sex addiction

16 Jul 2010

Quote by Sweet_kandi
I have to lie to people all the time about what we do and our reasons for going out. As I said, I dont like it much but needs must.
Our weekend hobby (well mostly weekends) also means that I am spending Saturday evenings getting ready to go out instead of sitting with my children watching X-Factor or whatever crap happens to be on the TV. Such a bad mother!!

In relation to this statement then what about people who participate in sports or who follow sports. How many Saturday afternoons are fathers not there for their children due to watching football or playing golf? What about a mother who goes to the gym during the week instead of being there to cater for the children? Swinging is just another sport biggrin

Should we feel guilty because it is of a sexual nature?
And responding to Brucies comment, I am lucky that I don't need to lie to my friends and family about what I am doing as they all know that I swing. I tell then I am meeting friends and they know what that means. The don't ask for anymore details. I tell my children I am meeting friends which isn't a lie either. I yet again don't go into detail. I don't go into detail of what I do on a 'vanilla' night out with my children so I shouldn't have to just because it is a meet.
I wasn't being serious. I probably spend more time with my children than many parents who go out and get drunk every Saturday night and then spend most of Sunday laid up with a hangover!!
Good point about sports players and fans, etc :thumbup:

16 Jul 2010

I know you weren't huns biggrin

I just liked the tongue in cheek approach to it as I have kids that need to be considered too so totally understand where you are coming from.
I have been made to feel guilty about my 'extra currecular activities' yet would it have been the same view if it had been knitting or photography? I don't think so. I think it is because of sex being part of it and what people don't understand, people condemn.

17 Jul 2010

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) which is the bible of psychiatry does not recognise sex addiction as a condition, although some lazy journalists have credited it. In my opinion it has been made up by uptight Americans who know they can charge big bucks to "cure" something that their society has real problems with. Interestingly DSM does recognise low libido as a disorder (and even has several categories for it).
Sexual addiction, like most other behavioural compulsions outside of gambling, has never made it into the DSM. In fact, the DSM-IV, the most current revision of this book, makes absolutely no mention of the concept of sexual compulsions or addiction other than , Necrophilia, ( ) & Paraphilia, not even under categories for further study. Given that the DSM-IV was published in 1994, a full decade after the concept of "sexual addiction" made it onto the research scene, it does suggest that this is a category that was never seriously considered a full-blown disorder unto itself.
That said, I take the view that ANY behaviour taken to an extreme can be considered pathological, especially those behaviours which bring a person some degree of pleasure (such as watching television, pathologically following a particular sports team, gambling, texting, drinking coffee, reading a book, or shopping, amongst the dozens of behaviours that people pathologically take to an extreme everyday). Those behaviours with a social component not surprisingly seem to be more attractive to people than those without. (Heady insights here, I know.)
I am not clear where one draws the line with such behaviours, except to use that always reliable catch-all that accompanies all diagnoses in the DSM --- "the behaviour causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." With that in mind, however, I would suggest a far broader pathological behaviour category that encompasses all reinforcing stimuli, since there's absolutely zero research to show that engaging in mutually consensual sex, playing games on the Internet, or texting one's friends are inherently dangerous or maladaptive behaviours.
An excellent take on the subject is on Wikipedia

The American Psychiatric Association publishes and periodically updates the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a widely recognized compendium of acknowledged mental disorders and their diagnostic criteria. The most recent version of that manual, DSM-IV-TR, was published in 2000 and does not recognize sexual addiction as a diagnosis. Although some authors had expressed that excluding sexual addiction from the DSM represents a problem, the proposed diagnosis was rejected for consideration for inclusion in the DSM-5. Darrel Regier, vice-chair of the DSM-5 task force, said that "Although 'hypersexuality' is a proposed new addition... was not at the point where we were ready to call it an addiction."
The DSM-IV-TR does, however, include a miscellaneous diagnosis called Sexual Disorders Not Otherwise Specified, and includes as one of the examples of it: "distress about a pattern of repeated sexual relationships involving a succession of lovers who are experienced by the individual only as things to be used." Other examples include: compulsive fixation on an unattainable partner, compulsive masturbation, compulsive love relationships, and compulsive sexuality in a relationship. Hypersexuality, by itself, is a criterion symptom of hypomania and mania in bipolar disorder and mania in schizoaffective disorder as they are currently defined in the DSM.

Phew, rant over, pause for breath!