Addiction (Psychiatry): A preoccupation with and compulsive use of a substance despite recurrent adverse consequences; addiction often involves a loss of control and tolerance, and may be associated with a biological predisposition to addiction. – The McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine, 2002 edition
An addiction is a physical and psychological dependence on some psychoactive substance (such as alcohol, tobacco or an opiate) which affects brain chemistry; if there is no gross physiological change in the body’s function which renders normal function impossible without the substance, there is no addiction. It’s normal for words to shift their meanings in common usage; sometimes they become more specific (“stench” once meant any odor, but now it specifically means a very bad odor) and sometimes less. The word “addiction” has, in common usage, become confused with the related concepts of habituation (psychological reliance on a substance which is not physiologically addictive) and obsession (psychological fixation on a behavior). And while that sort of confusion is OK for common words, it becomes a problem when the word in question has a specific scientific or academic meaning because legislators and special interest groups often use the popular meaning of such a word in a context where only the scientific meaning should be permitted, thus intentionally or unintentionally creating confusion in the minds of listeners. For example, in the recent defeated attempt to decriminalize marijuana possession in California, opponents repeatedly called it an addictive substance when in fact it is not. Though marijuana is certainly habituating (long-time users crave it and experience psychological symptoms when deprived), it is not addictive to a normal physiology and the pothead deprived of his weed will not experience any medical withdrawal symptoms worth noting.
The same is true of the plethora of behaviors people to which people now claim “addiction” such as computers, television, work, gambling or shopping; I guarantee you that if I locked up a compulsive gambler and denied him access to casinos, he would become upset, erratic or even highly depressed, but he would not die and blood tests would reveal only the neurochemical changes one would expect to result from his mood shifts. An even stupider claim is that of “food addiction”; every last person on the face of the Earth is a “food addict”, because food deprivation will grossly affect our moods, behavior and physiological function and if we are deprived for long enough we eventually die. One might as well claim to be an “oxygen addict”. Craving something the body (food, water and oxygen) or mind (sex and companionship) actually needs is not and cannot be an “addiction”, though it can certainly become an obsession if one thinks about it to the exclusion of all else and indulges in erratic, inappropriate or even dangerous behavior to gain access to whatever it is he is obsessed with.
In the late ‘90s certain pop psychologists started throwing the term “sex addiction” around, and though it is totally impossible to be “addicted” to sex (as explained above) the term has nonetheless become very popular in the general public and even a few psychological professionals have adopted it (though only for use in popular articles). What makes this improper term even more damaging than such asininity as “internet addiction” is that A) it is confused with the real and serious psychological disorder which the DSM-IV calls “hypersexuality” (and which was previously called “nymphomania” in women and “satyriasis” in men); and B) it has been co-opted by neofeminists to mean “sexual behavior which falls well within the normal range of male behavior but outside the normal range of female behavior.” We’ve previously discussed the damage done to society by neofeminist pathologization of normal male behavior; the application of the very strong term “addiction” to behavior characteristic of two-thirds of men is more of the same and should be fought by every man and every woman who loves men.
Here’s a recent example of a professional unethically catering to this misconception of “addiction” in order to make a fast buck from Match.com; though the author states near the beginning of her article that DSM-IV doesn’t recognize the concept of “sex addiction” as valid, she undermines the statement by claiming it’s being considered for DSM-V (it isn’t, though a form of sexual obsession less serious than hypersexuality might be). And since she then for the rest of the article proceeds to use the term to refer to any man who cheats, you can be sure most of her readers will forget she ever said otherwise long before reaching the last sentence.
The news has overflowed lately with salacious tales of cheating husbands…while each of these guys acted despicably toward the women they’d married, do they really fit the “sex addict” stereotype? What, technically, is sex addiction? Counselors say errors in judgment do not classify someone as sexually “addicted.” The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health reports that “sex addicts” comprise only 3-5% of overall the population. The official handbook of psychiatric diagnoses, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), doesn’t include a diagnosis for this ailment, although it is being considered for inclusion in the 2012 edition.
With the professionals themselves disagreeing on who is and is not a sex addict, how can a single woman assess whether the guy she’s dating will be faithful? Daniel Amen, M.D. reveals that if a man’s fourth finger is longer than his second finger, he is likely to stray…[and] brain scans can identify who will cheat. While the finger test is easy…who would shell out the cash for a brain scan? …Researcher Arthur Aron speculates that a man’s level of commitment grows stronger depending on how much his romantic partner enhances his life. While this discovery won’t change an addict’s history (and altering addictive behavior is difficult), if an addict is dedicated to building an expanded future together with his romantic partner, changing his cheating behaviors may be possible. Morris Halperin, Ph.D., adds that a sex addict is someone whose compulsive behavior prevents him from functioning in his own life…So who is a genuine sex addict — and who is just a very bad partner who struggles to remain faithful? And should the difference matter to a woman who is suffering with the fallout from a cheating mate?
I’m going to interrupt for a moment here to point out how much this article panders to unhealthy female preconceptions. A “test” can uncover if a man is in the third who won’t cheat, if he “really loves you” he won’t stray, and any infidelity makes a man a “very bad partner” no matter how he behaves in other ways.
Sexual addiction is usually accompanied by other addictions. For this reason, single women must be good detectives in regards to potential romantic partners…This CNN report by Elizabeth Cohen warns, “If you continue your sexual activities even under threat of being divorced, dead, fired, or arrested, you’re an addict.”
