Sex Addiction

[Guest guest]

-- [ From: Janice Young * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] --

Pete,

I'm catching up on over 400 mail pieces and replying in no particular

order and now it's your turn!

Your answer helped me some. Much of my outlook on life and what is

around me comes from my own personal experience and observations and

being female. I've taken advantage of the sexual revolution and came

out of it with not very much self-respect. But I also came out of it

with a deep appreciation for the differences between men and women.

I came of age in the late 60's - the generation that believed that their

parents' traditions were old-fashioned and somewhat ridiculous. I went

along with all of that to a point and also women's liberation to a point

.. Trouble is with me I went along with the more negative aspects of the

movements. Too much drinking and partying and sexual freedom (that is,

hey I can have a one-night stand just like the guys and never give it

another thought). None of this gave me self-respect. From my own

experience and from what I've heard from other women, women and casual

sex just don't seem to work well together. We are built differently -

obviously physically but very much so emotionally. What may be of

benefit to a man or easier for him to live with can be very detrimental

to a woman.

---That teenage girls can wear clothes that make them look sexy, as well

as meaning that they are more likely to be sexually active voluntarily,

it also suggests that they actually feel safe abt not being sexually

victimized; I realize that they may be naive sometimes in this respect.

-------

I don't really think this is the case -- when I wore sexy clothes it

was to attract a guy, and it wasn't for a one-night stand although I'd

usually end up having one to my dismay. In my convoluted thinking, I

was looking for a boyfriend who would become my husband. This is where

after alot of soul searching, I've realized that this sexual freedom has

done a big disservice to our younger women. We forget that men's

sexuality is very visual and when a young woman comes in the room of

guys wearing a skin tight, low cut, micro mini with a Wonder Bra

substituting for implants she can't afford yet, drinking a sex on the

beach cocktail, the guys first, second, third and fourth thoughts are

not going to be regarding her fitness as the mother of their future

children or her views on world hunger. And yet deep inside that woman

and every other woman who wants a boyfriend is " I hope I'm attracting

someone who will respect me. " How we women got the idea that we can

dress and act that way and then demand that we get respect from men, I

don't know. No, we don't deserve to be raped but I wish more women

would tone down the victimization jargon and please realize that we do

send mixed messages to men when we go out on the town.

------------------I also think ignorance and anxiety can create many

other problems, such as exhibitionism, groping, the whole works,

including some of the less extreme sexually coercive behavior.---------

-

As to ignorance causing sexually deviant behavior, how do your explain a

married man molesting his children. Certainly he's not ignorant of what

the female body looks like. Yes, I think adolescent boys (and girls to

a lesser extent) probably do some crazy and basically harmless stuff to

satisfy their curiosity. But should boys and girls learn about sex and

all that goes along with it only in porn magazines, XXX shows, strip

joints, music videos, Dawson's Creek? I find it hard to believe that

deviant behavior is caused by your typical female being dressed or that

if we could all just get drunk and screw, that rape, teenage pregnancy,

incest, sexual child abuse,child pornography and prostitution, sexually

transmitted diseases, jealousy, domestic violence, stalking, voyeurism,

harassing phone calls, sexual harassment and the like would magically

disappear off the face of the earth.

----------------However, I suspect that like alcohol use, societies

where there are heavy restrictions on sexual expression are also ones

where sexual offending is actually higher - though we may not get to

hear abt it.-----------------------------

Is sex as simple as drinking too much? I don't think so. It involves 2

people with hangups and values, sorrows and joys, pride, feelings,

intelligence, everything that makes a person human. Sorry, but my wine

bottle never had a bad hair day! If it follows that prohibiting

something causes the behavior to escalate into destructive patterns,

then it would seem that when Prohibition was repealed, problems

resulting from alcohol use would disappear. However, I still hear on

the news on a daily basis the stories of human misery caused by alcohol

abuse.

Is absolute sexual freedom a harmless thing that is no one else's

business? Well, let's see if it is. Where I live there are alot of

families who are raising their teenage daughters and their teenage

daughters' children. Since alot of the families aren't well off to

begin with they take daughter to welfare office to get food stamps and

medicaid and welfare benefits. How're they getting those benefits?

