking for an excuse to not take responsibility for acting stupid, or acting like an asshole . . . not that there's anything wrong with being an asshole mind you, I just find the honest ones much more entertaining. My kinda asshole. 
-Mo
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Fritz
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Re:Too Much Sex? No Such Thing -- Why Sex Addiction Is Total B.S.
« Reply #2 on: 2010-03-08 20:40:06 » |
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Quote:Posted by: Sat Posted on: Today at 11:39:07
The idea of sexual pleasure as a harmful addiction parallels the most perverse aspects of Western religious history |
Hey Sat .... I'm think'in you may be giving the 'Religious crew' a bum rap (alter boys aside). Looks to me like the drug companies are opening new markets for their "wunder cures" like Prozac etc.
Cheers ... with both hands on the keyboards ... for now ....
Fritz
PS: I have always found sex a self limiting activity for a million reasons... clearly I feel like I've missed out now 
http://www.medicinenet.com/sexual_addiction/article.htm
<snip>Treatment of sexual addiction focuses on controlling the addictive behavior and helping the person develop a healthy sexuality. Treatment includes education about healthy sexuality, individual counseling, and marital and/or family therapy. Support groups and 12 step recovery programs for people with sexual addictions (like Sex Addicts Anonymous) also are available. In some cases, medications used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder may be used to curb the compulsive nature of the sex addiction. These medications include Prozac and Anafranil.<snip>
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Too Much Sex? No Such Thing -- Why Sex Addiction Is Total B.S.
« Reply #3 on: 2010-03-08 23:23:35 » |
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Quote from: Fritz on 2010-03-08 20:40:06
Quote:Posted by: Sat Posted on: Today at 11:39:07
The idea of sexual pleasure as a harmful addiction parallels the most perverse aspects of Western religious history |
Hey Sat .... I'm think'in you may be giving the 'Religious crew' a bum rap (alter boys aside). Looks to me like the drug companies are opening new markets for their "wunder cures" like Prozac etc.
Cheers ... with both hands on the keyboards ... for now ....
Fritz
PS: I have always found sex a self limiting activity for a million reasons... clearly I feel like I've missed out now
http://www.medicinenet.com/sexual_addiction/article.htm
<snip>Treatment of sexual addiction focuses on controlling the addictive behavior and helping the person develop a healthy sexuality. Treatment includes education about healthy sexuality, individual counseling, and marital and/or family therapy. Support groups and 12 step recovery programs for people with sexual addictions (like Sex Addicts Anonymous) also are available. In some cases, medications used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder may be used to curb the compulsive nature of the sex addiction. These medications include Prozac and Anafranil.<snip>
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yeah, I'm not so sure about sex as an addiction model. I can see sex as an arena in which people may act out destructive behavior learned earlier or elsewhere, but to shame people just for having a sex drive in the first place seems rather absurd to me. Actual drugs and alcohol can pose some substance abuse problems and when mixed with sex many more problems as well, of course, both medical and legal. So if we are going to treat addictions as medical problems approach, I'd rather limit it to the actual mind altering substances themselves.
Appropriate and inappropriate, consensual and non-consensual, sexual and non-sexual, touching issues are completely different animals entirely. Still very important, no doubt, but certainly a different sort of issue than alcohol and drugs.
-Mo
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Mo Enzyme
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MoEnzyme
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Re:Too Much Sex? No Such Thing -- Why Sex Addiction Is Total B.S.
« Reply #4 on: 2010-03-09 12:28:24 » |
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My #virus musings today as to why sex and gambling are different from alcohol and drugs in considering addiction metaphors in dealing with problem behavior. I didn't edit any of it because its in the chat logs too, so there may be some grammar/spelling mistakes so bear with me.
10:15:21 MoEnzyme I would say the same thing about gambling addictions. Not that there aren't some troublesome issues to deal with there, and they can intersect with drugs and alcohol in intricately destructive ways as well, but they are very different animals.
10:18:13 MoEnzyme If they become addicted to anything, its risk taking behavior and the chemical complexes they produce for neural consumption. To pretend that the problem is sex, gambling, or some other behavior that millions of other people enjoy responsibly without ill consequence is to avoid personal responsibility.
10:22:36 MoEnzyme Perhaps we can say the same about drugs, many people enjoy occassional recreational uses, or even semi frequent, like every weekend or so. But in this case we are in such close chemical contact with body, more than gambling or sex can ever approach, that sometimes a chemical addiction paradigm might make a little bit of sense.
Incidentally, I might add that I'm not a "personal responsibility" nazi, here. I know how little we are ourselves responsible for our lapses, I just point out those lapses that are somewhat within our potential control if we chose to exert such effort. I know that people can literally feel completely out of control in their behavior in many ways, and that it can take a great sense of effort to change direction in the middle of things. These things can seem truly Herculean when wrestled with. What can seem near impossible, however would be those behaviors involve such complete and direct ingestion of chemicals which once taken tend to have direct chemical self reinforcing effects.
Granted I do hope to die like a lab rat hitting the lever just one more time, but that's not how I wish to live in the meantime. So now that I've covered drugs and death, we can back to the fun stuff, like sex
love,
-Mo
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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