Yes, she’s advising women to spy, pry and do background checks, because the way to prevent a man from betraying your trust is obviously to betray his first. And we all know how accurate and well-researched CNN’s stories are.
…Elle…chose to stay with her cheating husband. When Elle discovered her husband romping with women and men…she demanded he tell her everything…he revealed that he was secretly working with a sex therapist because, like other sex addicts I interviewed, he hated his hidden life. Elle is still working to eliminate the “mind movies” of her husband engaging in sex outside of their marriage. Both of them continue to pursue therapy together, and he regularly attends 12-step programs…Elle said she saw her mother get sober after 25 years of drinking, so she knew addiction can be overcome…
Are 12-step programs helpful with obsessions as well as true addictions? Well, Overeaters Anonymous and Fundamentalists Anonymous think so. But do women like Elle deserve to know the truth about the real reasons for undesirable male behaviors instead of being told they are “addictions”? Absolutely; it’s called “informed consent”.
Elle tells single women to beware of three red flags:
-“Frat boy” humor consisting of inappropriate comments
-Pawing at your body sexually, despite your objections
-Blatant objectification of women as only being useful for sexMy own suggestions for women who suspect their man may have a sex addiction include:
-Ask questions about your guy’s parents, their relationship dynamic, and explore any possible stories or memories he might have of early molestation.
-Check out the length of your guy’s fourth finger…Even if you’re skeptical about this finding, use the information as a guide nonetheless.
Yes, if your man makes dirty jokes or gropes you while you’re trying to wash the dishes, if his ring finger is longer than his index finger or if he denies he was ever molested or objects when you keep obsessing about it, he’s probably a “sex addict” despite the fact that at least one of those statements applies to probably 95% of heterosexual males.
When people make grandiose, inflated claims, the critical thinker asks “what’s in it for them?” And in this case, the answer lies in the very last line: “If you seek out dates that have the potential for true, caring mates, you may save yourself from broken heart in the end.” And how do you seek out such dates? Why, on Match.com of course, whose links are conveniently located before, after and in the middle of the article.
Helpful essay to de-muddle these words.
got to go.
It happens every day: sex addicts who are arrested go through a withdrawal syndrome (vomiting, convulsions) in jail because they no longer have access to sex, and every year hundreds of sex addicts arrive in hospital emergency rooms D.O.A. from a sex overdose.
And let’s not forget those awful sex pushers… 😉
HEY! I resemble that remark!
I guess it takes one to know one! 😀
I should think that M.D. needs to reread his endocrinology textbook. All foetuses flushed with testosterone while in the womb will have a longer 4th finger (and this is the default normal condition for males). All foetuses receiving lower testosterone levels in womb have longer 1st fingers (the default normal condition for females). Lord, I can’t believe people would buy into this prattle about finger lengths and potential fidelity/infidelity.
I mean, you write good posts all the time – does that mean you could be addicted to writing good stuff? Does that mean I’m addicted to reading good stuff?
The author was a she (big surprise), Gilda Carle. I’ve mentioned the longer ring finger issue before in my column on transsexuals, so like you I was quite surprised to see it claimed as a sign of potential infidelity until I realized, “well, duh, two-thirds of men cheat so of course a longer ring finger is an indicator of a high chance of infidelity because just being male already indicates that!”
Consider the source; obviously Match.com wants women panicking about potential infidelity because then they’re more likely to “seek out dates that have the potential for true, caring mates” on their website.
How right you are.
My fingers are the same length, so what does that mean about me? I mean, I’m a decent person so I’d like to warn any future potential mates about my genetic failings. I do so enjoy being pigeonholed.
LOL! 😀
you either have extraordinarily long pinkie fingers or extraordinarily short index fingers.
I was talking about the fingers in question, not all of them, haha.
what about the *size* of the fingers? or differences in toe lengths? if i have big toes do i also have a big… foot?
what if the bumps on the left side of my head are much larger than bumps on the right side?
__
couldn’t a sex addict partner with another sex addict, and so not be philanderous?
one of my pigeonholes is much shorter than another pigeonhole. is surgery a cure for this problem?
Your argument is quite convincing, Maggie: so-called sex addiction is not the same as chemical addiction. Of course, the problem here is terminological; because nobody doubts that there is a problem. The question is only whether it is the same kind of problem.
The usual “culprit” with sex addiction (and gambling, and other kinds of compulsive behavior) is dopamine, part of our brain reward circuitry. This is clearly a different mechanism than drug dependency; no doubt about that.
But since it is clearly true that people often will succumb to obsessive-compulsive behavior in ways that are not healthy — they’ll destroy their lives on the roulette, or with internet porn, or by eating themselves to death, or by obsessing about any other topic that gets this enormous amount of power over their attention spans — nobody denies that there is a problem here.
Whether they have the right to call it “addiction” — metaphorically or not — is up for the speaking community. (Less so for DSM-IV, which only decides on technical uses; their predecessors were not successful in keeping “idiot”, “retard” and “moron” under their control). Lots of similar metaphors/hyperboles can be found in any language (‘fall in love’, ‘fall asleep’, as if we actually fell; ‘paradisiacal islands’, as if the Christian paradise actually existed there; ‘ecsatic feelings’ in orgasm, as if you actually reached Nirvana; and so on). It’s good to point out that sex obsession is different from chemical addiction; but just as the language of similarity (‘they’re all the same!’) can be used to manipulate people into thinking that the problems are the same, the language of difference (‘they’re not the same!’) can be used to manipulate people into thinking that there is no problem. It’s not the language per se that does the manipulation, but what is said with the language. The intentions behind the choice of that language, and how well they are expressed or achieved with the use of said language.
