(Information regarding sex addiction contained in this piece was obtained via the Wikipedia article “Sexual Addiction,” and while it is easy to dispute information available on Wikipedia, an overwhelming amount of footnotes and direct citations within that article itself convinced me of the veracity of all claims made.)

I awoke at seven-fifteen the morning after the Super Bowl with a pounding headache. I gave my girl a kiss on her way to work, poured myself a glass of water, and turned on the TV, hoping for something somewhat educational or informative to guide me through the opening stages of what proved to be an intense-but-not-unmanageable hangover.

But instead of something worthwhile, the first thing I saw on my television was Steve Phillips, the disgraced former Mets GM and ESPN baseball analyst, speaking with Matt Lauer. Through the fog, I was only able to pick up a few details brought forth in the interview, most notable among them that Phillips recently left a Mississippi clinic after being treated for Sex Addiction. Phillips, you see, was fired last October by his network when an affair he had with a low-level staffer came to light in the New York tabloids. His marriage of nineteen years ended as a result of the affair.

In light of the embarrassing revelations, job loss, and the dissolution of his marriage, Phillips sought treatment. In the interview with Lauer on NBC’s Today, one in which he claimed full responsibility for his actions, Phillips said, “I couldn’t stop myself from doing the things I was doing, even knowing the consequences.”

Prior to Phillips’ interview, sex addiction has been in the news recently regarding one Eldrick “Tiger” Woods. As I’m sure everyone remembers, back around Thanksgiving the Greatest Golfer Ever was found to be a regular playboy, having as many as fifteen different simultaneous mistresses scattered about the United States. Embarrassing text messages (“I will mess you up”) and voice mails (“Please delete my name from your phone…Quickly…Huge”) surfaced amidst the scandal, following which Tiger’s wife moved out and Mr. Woods took a leave of absence from the PGA Tour to seek treatment for sex addiction at the same Mississippi clinic Phillips attended.

Now, I am not trying to demean in any way the struggles people have with human sexuality. If someone is engaging in compulsive and unfulfilling sexual behavior that leaves him or her feeling empty on a regular basis, then that is a serious problem, and any way that person can get help to lead a more “normal,” fulfilling sex life is worth pursuing.

However…

If a good-looking guy in a prominent position has an affair with a young, willing subordinate, is he necessarily addicted to sex? Even if, as Phillips claims, he “could not stop” what he was doing, does it make him an addict, or, more likely, does it make him an asshole? Similarly, if one of the five or ten most-famous men on the planet has a (usually, although there were some rather…alarming choices in his harem) statuesque model-caliber girlfriend in every city he visits, does it make him addicted to sex, or, more likely, a person who has achieved a level of stardom that makes him somehow detached from and/or ignorant of the basic rules of human behavior by which the rest of us abide? Again, is he an addict, or is he an asshole?

***

The medical and mental-health communities themselves aren’t even sure “sex addiction” is a malady, in and of itself. While certain doctors posit that an addiction model exists in relation to compulsive sex, others say that the problem should be more suitably termed “sexual dependency,” “sexual obsession,” or “sexual compulsivity.” These skeptics insist that cultural and other influences are to blame for supposed sex addiction. They also claim the affliction finds its basis in other psychological disorders, like narcissistic personality disorder (now we’re talking, Tiger and Steve), obsessive-compulsive disorder, and manic-depression.

The American Psychiatric Association publishes (and periodically updates) the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In the fourth, most recent edition, published in 2000, no mention is made of “sexual addiction” as an actual diagnosis, save a classification called “Sexual Disorders Not Otherwise Specified.” The World Health Organization’s “International Classification of Diseases,” however, does include an illness called “excessive sexual drive.”

So the scientific community itself cannot reach a consensus regarding sexual addiction the way they can most psychological maladies. But I’ll throw the true believers a bone. What follows are the guidelines for diagnosing Sex Addiction as proposed by Patrick Carnes, the executive director of the program both Woods and Phillips attended:

- Recurrent failure (pattern) to resist impulses to engage in extreme acts of lewd sex

- Frequently engaging in those behaviors to a greater extent or over a longer period of time than intended

- Persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to stop, reduce, or control those behaviors

- Inordinate amount of time spent in obtaining sex, being sexual, or recovering from sexual experience

