Sex "addiction"

It's one of those topics that is apparently irresistible. I have said before that I doubt such a thing exists. Never say never but ... I have very strong doubts.

There was a piece last week that reminded me why I have such doubt. Before I cite the bit that made me wonder, think about someone addicted to cigarettes. Think of how they light up after sex, for example. Why do they do that and how does it make them feel?

Now read this description of what sex addicts supposedly seek:

Like a drug addict or alcoholic, the sex addict relentlessly seeks satisfaction from an external source to palliate an internal pain. Modern technology, such as the internet, provides a new external source that sex addicts use in their quest for sex partners.

So what is withdrawal then? Or, to put it another way, why do addicts feel pain when they are denied the thing they are addicted to? And why do they calm down when they get it.

Substance addiction seems to be closely connected to the firing of key brain chemistry that allow us to feel rewarded or comfortable. Hard core alcoholics who manage to stop drinking report that life loses all its glow. They can't get any feeling of satisfaction from beauty in the world.

Now consider our smoker who lights up after sex again. Why does she do it then? Because that is the way she can get the afterglow that normally comes at such a moment. That is what addiction does to you. It has nothing to do with any of the following:

Although sex addicts are enslaved to sex, it is far from their goal. Rather, the pursuit of sex is in service of a different goal — to dispel feelings of inadequacy, depression, anxiety, rage or other feelings that the sex addict experiences as unbearable.

All those "feelings of inadequacy, depression, anxiety, rage or other feelings" are consequences of addiction and not causes of it. There isn't any searching to "palliate an inner pain" here. The only inner pain is withdrawal symptoms. (The whole notion of "inner" pain is incoherent by the way. As opposed to what; the pain I feel two feet in front of my face?)

We don't know all that much about addictions but there is one thing we definitely do know and that is that addiction is not a coping mechanism. Alcoholics don't drink because they are unhappy, they drink because they are addicted to alcohol. They tend to be depressed in turn because not being able to stop drinking tends to mess up your life.

That said, you'd be surprised how long some people can be functioning alcoholics. I knew a woman who was a functioning alcoholic for virtually all her adult life and had fooled, among other people, her doctor. That was her downfall for her doctor prescribed her a painkiller at one point that significantly magnified the effects of the alcohol she consumed every day. Her marriage, her life fell apart in just a few months after that.

What is being called sexual addiction here sounds like something else to me. Or, to be more precise, it sounds like several something elses. And I worry, along with many others, that "sex addiction" is just a cover story for people who cannot master themselves. On the other end of the scale, I also worry that "sex addiction" might also be used to marginalize some people who have a stronger-than-normal sex drive. Some people, particularly some men people, just have very strong sex drives and they should not be treated as mental cases as a consequence.