The question is how to solve this problem, and whether a “rescue industry” is a good idea for them. How do you make gamblers realize that they’re destroying their lives and those of their relatives and friends? How do you free obsessive-compulsive porn users of the little hell were they managed to imprison themselves? Or should you just leave them there to suffer the consequences of their chosen fate? (In which case, why should we bother about the chemically addicted — after all, they also usually choose to take that first shot, and they know beforehand that chemical addiction is a very likely consequence if they keep using the drug…). That’s where I’d like to see the debate going.
That’s precisely my point. Semantic drift is a fact, neither good nor bad; the problem lies in the fact that the word “addiction” in its true meaning is written into countless laws which do not “fit” obsessions. If sentencing guidelines allow a judge to send a heroin addict who steals to support his addiction to rehab instead of jail, should those guidelines apply to a “gambling addict” or “sex addict”? Obviously not. And the increasing pretense that normal male behavior (straying) is a kind of mental/physical illness (addiction) sets a dangerous precedent indeed.
This is indeed a valid point, and I agree with it. But doesn’t the law always include definitions of such points? I would expect them to define “addiction” for legal purposes in some way, and then only punish those addictions that fit the legal criteria. (I’m not a lawyer, though, so I’m making a hopeful guess here.)
It is also indeed wrong to assume that cheating is necessarily an “illness” (this actually goes with the current tendency to pathologize a number of things — “low libido” jumps to mind — that were never before considered pathological). Let’s hope it’s not “increasing” — there’s a lot of it in TV, for sure, but there’s a lot of “boys will be boys” there, too. “Boys will be boys” is still mentioned quite often, more so, it seems to me, than “cheaters are sick people.”
Hee hee hee, silly boy!
You’re not minding the subtext, at least not in American television.
Hm, you do sound like a madam. 🙂
I think I am. Guess it depends what you watch in TV.
Of course, the biggest problem in the article you mention is the curious association of “sex addiction” and “unfaithful behavior”. Of course, a sex addict (= obsessive-compulsive habituated person who needs “more stimulation” to get the same dopamine high) will stray, either via porn or other sources — affairs, prostitutes, etc. But lots and lots — the overwhelming majority — of unfaithful spouses is not addicted, and the reasons for their behavior have nothing to do with any compulsive-obsessive behavior. By blurring the distinctions here, they’re not doing anyone a service; they’re just creating more opportunities for disaster.
It used to be said that “marriage is a lottery.” I think the woman readers of such articles are asking someone — God, science, big brother, Santa Claus — to provide them with a litmus test to let them know when a man will be ‘good’ and when he won’t. They don’t want to repent later on, if it turns out their partner choice was wrong; because they are (in the best cases) afraid of the huge emotional hurt that comes with that.
Since we can’t know 100% what is in someone else’s soul; and since the contents of said soul might change in time to become something we no longer like; this is actually not going to work. The possibility of making a mistake, of choosing a partner who will make you regret this choice always remains; it cannot be completely excluded.
Life is dangerous. Mistakes are made. Tragedies do happen. (I’m reminded of your old friend Jeff, Maggie, who helped you so much, and who apparently made a bad choice of partner. Really sad. Also your first husband, who left you in such an ugly way.) We have to learn to deal with that, not to hope for some magic stone that will always tell us where to go. The only thing that tells us where to go is our own fallibe selves.
When I was very young and impressionable I made some sort of comment about men cheating, and Jeff said something like “Maggie, always presume a man you love will cheat; if he does you expected it, and if he doesn’t you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” It was good advice, and still is. My column of January 13th was about exactly that. If a woman sets her “conditions of victory” to fairytale levels disappointment is inevitable .
Maybe it would be better if people were to redefine “cheating” as “betraying the other person’s trust”; and if we understood that sex out of wedlock isn’t necessarily that. In fact, if people became more accepting of sex (and stopped insisting that it is synonymous of, or at least only redeemable with, love), they might learn to live with all kinds of agreements as to what spouse has sex with whom and how often — and then they would start concentrating on what really matters: how people actually do, or do not, take their partner’s well being into account. How much they actually care for each other.
I appreciate the good intentions behind Jeff’s words; though they sound a little bit too much like Pascal’s proposal (‘do believe in god since, if god exists, you’ll save your soul, and if it doesn’t, then it won’t matter’). To me, these words still suggest that the cheating partner is wrong for cheating, we just shouldn’t mind so much (presumably because cheating partners, like dogs pooping on the carpet, ‘can’t do any better’). I’d rather think that what is usually called ‘cheating’ is often not really cheating, but something else; just like eating out is not ‘cheating’ on your partner’s cullinary skills.
You have to keep in mind that in Jeff’s opinion, I was better than any mortal man deserved and therefore deceiving me would automatically be wrong unless I had given permission. 🙂
A true gentleman, then. And a (life) scholar! (He reminds me of a friend I met too late in life; I wished I had met him as young as you met Jeff.). You must have been quite a girl for him to think so highly of you even when you were still a child.
Oh, definitely; he took his chivalry very seriously, which is of course what eventually doomed him in this culture. 🙁
Sincerely, when I re-read what you wrote about him, I feel really sad. As I said then, it’s terrible when things like that happen to such good people. 🙁
Betrayal of trust. An addict cannot be trusted. My ‘husband’ is one of them of whom you so lightly speak. He didn’t have an affair. I could have lived with an affair. I offered an open relationship because I accepted that one person might not always meet the needs of another,and ‘straying’ is a likely outcome.
