I鈥檓 not bad 鈥� I鈥檓 ill. In essence, that is the defence of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, with his decision to after the recent string of allegations about his appalling behaviour towards women.
Weinstein isn鈥檛 the first to go down this route. The idea of sex addiction has been around for four decades and there are many offering such therapy, particularly in the US. But the film producer鈥檚 reported behaviour was so extreme it is triggering renewed scepticism about the very idea of sex addiction.
鈥淭his latest example demonstrates the degree to which the concept has 鈥榡umped the shark鈥�,鈥� says , a clinical psychologist in New Mexico who wrote a book called The Myth of Sex Addiction. 鈥淚t has become so overused and misused, it鈥檚 a meaningless excuse.鈥�
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Although the term is commonly employed by the media and public, the concept is highly controversial among professionals. It was rejected by the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists in a . And when US psychiatrists updated their industry鈥檚 key textbook in 2013, they considered and dismissed including it as a new diagnosis.
One of the authors later said this was because of a . This is revealing given that this textbook, called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is sometimes slated for creating new diagnoses too readily. And yet there are patently many professionals who are believers, including those who publish in a peer-reviewed journal called .
Ley says people who come to him worried they are sex or porn addicts have often been brought up in highly religious families and can end up thinking normal sexual behaviours are evidence of a disorder. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 engage in more sex or porn than anyone else, they just feel worse about it.鈥� 聽This ties with showing that porn viewers who have聽religious beliefs聽are more likely to see聽themselves as addicted.
Other groups of self-classified sex addicts include gay and bisexual men unhappy about their sexuality, or those who just want more sex than their partners do.
When such people find a therapist who espouses the sex addiction model, they may well end up receiving treatment. This usually entails group therapy involving a similar 鈥渢welve-step鈥� program as that promoted for alcoholics. Yet there are no randomised trials showing that such therapy is helpful for problematic sexual behaviours.
On the contrary, there are hints it could even be unhelpful. In a study of more than 100 US men who used porn, a belief that they were addicted was linked with . This goes against the basic tenet of the twelve-step program, which claims identifying yourself as an addict is an essential first step on the road to recovery.
Whenever the next celebrity plays the sex addict card, it is tempting to speculate if they deserve this label. Perhaps instead we should be debating whether the label has any value at all.
