Is sex addiction really that bad? On the scale of addictions, how bad is sex for you in comparison to say heroin or vodka?
–Sexy and Addicted
I’m so sick of everyone and their parade of “addictions” they self-diagnose as personality disorders. We are in a time of utter decadence and luxury (which, if we look at history, means we are on the verge of a cultural collapse). The average middle-class person in the First World seldom worries about being invaded or gunned down by anyone except ISIS and our decadence, luxury and acceptance of all things our enemy deems full of prostitution and vice is only helping cock their rifles and rage. You know when personality disorders were at their statistical lowest? During the Second World War, when everyone so afraid of being bombed into oblivion they did not have time to pity party about “me.” (Just ask Dr. W. Keith Campbell.)
I think sex addiction is a lazy excuse for stupid behavior. As Dr. Michael Bader once said, “Traditional addictions like those to alcohol or heroin always involve the presence of tolerance and withdrawal; that is, increasing amounts of the substance are required to achieve the same effect, and in its absence the addict suffers an increasingly painful psychophysiological state as the body and brain rebound. But when it comes to sex addiction, physiological tolerance and withdrawal are usually not present, and if they are, they don't govern the addict's life in the same way that, say, opiates do.”
If you don’t have sex with three people in one day you are not going to go into physical withdrawal. When you go cold turkey on opiates, you are depriving your body of the large surge of opiates and dopamine it has been fed on the regular. Suddenly, you’re working at normal human speed again. They call it kicking because the muscles in your limbs actually feel like they will crawl out of your skin if you don’t slam them around a bit. It really sucks. But it’s just a 72 hours until the physical part quells.
Are you really addicted to sex itself? What does sex mean to you? If it’s just the orgasm, then couldn’t you just masturbate all day and feel satisfied? If your “addiction” requires another human being, then there is more going on here, involving the chase, the catch, the conquer, and of course, the “love.” Being desired is what you crave, even if it’s only for 15 minutes. We’ve all been there before. We just do not all chose to stay chasing that feeling for life.
Sex compulsion and need is very real, but it is not a physical addiction like that of booze or dope. Unlike an alcoholic who is so dependent on booze their already barely surviving liver may collapse without the alcohol, no doctor is going to tell you your genitals will erupt if you don’t have a fuck a day.
However, if the love and attention is what you are addicted to, you may have a case. You would have to hire genius lawyers spawned from Satan himself to win over a jury, but anything is possible.
I’ve mentioned her before many times, but Dr. Helen Fisher has spent her life studying the human brain in love. What she discovered is that when in romantic love the brain regions that become active are the same as when one is addicted to cocaine, heroin or any other physically dependent drug. These areas are the nucleus accumbens and the ventral tegmental area (VTA), two primitive parts of the brain involved in the production and distribution of dopamine. As a neurotransmitter, dopamine is a central component of the brain’s reward system. The need for more dopamine motivates the person to do whatever it takes to get that feeling again. Fisher insists that romantic love is an addiction. This is why losing it can leave us depressed or suicidal. Some even end up institutionalized, or commit murder.
Dr. Bader noted that when sex becomes labeled as an addiction and not a behavioral choice, the psychological origins and meanings become superfluous. This is why the 12-step treatment approach is overwhelmingly unsuccessful for “sex addicts.”
“Unlike heroin, sex naturally engages issues of intimacy, power, autonomy, and love,” wrote Dr. Bader. “Sexual arousal always has meaning. In fact, sexual excitement of any kind is impossible unless its mental and social context is specifically conducive to it.”
Are you in love with the satisfaction you get every time you fuck some new stranger or are you in love with the sexual champion you have become? Are you filling a void from a torment you have not addressed since it happened or are you playing God on the genitals of the world? What is the deep need you are masquerading as a “sex addiction”?
Every impulse you have is not fantasy. It is a reality that you can understand, overcome and get control of if you so desire. If you don’t, then happy fucking!
If your neighbors are arguing loud enough for you to hear, is it appropriate to answer with loud sex?
–T-Shirt
Look, the rule of apartment living is simple. When your neighbors are making the kind of noise you know you sometimes make, then you put up with it and move on. It’s a reciprocal thing. If it gets excessive, you knock on their door and talk to them. You don’t call the landlord or the cops. Why are you wasting everyone’s time to be a tattle-tale?
If you can’t handle the everyday noise and sex of other human beings, then I suggest you move far away into the country on a five-acre farm. In short, yes, you can respond to violence with sex. Fuck, fight or hold the light.