No. He lied, and hid, and didn’t care if he brought a deadly disease to me. That is far beyond a behavioral issue. His consience is completely obliterated by his need for using sex to get high. He lives in a self imposed misery which recreates the misery he grew up with. He destroyed his marriage and his family and his self respect.
It is cheating if it requires lies and deceit. That is the key difference between accepted upon behavior between people, and unacceptable. It was never acceptable for my husband to have sex with someone else and then come home and have sex with me without my knowledge.
You allowed him extracurricular activity and he still cheated? Yeah, I’d agree that’s seriously unacceptable, especially if he was having unprotected sex with amateurs. But that still doesn’t make it an “addiction”, which is a physiological process; your husband clearly has a behavioral disorder, which is a psychological issue rather than a physiological one.
It is my sincere hope that you are able to find a man worthy of your trust in the near future.
In many ways it is physiological, just in the brain. Normally I would agree with you, that behavioral problems are more a personality disorder, which definitely that is one of the keys for heavily emotionally incested men. Yet, he has mutliple addictions, primarily behavioral such as eating and spending, but also smoking. There is a fine, fuzzy line between physiological and brain chemistry addiction. And yes, there are sex pushers. As for withdrawal, although they may not end up in the emergency room, neither do all drug addicts. That is where drug overdoses end up. But there are physiological affects from withdrawal, and physiological brain chemistry changes during the addictive process, withdrawal, and upon stabilization. The reinforcing pathways in the brain which lead to unconcious reaching for and desparation for the addicted substance is real. Someone who might have been functional at one point does rewire their brain pathways and signalling chemicals for total dysfunction and subversion of the frontal lobe thought processes through extended use of any addictive substance. Addiction is not about the substance, but about the person who is so self destructive and so attuned to living under a cloud of shame and misery that every aspect of their life becomes subsumed. That is the one commonality across addictions – self hate and a willingness to hate themselves to death.
A final comment (I promise! ;-)) on language, “metaphorical usage”, and the “good fight”.
As a linguist, I don’t really care so much about specific meaning changes in specific words; which is why I’m not overly disturbed by the way words like “idiot” or “moron” escaped the control of psychatry and fundamentally changed their meanings. This happens all the time, and the mechanisms that opperated on them are no different from those that operate in other areas (as you mentioned for “stench”; maybe “smell” will follow the same path). Science managed to go on in spite of what happend to “idiot” and “moron”, and it will, too, no matter what happens to “addiction”.
Rather, the underlying political motivations behind the evolution should be highlighted. People who talk about “sex addiction” do so because “addiction” is a more colorful, emotion-laden word, one that is more capable of eliciting an emotional reaction from the hearer. This can be pointed out. Also, the differences between obsessive-compulsive behavior (dopamine reward mechanism) and real chemical addiction can be pointed out. As long as these differences are understood, it doesn’t matter that the word addiction is used. (As it usually happens, “addiction” will probably lose its emotional impact if it keeps being used like that.)
Compare this with another case of the same phenomenon, but with the opposite political orientation. Laura Agustín and other sex-positive researchers and commenters (including, I think, you, too, Maggie) talk about a “rescue industry” operating in the whole problem of trafficking and forced prostitution. Now, if semantics were all that mattered to me, I could say that this isn’t true, because “rescue” isn’t a real “industry”. An industry is a well-defined economic activity with a certain legal profile which does not fit the “rescue industry”: they are not registered in the Chamber of Commerce, they do not sell stock in the stock market, their main goal is not to produce money for their stockholders… they are not primarily an economic activity. I could write a post similar to yours about all the differences between the “rescue industry” and real industry as an economic activity.
Yet if I did this, I would be missing the point — as I’m sure you’d point out to me. Yes, the “rescue industry” is not an industry; so the reason why “industry” is used here (as “addiction” in “sex addiction”) is to cause a certain negative emotional reaction on the hearer (basically, “industry” still brings up to mind old, 19th-centurish ideas about big capitalists exploiting poor workers in horrible working conditions and with appalling effects for the environment). But if I insist on the differences I miss the similarities: the ‘big business’ aspect of the rescue industry, the propaganda for its goals (just like commercials for industry products), the large amount of money involved in rescue projects, the lack of attention for the actual reality and the actual voices of the people they are supposed to be ‘rescuing’, etc. etc. etc.
Same thing with “addiction” used for obsessive-compulsive behavior. It’s “wrong”; there are “differences” (and we should strive to make these differences visible). But it misses the point. (A point which may even be wrong by itself — are obsessive-compulsive behaviors as bad as chemical addictions? But we don’t solve this point by missing it.)
In the end, knowledge about differences and similarities is more important than whether or not you want to use one word for them. It doesn’t matter so much whether a language has a single generic word for both robins, nightingales, eagles, chickens and ostriches — ‘bird’ in English — or two words — ‘ave’ (eagles, chickens, ostriches) and ‘pássaro’ (robins, nightingales) in Portuguese; it matters more that we see what differences and similarities there are between those different species.
See my response to your earlier post.
The problem I have with the word addiction is the implication that it is not the fault of the person – i.e. it’s not his fault, he’s an ADDICT. Just one more thing that gives us an excuse to not be personally responsible. “It’s not my fault that I lost everything so I could buy drugs, I’m an ADDICT.”