- Preoccupation with the behavior or preparatory activities

- Frequently engaging in violent sexual behavior when expected to fulfill occupational, academic, domestic, or social obligations

- Continuation of the behavior despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent social, academic, financial, psychological, or physical problem caused or exacerbated by the behavior

- Need to increase the intensity, frequency, number, or risk of behaviors to achieve the desired effect, or diminished effect with continued behaviors at the same level of frequency, intensity, number, or risk

- Giving up or limiting social, occupational, or recreational activities because of the behavior

- Distress, anxiety, restlessness, or violence resulting when unable to engage in the behavior at times related to Sexual Rage Disorder

For many of these, it appears that variations of and euphemisms for the word “sex” have been inserted into the areas vacated by the words “drugs” or “alcohol” in the substance addiction diagnosis model. Think about it: “Inordinate amount of time spent in obtaining drugs, using drugs, and recovering from drugs.” Or, “Recurrent failure (pattern) to resist impulses to engage in use of alcohol.” On one level, it appears as though the entire above passage is the equivalent of copying and pasting a published document, rewording it, and turning it in as one’s own research paper. Which is fine, if you believe that sex is a substance, akin to drugs or alcohol, to which one can be addicted.

Rushes of serotonin and adrenalin go hand-in-hand with sexual activity, and so an addiction to the feelings elicited by increased activity in those pleasure centers makes sense. In this case, the addiction could lead to a pattern of behavior that stimulates pleasure centers only activated in this specific way, and attempts to move beyond such behaviors are not allowed by a body craving those rushes, no matter how short the blast of good feeling ultimately is.

Sex Addicts would no doubt chafe at being referred to as Adrenalin Junkies, but in a lot of respects, by the accepted diagnosis model, that’s the case. If supposed sex addiction goes beyond serotonin and adrenalin, though, then the case must be made that the emotional attachment at the center of a sexual act is a determining factor in any resulting addiction. Many supposed addicts say that a denial of the intimate nature of sexual intercourse is central to their addiction, that they cannot “feel the magic” at the heart of the sexual act because they engage in it almost arbitrarily, without love, without seeking the personal connection that goes with sexual intercourse for “non-addicts.”  Oftentimes, psychologists find that this lack of an emotional aspect to sex and/or a compulsive habit related to sex is directly related to childhood abuse, either physical or emotional.

While such a diagnosis may be valid in many cases, such a description does not necessarily describe the behaviors of Tiger Woods or Steve Phillips. These men, regardless of whatever they say in the public apologies they have made and will continue to make, knew exactly what they were doing. While having sex with women who were not their wives, they definitely felt something, and, if you’ll allow me a spot of conjecture, it was something along the lines of, in Woods’ case, “I am Tiger Woods, I can do whatever I want,” and in Phillips’, “Man, this is great.” Which is to say nothing of how they felt after the fact (though I do find it hard to believe Woods felt much remorse at any moment prior to his wife finding out), but one thing they most definitely were not doing was engaging in this sex arbitrarily.

***

When I was growing up, we had names for people who engaged in lots of sex and developed the dreaded “reputation”: for women, it was a four-letter word starting with “S,” for guys an eight-letter word beginning with “man” and ending with “whore.” Were these people lacking in respect from the average plebe as a result of their transgressions? Yes. There is an important caveat, though: were these people also secretly envied for achieving popularity through these means and for being able to pull off the sexual escapades that one day lead to their gaining a “reputation”? You better believe it.

Of course, these circumstances were a by-product of the boiling hormonal cauldron that is high school and, later, college. Ideally, the average person will have gotten over it by the time he or she enters adulthood. In fact, that’s sort of what growing up, supposedly, is all about. Eventually, one is supposed to settle down, get a partner, legalize that relationship with a contract, and start popping out children. For the survival of the species, sex remains an essential function, but as one grows older we are supposed to recognize that it is something special that two people share together, in an intimate relationship that grows deeper over time.

While that may a precious, heartwarming concept, our culture has other ideas regarding human sexuality. There is little entertaining about a stable relationship, much about a playboy or, shall we say, an easygoing lady. Details must be tawdry, or they will be ignored. Tiger Woods was as nondescript as the Most Famous Athlete in the World could probably be until we found out he was a secret sex hound. Over the majority of my life, I can remember no overriding cultural norm, no celebrated aspect of one’s personal life, more important than this belief in the virtue of an active, multifaceted sex life.