From the government. How is the government getting that money to

provide those benefits? From taxes of working people. And these

teenage daughters don't always stop at one baby; I see alot of them at

the local grocery with 2 or 3 in tow. And it's typical that their

babies have different fathers. How did these girls get in this

condition? Well, obviously from having sex with a guy. But if they

weren't raped, what drove them and the guys? I'd say it was a

combination of parental example in some cases, not enough supervision

and the blatant sexual images on TV in movies in magazines, in

advertising, which subtly says to them that if it's OK to show me,

little Mr. or Miss 15-year old, all this sexual activity, then it must

be OK for me to participate in.

I'm not trying to come across as the Nation of sex. I just know

from my own experience that the easy quick sex was never really a turn-

on and I'd fake alot, but when there is mystery to it and some waiting -

Ah - that made it a whole lot more enjoyable, and I don't find myself

faking it. Add to that the sense of unrealistic competition in this

arena from the openness of sex: women frustrated and depressed cause

they don't look like Crawford, people thinking there is something

wrong with them cause they don't feel like having sex at least 7 times a

week, health aspects of breast implants, marriages breaking up because

somebody said recently that everybody commits adultery (come on, my 9

year old gives me that 'everybody does it' line, do we think and talk

like 3rd graders now on the news?), now our elderly feel pressure to get

it on because the Dr Ruth's of the talking head shows say it's normal

for them to have lots of sex.

To clarify (after all this pontificating) my original post on sexual

addiction had to do with people I knew and read about saying they were

sexually addicted because they got horny over a new woman (all that made

that claim were men) almost every day and I'm saying that if a man is

seeing many different beautiful, voluptuous women on television or where

he works or out and about and those women are sending come hither

signals (quite aggressively these days), I don't think he's got an

addiction, I think he's reacting pretty normally for a man. The

organization, Sexual Addicts Anonymous may be for men who are addicted

to 'deviant' activities. I do know that they recommend that the SA

members stay away from pornographic material and stuff that is sexually

enticing. And that's what brings me to my point that how would one go

about that in this explicit society. Ergo, could we make things just a

little harder (no pun intended) to get and see.

Other than that, thank you Pete for giving me a chance to sort my

thoughts out on paper (on computer screen?) and exercise my writing

skills!!! Although we differ in how we see this, I still enjoy reading

your posts. You've done alot of investigation into the history of AA

and have made me aware of many things I didn't know before. Alot of my

education comes from the school of hard knocks.

Jan

-------- REPLY, Original message follows --------

Date: Wednesday, 17-Feb-99 03:59 PM

From: Pete Watts \ Internet: (awatt04@....

uk) To: 12-step-freeegroups \ Internet: (12-step-freeegroups (DOT)

com)

Subject: Jan n Sex Addiction: WAS Alcohol Addiction

Recovery and Chocolat

Hi Jan

What you are suggesting is basically the " Exposure Model " of addiction -

that the primary determinant of addiction is exposure to the addicting

" substance " . Now, there is little doubt that *overall consumption* is

highly affected by exposure. However, it does not follow from this

that *problematic* consumption is also related the same way; in fact,

there are good grounds for thinking the reverse. As Stanton Peele

points out, those societies with the highest rates of abstention are

also those with the highest rates of alcohol abuse.

With regard to sex, it may well be that ppl are more sexually active,

but along with moderate wine drinking with meals, I dont see that as a

bad thing at all. I only wish I were party to it. I am concerned abt

offensive behavior, in its various manifestations. Incest was only

made illegal in the UK this century, and may in fact have been the

paradoxical result of sexual liberalisation that meant ppl were prepared

to admit that it happened and address the problem.