For personal reasons this bugs the shit out of me. My ex and I both had a cocaine addiction. I chose recovery, he chose self-destruction.
It’s that famous US “all or nothing” mentality again; either a problem is 100% your fault, you’re evil and bad and should be thrown in jail, or else it’s a “sickness” and you have absolutely no liability whatsoever for your actions. As in everything else, the truth is somewhere in-between; while it’s true that the addiction itself causes erratic behavior, the addict is the one who tried the stuff in the first place and is the one responsible for seeking help (which is why the exit path should NOT be blocked by laws and cops).
Indeed. It is no small irony that the land which was founded based on the principle of liberty, the land which supported human rights and the belief in human dignity, should also be the land in which so many people are trying to avoid responsibility by declaring their problems to be the result of some ‘disease’ that they couldn’t control.
But Maggie’s point goes even deeper than that, I think — cheating is often not even a condition of chemical-like dependency in which an individual loses his/her freedom, not even metaphorically; but actually a reaction to problems that aren’t being solved. A (often very logical) adjustment to problems that aren’t being addressed. To believe that cheating would often involve losing one’s very sense of agency; that it’s “stronger than the cheater”; that the cheater is no longer a human being reacting in a human way to human circumstances, but rather an automatic, obsessed little semi-robot following a pre-ordained path; that is already quite wrong.
from July 21, 2010, you write:
When I first embarked on my career of harlotry the dear, late friend I shall refer to as Dr. Helena (who was a prominent sexologist and sex therapist in New Orleans) warned me that it could be _addictive_, and she was absolutely right:
funny.
Guilty as charged! But in my own defense I must point out that she and I were both speaking colloquially rather than in the sense of actually diagnosing sexual problems. 😉
Yup, and we all know that that is also addictive as all hell. 🙂
If a woman sets her “conditions of victory” to fairytale levels disappointment is inevitable .
That’s a pretty heavy-handed statement. You use a battle metaphor for marriage, and scold a women for having high expectations. Settle for less, and you’ll be more satisfied? Is that really how you’d advise a young woman?
Tangentially, what would you advise a young man to expect from his wife wrt. fidelity? Should he enter marriage with low expectations? Tell him “She may occasionally need outside validation of her sexiness. Don’t believe in fairytales. Just get paternity tests for those babies.” ???
I’ve read back and forth on your posts at _Harm Reduction_ and july 21 _Drawn That Way. I agree that husbands and wives should strive to understand and accommodate each other. Sex keeps men healthy. Cheating destroys.
I just can not accept a plan of “cheating in an managed fashion.”
For now, I’ve concluded that foregiveness of sins trumps preemptive “harm reduction.” When I have sinned grievously, I tell myself, “I’ve sinned. I hurt people, including myself. I’ll sin again in the future , because I’m flawed, but I will never make that mistake again.
If a young woman does not expect fidelity, she’ll wont’ receive it. Her lowered expectations will ooze out , such that her husband can rationalize to himself.
I disagree that cheaters can not be predicted to some extent. Past performance does predict future performance. Manwhores with the values and attitudes of promiscuity will repulse women who expect fidelity. Also, she should consider his family tree, his friends, his overall behavior and the life goals he has set for himself.
Not high levels, unattainable levels. JZ, as an experienced whore I’m telling you that male infidelity is NOT predictable, and every other professional here will agree with me (except for the ones who say EVERY man does it). No human is perfect, and if a man or woman says “if my spouse does x the marriage is over,” he or she is setting things up for nigh-inevitable disappointment.
If by “cheaters” you mean not simply “partners who strayed” (i.e. had sex with someone else) but “partners who betrayed my trust”; and if you strive to understand each other (so that, for example, a lack of sexual satisfaction on the part of your partner is seen as a problem that needs a good solution, not as something to be ignored because said partner is just ‘being silly’); I am inclined to agree with you.
But what I see in humans agrees more with what Maggie wrote above, jz. You, for instance, are quite conscious of the fact that you can sin, and hurt other people; and you grieve about that. This is a common human experience: all of us have been in positions in which others suffered because of our bad choices. But just as you can reach in your heart and see that you are not simply a sum and result of your sins; nay, that you are much more than the sins you’ve committed; then you should also be able to understand that a cheating parnter — even one who knew, because you told him, how much being cheated on would hurt you — may be in exactly the same situation.
In other words, people don’t cheat just because they want to hurt their partners and make them feel like shit. I’m sure this can also happen, but in most cases this is not the main motivation.
So if you set the bar too high, if you get into a “if my spouse does X the marriage is over” without further context (why did s/he do X? what was the problem?)… then all I can say is, are you sure you can cast the first stone?
Well, in the “good old days,” marriages were arranged and both men & women didn’t exactly know their spouses up until their first night in the boudoir. They were almost strangers who didn’t know what to expect from each other and built the terms & conditions of their relationship gradually as they learned more and more about each other, based on pre-established socio-religious norms. That’s not how marriage works today.
You know who you’re going to marry inside out. You might’ve lived together, had kids and done everything else that your granny was smart enough to do only after getting married. The guy lived with the cow all day and got the milk too without actually buying the cow but just feeding her her cud.
Once we get emotionally involved, many people lose the ability to think rationally about their significant other. That’s the “Halo Effect.” We expect the same things and some more better things once everything is “official” just by putting a ring on it. Many times, it’s the other way around. That little ring goes to their heads. Not just in the case of men, but women too. Thus, the high rate of divorce. People fail to realize that what you see isn’t always what you get, that creative liberty has been taken during advertising.
