College Times

Issue date: 1/1/09 Section: Sex

Media Credit: Photos.com

Sex addiction has come out of the closet.

Once spoken of in hushed and skeptical tones only, sex addicts have become the subjects of memoirs and movies ("Choke," "Black Snake Moan"). Characters defined by their uncontrollable bed-hopping now pop up on prime-time television shows like "Nip/Tuck." In the recent much-publicized case of life imitating art, David Duchovny, who plays a serial adulterer on the cable series "Californication," completed treatment for a sex addiction that he says broke up his marriage to Tea Leoni.

As addictions go, sex is the last frontier. It's the one people doubt. The one people say is just an excuse for bad behavior or a shame label pasted on the promiscuous by moralizing prudes. The one you can still make fun of without a pinch from the PC police. Health experts and therapists are divided as to whether it exists; sex addiction is not recognized by the psychiatric bible, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders).

Recovery centers aren't waiting for the official word. Sex Addicts Anonymous has 900 chapters worldwide. The often-cited statistic that 3 to 5 percent of the population could be considered sexually compulsive is based only on those who voluntarily seek treatment.

Robin Cato is more aware than most of sex addiction's recent pull on the national psyche - or at least talk-show producers. As director of the Atlanta-based Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH), she gets frequent calls from radio and television employees.

"They say, 'I need a sex addict to interview in 30 minutes, and we need to fly him in this morning,'" she said (a request she doesn't accommodate).

For obvious reasons, sex addiction makes for titillating TV in a way that the now much-discussed topics of alcoholism, drug abuse, eating disorders and obsessive gambling do not.

"When something is laughed at and talked about on television, it means it's on people's minds," said Cato, who sees signs that acceptance is advancing in the public admission of Duchovny and its aftermath. "He came out and said what he was getting help for, and there was a lot of attention, but people accepted it because they either know about it personally or know someone else who's affected by it."

While academics and therapists don't agree on whether to call it a disease or a compulsive disorder, most do generally define the problem in the same way, said Anne McBean, a psychologist and therapist who coordinates treatment for compulsive sexual behavior at the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

"It's not about liking sex or being sexual a lot or what kind of sex a person might choose," she said. "It's about having an obsessive and driven relationship with sex, constantly telling yourself you're not going to do this anymore but you do it, with repeated negative consequences that most people would learn from and adjust their behavior."

Stereotypes of sex addicts fall into three categories, she said: "fools, like Sam on 'Cheers,' slobbering freaks or monsters - the sex offenders."

In reality, they come from all walks of life, McBean said. "For many of the people I work with, the biggest fear is if they tell someone they have a sex-addiction problem, they will be shunned and their children will be taken away."

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