Does Sex Addiction Really Exist?
The following excerpt is part of an article published by www.rhrealitycheck.org
Sex Addiction: What the Tiger Woods Story Forces Us to Confront
By Anna Clark
Created Feb 18 2010 - 1:03pm
From Tiger Woods to Lifetime movies, there has been no small amount of conjecture about the slippery concept known as 'sex addiction." But does such a condition really exist?
Finding out requires sweeping aside the presumption, dismissiveness, and shame that clouds the subject.
The phenomenon didn’t have a name until 1983 when psychologist Patrick Carnes published the influential book, Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction. Prior to that, the behavior was described as “hyper-sexual arousal.” In short, the term “sex addiction” is used to describe a pattern of frequent, progressive, and often secret sexual behavior, even when the behavior jeopardizes a person’s time, employment, financial stability, relationships, and reputation. While often conflated with adultery, sex addiction does not necessarily mean cheating—or even intercourse. Rather, it can manifest as a dependency on pornography, masturbation, phone or Internet sex, and other related behavior.
People who struggle with sex addictions are of varying ages, genders, and sexual orientations. The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health estimates that 3 to 5 percent of the American population wrestles with addictive or compulsive sexual activity.
Re-framing compulsive sexual behavior has led the therapeutic community to look at it through the lens of addiction for the last twenty years, noting how the behavior activates the same pleasure centers of the brain, releasing the same chemicals as drug use does, and providing the addict with the same kind of euphoric high, and numbed escapism that addictive substances cause.
To read the complete article, go to www.rhrealitycheck.org/>Sex Addiction: What the Tiger Woods Story Forces Us to Confront