So it’s best to keep our expectations low because the institution of marriage was not built as a monument of love. Hell, even the Taj Mahal isn’t a monument of love, it’s a crypt built by demolishing an old temple full of gold if the whispering walls are to be believed. If you’ve read Maggie’s old posts, you must’ve also read one of her very first posts about Marriage. At its inner core, marriage is a socio-economic transaction and a socio-religious one at its outer core. Everything else is romantic nonsense. Even our wedding vows (Hindu) state that the father gives away his “flawless/ in mint condition” daughter to the groom for carrying out “religious duty, and to enable the family name to live on.” The bride agrees to do as her father asks if she is promised “primacy to all other relations the groom might have.”
Quite frankly speaking, those are the only things husbands and wives can reasonably expect from each other.
Ah the human species… Truly we are an unpredictable race. I can only predict how I react to certain situations based on past experience. It is unpredictable how I would react to a new situation. I can imagine, I can play the scenario in my head. Not I, nor anyone else I know can tell what the future may bring – much less how anyone would react until faced with it.
A man who has never cheated on his spouse is suddenly confronted by a woman with whom, unwillingly and subconsciously, he is extremely attracted to. If never have being in that situation before, he can only guess as to how he would react.
A woman can predict that she would never prostitute herself but is suddenly faced with foreclosure, repossession, and the utilities turned off. How is she going to react?
“cheating in an managed fashion.” – isn’t that called swinging?
Nothing can be predicted, we can only take educated guesses and hope for the best.
Could be, but there are other ways. I’ve known ladies who let their husbands get hookers when they’re on the road (I even had an escort from Denver call to hire me for her husband while he was in New Orleans – she wanted to be sure he was getting quality). Then there are ones who say anything goes as long as they know about it, or the ones who allow it if they can join in. And then of course there’s roleplay and dressing up, which allows the wife to become “other women” at will, or porn (which lets him look at and think of another woman while actually being with his wife). There are lots of ways to handle it instead of just stonewalling.
I like the idea of Dolly Parton’s 40-year open relationship. They get to fuck other people but they don’t tell each other about it. Sounds like heaven, but it’s not for everyone.
If a couple has an arrangement, then how is it truly cheating? If everything is talked about, rules set up, etc., then what kind of lying/cheating, etc., is going on? If couples were honest with each other about their desires, etc., there would be a lot less upset in the world. If a man is attracted to other women besides his wife, why’s it wrong if he says he is? He doesn’t have to act on it. The same with women. I’ll never understand how some see just saying they’re attracted to others as a betrayal.
I’m with you, Laura, but some women seem to think a man even LOOKING at another woman is betrayal, which is what I mean by “fairy-tale levels”. Any woman who insists that the only successful marriage is one in which the husband never even desires another woman is doomed to disappointment.
Thank you! I’ll never understand this and don’t WANT to! It doesn’t mean the man doesn’t love you if he looks at other women. Even if he has sex with other women it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. Why are women so afraid of these things? It’s so sad. From what I’ve seen with men (and my experience with them is a lot less in some ways compared to most women) they don’t buy into this as much as the women I’ve seen and that’s to their credit. It’s no wonder so many men are afraid to be honest and open when dealing with these bitches. I call these women that as they deserve it for trying to run these mens’ lives in the sexual area.
If a man is truly such a moral human being, than he shouldn’t get married if he is unwilling to bring another person’s needs and rules into their life. If the woman is that uptight, it is his own choice and fault for staying in that situation. Cheating is not an acceptable answer if he finds certain aspects of the marriage agreement unappealing. If a man doesn’t want his sexual life run by a woman, than he should be man enough to say so and not lie and conceal and be an equal bastard to his bitch. I agree that men will desire other woman, just as women will desire other men. But I also agree with ex Pres Carter, who admitted to being sexually attracted to other women every day, but by choice and by conscience, he did not give in to that temptation. Therein is the difference between a man, and a selfish little boy.
The problem with that philosophy is that society as currently designed could not survive if only the one-third of men who can resist temptation to stray got married. The problem isn’t in the fact that they stray; they’ve been doing it since the Neolithic and society manages to endure. The problem is that for the past century moralists have been trying to cut off their means of doing so in a controlled fashion, with predictable results.
I see a conundrum in that thought. Of course society could survive. It survived witch burnings, when the women who thought for themselves and were most likely to stray, or be the object of straying, were killed by the millions. If men who cannot be faithful didn’t fall into the social pressure of marriage, then society would readily adapt, especially if women also resisted that pressure and were comfortable living their life sans male. Moralists have been cutting off women’s access to stray for millenia. The problem IS the fact that they stray. The HIV rate in Africa is all about men’s promiscuity and the social acceptance thereof. Sexual straying is destroying society, and ask any women who contracted HIV or HepC or cervical cancer from a ‘straying’ mate if the danger is real.
Males are going to stray whether it’s dangerous or not, so expecting they won’t is counterproductive. The principle of harm reduction is that human beings WILL do things others think they “shouldn’t”, so instead of wasting energy in a fruitless effort to suppress human nature (generating incredible carnage in the process), the moral approach is to reduce the harm caused by the behavior. Ready access to whores is harm reduction for male infidelity.
Only if there is ready access to prostitutes for women, as well! Gods know, if I could have found a male whore after I discovered my H was a manwhore, I could have at least had some sex from someone who was honest about his promiscuity! And likely better sex from a professional than the sex addict amateur I was stuck with. I am not against whores. I am agasint patriarchal dogma that rejects women’s desires and amplifies men’s. Damn, can’t even find a male stripper act anymore!
