You're Gonna Have to Face It You're Addicted to Sex

    Tiger Woods has spent 45 days in a rehabilitation facilty for sex addiction and he is not the first celebrity to do so.  Sex addiction is a modern and convenient way to explain why some people seem hell bent on destroying their personal (and possibly professional) lives. It is an accepted term in the media. Is it real?  No one seems to be able to agree.

    According to The Baltimore Sun the accepted answer is technically no but possibly yes.  "Sex addiction is not listed in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  However, "hypersexual disorder"is being considered for the next edition. Hypersexual disorder is a state where one is abnormally focused on sexual activity and uses people as objects for gratification.  As we can see, these standards are beyond subjective and it would be impossible to find quantitative measures that are representative of the entire population.

     Craig Fabrikant, a clinical psychologist from Hackensack University medical center, believes this behavior is more of a habit than an addiction.  (Cohen)  Many in the field compare sex addiction to a form of obsessive compulsive disorder or perhaps a part of narcissistic personality disorder or the manic phase of manic-depression, now bipolar disorder.  They say it is a symptom of these others illnesses that make one feel compelled against their will to repeatedly perform an action that he or she is powerless to control.

     If you want to know whether you suffer from sex addiction, CNN has a quiz to find out whether you're a sex addict.  Sample criteria include:  You lie, Sex consumes you, You have an intense interest in pornography, or You're 'divorced, dead, fired, or arrested.'  (Since everyone does one or more of these things, you're only an addict if "several" of the categories apply to you)  It's clear to see the criteria is broad.  Sufferers feel indignant that their "disease" isn't given the academic acceptance of substance abuse.  Others feel this is hogwash.