Every show I watched back in the day stressed the importance of sex over pretty much everything else. Ugly people have never been on television, but the celebration of such a casual attitude towards sex for the past twenty or thirty years was bound to, at some point, trickle down to this explosion of supposed sex addicts running amok throughout America. The sex addict movement, if you want to call it that, appears to have reached its pinnacle of legitimacy (in the popular culture if not within the scientific community) with the series Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew, a show aired over the last eight weeks of 2009 that chronicled the struggles of a litany of regular folks (and by regular, I mean porn stars, musicians, models, and other members of the entertainment industry) to come to grips with their out of control, compulsive, and unfulfilling sex lives.

One should not mistake this for legitimizing anything, however. Dr. Drew Pinsky, the man behind Loveline and my generation’s most trusted televised sexual advisor (he’s our Dr. Ruth), seems to honestly want to help the people that appear on his shows. He has developed a franchise of sorts with shows that take famous and/or not-so-famous people, put them in a house, and have them hash out their emotional issues before television cameras. On the surface, he does this because he supposedly believes in the redemptive power of the camera catching everything, of the honesty that cameras running 24 hours a day will eventually lay bare. His Hippocratic Oath also probably has bearing here.

Below the surface, Dr. Drew is a self-promoter of the highest order.  He was the first person to go on Larry King when Michael Jackson died or when Tiger Woods claimed sex addiction.  Were a famous person to die from eating too much chocolate, he would no doubt make the talk show rounds discussing the addictive elements of cocoa-based candy. He cares about people, but not as much as he cares about people knowing who he is, that a generation of pop culture-obsessed borderline degenerates know that he is the man to see, or at the very least consult, when it comes time to work through those culture-based obsessions.  It’s not an accident that his was the first show to treat supposed sex addiction like any other psychological affliction necessitating rehabilitation.  Dr. Drew knows what messes people up, and he will bring news of hope to the suffering masses, so long as his pink shirt, glasses, and stethoscope prominently figure in any recovery process.

***

So then, the largest voices calling sex addiction an actual disorder are veritable charlatans, one the man who runs a sex addiction clinic to the stars and the other a shameless self-promoter who really does care, so long as a television camera is nearby. Both men appear to be capitalizing on a degraded culture in which everyone who watches TV knows something called GoDaddy.com exists (though has little idea what services they provide) because their ads routinely feature gorgeous race car driver Danica Patrick cavorting with busty models; a culture in which a man’s naked ass can be shown for five seconds on primetime television during a shower sex scene (NYPD Blue blazed a trail in more ways than one); a culture in which commercials explicitly discussing boner pills litter the airwaves during the most popular shows and events but ones for condoms have to be coy and are, generally, relegated to cable.

For people of my generation, it is almost impossible NOT, in some small way, to be “addicted” to sex, or at least to the idea of sex, if one is paying attention to the greater culture.

This whole scenario then, to me, boils down to this question: does having been raised amidst a culture that celebrates a robust sexual lifestyle, engaging in a similar lifestyle, finding it unfulfilling in a multitude of ways, and finding yourself unable to change these behaviors on your own and without help automatically mean that you are an addict? Or are you maybe just misguided, suffering from low self-esteem, somewhat delusional and in need of a reality check? Is something intrinsically wrong with you that twelve steps will help sort out, or are you are a human being, one in need of stabilization?  Would Steve Phillips and Tiger Woods have played this addict card had they never been caught?  Were their lives spiraling out of control, or were they sloppy dickheads, full of hubris?

We can all benefit from having someone to talk to, and I, again, in no way want to disregard the real struggles people face as a result of compulsive sexual behavior. But when famous men like Steve Phillips and Tiger Woods, men who engaged in scummy behavior without consequence for years, claim an addiction as the reason for their behavior when they are caught and flash-fried before a public audience for their transgressions, it smacks of disingenuousness, of them needing an out, finding one that’s hip and gaining traction, and playing the part they must play on the long road to public forgiveness and resuming lucrative careers played out in the public sphere.

It’s all very contrived, when addiction is supposed the realm where contrivance gives way to compulsion.  They call themselves addicts and seek treatment because that’s what the public wants them to do, but men like Steve Phillips and Tiger Woods were probably addicted to nothing more than their own elevated feelings of self-worth.  Which is understandable.  But it doesn’t make them addicts.