You can’t find them for the simple reason that there isn’t enough demand to keep them busy. Since women can easily get it for free, very few will pay for it and that means a male pro cannot support himself unless he accepts male clients. Even male strippers tend to cater to men, or else to travel so they can attract female attention via the novelty factor.
Perhaps, but getting it for free usually means getting the same old amateur handiwork. Too bad. There use to be a weekly night for male strippers, and I recall it always being packed. I wonder if it didn’t stay avid because the male strippers used female technique too often and that doesn’t usually appeal to female style. At least, that was my experience.
There’s also harm reduction from non-whore women. 2 groups that we help are the poor (poor in $) and the men who don’t want to see whores. These groups deserve sexual help also.
I think there is a high level of understanding regarding what a man might need in a relationship, but less conversation about a woman’s feelings. I have been in relationships where I was never bothered by the man’s previous experiences or where his eyes may roam in a room–have waited 2 hours for a red headed waitress because he had a desire for them and I was a mere blonde :-). I have also been bothered by so much as the thought that my partner had a flash of a thought about another woman–a woman from his past and my brain might spring a leak. As I have read through these posts I am that woman looking for clues…the warning clues. I feel ridiculous about it, hate it, have spent some time hating myself for it and am self reflective enough to know it is definitely my problem.
What I recognized through reading these posts is the addiction/self destructive part of the addictive/habituated brain is the differentiating factor in the latter instance. He is not ‘recovering’, but certainly stopped using shortly before we became a couple. His former lifestyle was secretive–so I know he understands what it takes to keep a secret. And I think that part of me knows that anything underlying in someone for so many years ‘unresolved’ in a tangible way, still lurks or could. I know that men can be manwhores for many years, wear the habit out and become great faithful husbands. I have witnessed it–and honestly, it is rare to even see their eyes wander. they did their bid and gladly hung their hats up to be fathers and husbands.
I believe that the ‘bitches’ you reference-and the bitch I am currently as described in the post above–feel at risk when they see their man’s eyes so much as wander….because they are either insecure themselves or because they know that the man that they are with doesn’t value what he has with them, maybe because he is reckless and self destructive. It is fear that creates the ‘bitch’ problem. That same fear will, of course, exacerbate it–and lead the man to the water he was never interested in drinking in the first place. Additionally, it has to do with my completely, obsessive,uninhibited, unrelenting desire for him.
I think that I particularly want the man I am with to at least have his ‘focused’ attention on me because I have been on the receiving end of those advances from men involved with other women. Far too often for my taste. I never wanted to be the woman on either side of that. The one who didn’t know or the one saying NO. This part is my own insecurity–I don’t want to be a stupid girl. I lived previously in a relationship where I knew that he was never faithful, likely wouldn’t be and I accepted it until it was distasteful. He was a respectful person and did not make me feel it had anything to do with my capacity to maintain his attention.
I am of the belief that porn or outside sexual affairs–with prostitutes or a friend from the office–IF both parties are willing sexual partners to one another–can be dangerous to the continuity of the commitment. It is an escape. The growing, ongoing, even monotonous–habit–of loving one other person because you chose them and value that choice–is enrichened by that consistency and exclusivity. You are a team or club with no other members. There are many other escapes, but the intensity of the bond between two people is lessened and cheapened if one is watching internet porn in the living room while the other is playing farmville in the bedroom.
With that said, I think women should make it a habit to make time for their partners–good time, and be interested in doing so, as interested as we all were in our first crush, and a man should attempt to let her feel like he hasn’t seen those same breasts 2000 times before. Not everytime, but often enough that he can feel like a man and she a woman without needing a stranger to validate those aspects. I am older, we should be through with games and all of the playing at this point, I believe, and be able to appreciate what it means to have someone value our mere existence. In exchange, we exclude the others.
Maybe I have fairytale expectations.
Dear jz, I do agree that cheating CAN destroy in SOME cases. But, not with ALL. If a couple doesn’t have an arrangement or even DOES true cheating CAN be overcome. When I say this I’m NOT saying the true cheating is OK. I’m just saying that a couple can recover from it and start over. 1 reason there’s so many divorces is that people don’t even WANT to forgive. It’s tragic.
[…] a retired prostitute has had a couple of articles and discussions about the subject in her blog. Not An Addiction, and Neither Addiction nor Epidemic examine the subject of the concept of sex addiction and […]
Great, well-thoughtout post. Sorry for getting to the party late, but I just found your blog.
I am a single female and I also identify as a sex and love addict. While I agree that “addiction” arguably doesn’t fit the dictionary definition of the set of behaviors I was compulsively engaging in and the obsessions that filled my mind, to the point that I was barely able to function; it doesn’t really matter to me. I was a mess, my life was in shambles and I couldn’t stop on my own. I’m in a 12-step program that I find incredibly helpful. It’s not a magic cure-all, that’s for sure, but the structure and the tools of the program are helping me get my life back.
Also some of my acting out behaviors were such a rush — of adrenaline, of dopamine, of whatever else was going on in my brain — that I did feel physically high. When I stopped acting out I experienced both a physical and mental withdrawal. Sure, I wasn’t going to die from headaches and nausea, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience.
What really matters isn’t the semantics of it all, but the fact that many people are seriously suffering and do need help from their obsessions and compulsions. I fear that people might read articles like yours and use it as a justification to not get help. That’s what I did the first time a therapist told me, years ago, that I should check out a 12-step group for sex/love addiction.
