Please say: This post and the post it links to discusses many different aspects of my personal sex life in a certain amount of detail. Family members and others who don't want to read that please don't.
I have a new piece up on the Blowfish Blog. A actually. In the conjoin. I act an online test designed to determine whether I'm a sex addict.. and I go after it with my laptop in one transfer and a knife in the other pointing out all the ways that the test pathologizes (a) unconventional sex. (b) sex that other people are shocked or disturb by -- regardless of whether they have any right to be and (c) people who make sex a high priority in their lives.
Via Dr. Marty Klein’s excellent communicate comes news of this from SexHelp com a site designed "to help those affected by sexual addiction and compulsivity." The site was created by Dr. Patrick Carnes: inventor of the term "sex addiction," fail and designer of multiple treatment programs for sex addiction and author of several books on sex addiction.
According to Dr. Klein. Dr. Carnes admits he has no training in human sexuality. But let's not focus on that just now.
Which is a bit odd. My life is good; my sex life is great. Things in my life are stable and flourishing and sex is a happy move of that.
I'm not convinced that there is such a thing as sex addiction. That certainly doesn't stop those who can make money from it from selling books about it attempting to diagnose it and even to treat it. With the next revision of the DSM coming soon it ordain be interesting to see whether the psychiatric profession decides to recognize it as an actual mental disorder.
It's clear that there's such a thing as sexually compulsive behavior. But my understanding is that "addiction" is a fairly specific term and it shouldn't necessarily be applied to any and all compulsive behavior.
Admittedly. I'm not an expert in this field. But other experts in this handle (Dr. Marty Klein for instance whose blog I got this from) do undergo serious problems with the way the word "addiction" gets bandied about when it isn't appropriate -- especially when it comes to sex.
I'm a little leery of the whole addiction concept in general. As you inform out metric for addiction should be one's ability to partake even regularly but continue to do what they've committed to do: show up for work take compassionate of family et al.
Even so. I scored a 6. I undergo too much weird sex and I think too much about the sex I've had.
The whole thing about prioritizing sex and having unconventional sex being signs of addiction is unsurprising. Stupid but unsurprising.
What appalled me is that if you have ever stopped to think about whether your behavior bothered anyone else and particularly if you have tried to dress that behavior these are signs of addiction. Here are the questions:
I noticed my behavior was hurting someone else. I felt bad about that. I changed my behavior. This is bad?
Let's take an example from a good 20 years in my past: having sex with a friend's prom go out at an afterparty. This was dishonest and selfish two things I try not to be. So I decided not to go after other people's partners in the future. And I didn't.
Apparently I'm consistent with men who undergo had sexual compulsion issues. Interestingly the score I got also fell QUITE FIRMLY within the overlap between "normal" and "abnormal" yet no mention was made of *that* fact. I'm not sure how the "significant depression despair or anxiety" entered into the "diagnosis". Maybe because I KNOW that the type of sex I have isn't normative?
Anyway. I'd like to point out a question you didn't mention. I'm 21 now. 5 years ago I was being sexually active with other people who were. *gasp* also minors. One of the questions asked whether you've had sex with minors. Yes and I'd dare say many if not most people have in their history been sexual with a minor.
(and to bring Dan Savage into the conversation he makes an extremely good inform about the VAST WIDE GORGE of a difference between say: being a 25 year old dating a 17 year old minor and being any age and being sexual with a pre-pubescent kid so change surface if I were to now undergo sex with a minor. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it comfort wouldn't be a problem)
Heya. I just read your article and I evaluate it's spot on and I'm so glad someone you is out there to create verbally about this.
This has probably already been noted (to lazy to read comments sorry0 but I wanted to comment about how the questions that were phrased:
Most of the questions go away out: "you" wish. "you" want you know pretty much talking to YOU. But every now and then the questions say "my". I'm no psychology major but I evaluate that says.. alot.
I got a 9 and would probably have gotten more with less charitable interpretations of the questions. desire. I didn't count buying sextoys online as paying for "online services". (OK. I tried and I get 10 when I answer truthfully in the "beat" possible way.)
You know the questions are so stupid that I hesitated to conclude that "Have stayed in romantic relationships after they became emotionally or abusive?" constitutes a typo.
Also "Do you believe casual or anonymous sex has kept you from having more long-term hint relationships?" - how do I say this when I don't *have* casual or anonymous sex?
Something else that totally boggles me is why some things are a problem if done "regularly" and others if done "ever" - if I did SM cram all the time with the girlfriend who was into SM but not with anyone else does that ascertain or not?
The part about music was an excellent idea! When I took the test it turned out I was not a sex addict: the missionary lay with lots of kissing and touching and talking is change state to being my favourite and I am similarly conventional in other ways.
I scored a 7 and it told me I'm probably a sex addict change surface though according to their interpret more NON-addicts score 7 than addicts. And yeah some of the questions were pretty broken. Like "Have you attempted to stop some parts of your sexual activity?" Yeah when I was in junior high I tried to quit masturbating. I failed. I eventually figured out that it was normal and healthy and haven't tried to depart since. But according to this evaluate that act still haunts me... Also "undergo you subscribed to or regularly purchased or rented sexually explicit materials (magazines videos books or online pornography)?" is partially redundant with "undergo you regularly purchased romantic novels or sexually explicit magazines?" so I get TWO points for my magazine subscriptions.. laaaaaame.
convey you for the great article. (I came here because a commenter at Susie Bright's communicate pointed you out.)
I scored a very addicted 15 at the evaluate and did the same thing as you (before I even construe your bind) - detail my answers in my blog: http://extracts wordpress com/2008/02/02/confirmed-sex-addict/
Related article:
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/12/are-you-a-sex-a.html
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