In London one often sees women swathed in black from head to foot, and

never alone except if elderly (as far as one can tell). The defence of

this culture is that it protects women from sexual harassment. However,

cultures where it is common are also those where women's rights are

weakest, and I would expect that many a black-swaddled girl is molested

by the Uncle or cousin (or brother) who is supposed to be her chaperone

.. If she were to sleep with a man before marriage, or marry a man not

approved of, these same relatives may miurder her. especially There are

also creative approaches to prostotution: I read of a European woman

who wore a veil in order that she could see inside a mosque ( I confess

to fogetting the country). A man approached her and obviously expressed

a lot of interest. On leaving, she told her friends, who laughed:

apparently, she had wore her veil upside-down, which is a conventional

signal that a woman is available for a " temporary marriage " of half an

hour in order to have sex after which they are equally rapidly divorced

...

As a lusty teenager I was desperate to know what the body of the female

of my own species actually looked like; the softcore I had access to

never answered that question, and schoolbooks showed exploded diagrams

of the reproductive organs that looked like someone wheeled into ER.

In a surreal episode I went to school one day and found the common room

awash with erotica (I still can scarcely believe it happened,

especially when the Deputy Head came in and appeared blissfully unware

of the porn dripping off every table.) and at last found a magazine

which satisfied my curiosity - I honestly believe it's the best thing

that school ever did for me, and it took the boys to do it, not the

teachers. I think the most damaging thing to my sexuality done at that

school was the lack of girls; and I would have been a much happier boy

and likely happier adult if I had seen those pictures years before.

When a naked body is taboo, (especially when always covered up totally)

then I believe it is a recipe for ignorance and the development of

fetishism and other hangups; without knowing what one is supposed to be

attracted to, one can only fixate on the nearest thing to a mate one

finds - such as their clothing, and of course there is an obvious

motive for voyeurism. When Denmark removed censorship laws, minor sex

offending dropped dramatically - especially exhibtionism, which

disappeared almost without trace.

I also think that very repressive anti-erotica laws actually encourage

the development of the very nasty sexual material, rather like the way

Prohibition encourages the development of harder versions of drugs.

Does " sexual addiction " exist? Does any " addiction " exist in the sense

that the Disease Model would have us believe? I posted both here and

on addict-l abt Sexaholics Anonymous, which adds sexual neurotic guilt

on top of religious neurotic guilt. In the characteristic style, the

XA's responded with sarcastic oneliners, which to them said everything

and in reality said nothing, such as " Must get hold of some of that

Sexahol. " One they were presumably saying was how manifestly absurd it

was to think oneself addicted to something immaterial (the " drug " of

SA is actually refered to as " Lust " , but " Sobriety " is also used, as it

is in both Sex Addicts Anonymous and Sex and Love Addicts Anonoymous).

In other words, they totally missed my point, which was that another 12

-step group (whose members are, in London at least, invariably

recruited form AA or NA) manage to convince themselves they are just as

" Powerless " over this mysterious " Lust " as they convince themselves they

are powerless over alcohol and drugs, yet many XA supporters, while

insisting that substance dependece is a " disease " refuse to consider

sex addiction in the same way, yet the testiomony of thousands of

individuals in sex addiction fellowships is discounted, while those in

AA are held to be decisive. If an " orthodox " AA discounts sex addiction

, they must hold that personal testimony over " powerlessness " is not

sufficient evidence to be decisive, which mean that they, to be

consistent, must be willing that AA testimonies, including theirs, cant

be held to be decisive either; this is particularly true because as I

indicated, most " sex addicts " identify as being alcoholic or an addict

too no more convincingly - why are their views accepted in the one case

and not in the other one?

Sexually compulsive behavior does exist; how mitigating compulsivity is

in regard to antisocial behavior is something for everyone to decide

for themself imho. It is worth remembering that if you have a disease

that makes you behave antisocially, it's till *youre* problem and it

doesnt give you the right to hurt anyone else; if it comes to you or

them to get hurt, then it ought to be you. That's tough perhaps, but

there is no fairer response. If sexual compulsivity is indeed a

progressive " disease " as substance addiction is considered to be, if

anything it ought to suggest society should throw away the key. Ah, the

addictionologists say, but it's *treatable* and *arrestable*; however,

if outcomes are comparable to addiction treatment, then that's nowhere

near good enough to be society's main response.

This may also be true for offences like DUIs: Perhaps society should

stop trying to arrest ppl's " disease " and instead arrest the " diseased "

...

Pete

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