I do agree with you that the Match.com article you quote from is reinforcing a lot of misconceptions. One is that all sex addicts are male. Of the mixed meetings I go to, about 40 percent of the people in the room are women. The other misconception is that all sex addicts are cheating on someone. Many, perhaps even most, of the men and women I know who suffer from this problem were too fucked up to ever sustain a long-term relationship.
Hi, Imperfect! My issue with the concept of “sex addiction” is that is displaces the focus from the obsession (where it should be) to the sex. When a person suffers from a real addiction, it makes perfect sense to avoid the drug to which he’s addicted; even for a compulsion like gambling it’s probably best to avoid the practice completely. But nobody needs alcohol, nor gambling either, whereas we all need intimacy and all men and many women need sex as well. To characterize sex as an “addiction” is to buy into the puritanical fallacy that sex is not a need. Unfortunately, many more women than men believe this nonsense, which explains why so many self-diagnosed “sex addicts” are female: they’ve been taught that anything other than the prissiest, most chaste sexual impulses within the context of a committed relationship are “sick”. Though I’m sure that there are some women (perhaps like you) who are legitimately obsessed and therefore legitimately need help, there are many more who consider their normal or reasonably-high sexual impulses to be pathological. But even for those who do need help, it’s important to remember that, unlike a true addiction, a person who is obsessive or compulsive about sex, television, the internet, or minding other people’s business is not a victim of the behavior but rather using the behavior as a “crutch” or “patch” to make up for a problem or deficiency in himself…and if the person concentrates on the so-called “addiction” rather than the underlying issue, he merely leaves himself open to become obsessed with something else (such as religion, which is what many of the religious “sex addiction” programs are hoping for).
In a nutshell, the danger of the “sex addiction” narrative is that many people who have absolutely nothing wrong with them are treated as “sick”, while others with serious issues are considered “cured” if they become obsessed with something the “therapists” don’t consider a problem. I’m sure that some genuinely suffering people are indeed helped by such programs, but that’s because of their own strength and determination to get over their problems rather than the teachings of the program.
Not all people want sex. Some choose to be celibate and it isn’t always for religious reasons. This group of people isn’t big, but that shouldn’t discount them. Even if only 1 person in history didn’t want sex that person would still count. And that 1 person wouldn’t disprove the fact, rule, whatever you want to call it that most people DO want sex. Another part of this group that doesn’t want sex is the sexually abused people who are doing recovery work. I know this 1st hand as I was frigid for years. It took years of work for me to want to/be able to have sex. The desire was there before I was frigid, but when you’re sick from the abuse, it’s repressed and even the thought of having sex is literally terrifying. You’re not well enough to have sex until you do the recovery work. But, even though you were victimized, if you stay in what’s called the “victim mentality” you’ll never have the best life possible. You have to do the recovery work to have the best quality of life. Taking the easy way out (staying frigid) you get the least rewards. I’ve met people who are choosing to be celibate until marriage and they’ve been some of the most “together” people I’ve ever met. Thanks for listening.
I understand where you are coming from. I subscribe to the sex addiction tag on wordpress, and many of the writers tagging their posts with the sex addiction tag are in fact religious fanatics that think even looking at porn is a form of sex addiction.
For me it’s not a moral issue. If I could keep having casual sex left and right without consequences, I would be all about it. But there were consequences for me. I won’t get into the details here, but for 10 plus years, this is what my whole life was about. All other hopes, dreams, and desires I once had fell by the wayside in pursuit of the next boyfriend, the next fuck, or indulgence in fantasy.
Maybe I’m not a sex addict. Maybe I’m just a horny chick with OCD. Either way the program I’m a member of, which is a free, secular program is helping me.
If it’s truly helping you to get your life straight without trying to take you for a ride or sell you a bill of goods, it sounds like you’re in the right place for you. 🙂
My fingers are the same length. Not only that, I have a great family background, am both loyal and supportive to my relatives, an affectionate and warm and considerate, if politically incorrect.
And the risk of cheating: Well, in general, as in randomly – low.
Specifically – targeted – extremely high.
My SO has taken an odd route. She understands that men are, as she says, cads and jerks – at least the ones she likes – and so has essentially permitted me to maintain something of a discreetly open life. I’m permitted some very tightly controlled dalliances on her terms, though not as of yet with a pro, though as we age we never know, and it all seems to work out.
At the same time, I’ve made it clear that this is a double standard. And shockingly, it seems to go over reasonably well. Of course, I’m not one to pry or ask too many questions: I have a very good relationship with a woman I think is great, and poisoning it with petty jealousies for things which, as adults, we should have the ability to gloss over in life, is not in fact in my interest.
It all works rather well.
“If you continue your sexual activities even under threat of being divorced, dead, fired, or arrested, you’re an addict.”
So…all those people dating and marrying and otherwise sexually engaged with someone of a different race before it became socially or legally acceptable was a sex addict by this definition. They ran the very serious risk of being killed or arrested or even fired from their jobs and outcast from their community.
Or homosexuals more than 30 years ago.
You’d’ve thought I’d’ve commented on this one, at least! Yes, “addiction has a specific meaning. The word is not a synonym for “I really like it.”
[…] “sex addiction” as so much bunk. In one sentence. With a backhand flip. In other posts, such as this one, she goes into more detail about her belief that the very concept of sex addiction is a symptom of […]