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Duchovny's Choice
David Duchovny made an interesting choice recently. He chose to enter a sexual addiction rehabilitation center and to announce it himself with limited detail to People magazine - rather than be "outed" by paparazzi.
His attraction was apparently to sexually explicit images available online. It's a common enough situation these days. Sexual addiction is a phrase that, when it was created, was easy for media to embrace. They had already heard about other addictions by that time. And, even though it has developed as a therapeutic industry, it still often bases its treatment on a negative sense of sexuality. Because of the narrow focus, it emphasizes the danger of sexuality. Sometimes when one has a hammer, most things look like a nail.
Through sexual addiction models, sexual expression winds up being defined by "slips." There's usually no room at all for masturbation when most sexual addiction providers of treatment begin their work with a person whose sexuality has become problematic. Masturbation is, in my opinion, an essential ingredient in coming to grips (no pun intended) with one's sexual competence and maturity. But addiction models excise it usually, rather than enrich and develop it.
I had a conversation recently with a sexual addiction counselor. She was glad that I was available to do the "sex therapy" part after she had worked through the "sex addiction" part. It seemed odd to me to separate treatment of sexual issues into two bins. It had the feeling of treating breast cancer. We'll cut out the offending part and you put in the breast implant. I've never seen myself as the one who does the prettying up part after the challenging part was over, but she did.
One male client came to me stating that he was a "sex addict." What were his symptoms that led to this characterization of himself? He was, from time to time, having "girlfriend dates" with sex workers he located online. These are the more socially interactive types of sexual hook-ups.
He was married; therefore he was a sex addict. It turned out that he was married to a very immature woman in her forties. She was totally enmeshed with her extremely intrusive parents, so much so that this client once reported a dream he had that included his being in his bed with his wife and both of her parents. She stalwartly refused to take a look at the dysfunctional relationship with her parents. Her first partnered sexual experience was after 30 with her husband. He experienced her as giddy and immature.
Yes, he could have sought couples therapy with her, but he didn't. Instead he thought that he was a sex addict. He was having sex that was more grown up with paid sex workers. He was handling his marital problem by staying married and finding his sexual expression elsewhere from time to time. Was it an ideal solution? No, but it didn't make him a sex addict. He eventually divorced and later became involved with a woman whose chronological age corresponded with her sexual maturity.
I wonder how this would have turned out if this client had entered a sex addict treatment program. Would they have learned enough about their sexual relationship to uncover the impermeable parental enmeshment? I don't know.
Duchovny may be like many folks. He wants a plan that comes with a map. That's what sexual addiction treatment programs tend to offer. I think that the complexity of human nature defies a map - particularly when it comes to sexuality. And, one of the signs of sexual ownership is a person's willingness to rely on oneself and see it clearly through one's own lens. I see that as a developmental process rather than a step process.
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His attraction was apparently to sexually explicit images available online. It's a common enough situation these days. Sexual addiction is a phrase that, when it was created, was easy for media to embrace. They had already heard about other addictions by that time. And, even though it has developed as a therapeutic industry, it still often bases its treatment on a negative sense of sexuality. Because of the narrow focus, it emphasizes the danger of sexuality. Sometimes when one has a hammer, most things look like a nail.
Through sexual addiction models, sexual expression winds up being defined by "slips." There's usually no room at all for masturbation when most sexual addiction providers of treatment begin their work with a person whose sexuality has become problematic. Masturbation is, in my opinion, an essential ingredient in coming to grips (no pun intended) with one's sexual competence and maturity. But addiction models excise it usually, rather than enrich and develop it.
I had a conversation recently with a sexual addiction counselor. She was glad that I was available to do the "sex therapy" part after she had worked through the "sex addiction" part. It seemed odd to me to separate treatment of sexual issues into two bins. It had the feeling of treating breast cancer. We'll cut out the offending part and you put in the breast implant. I've never seen myself as the one who does the prettying up part after the challenging part was over, but she did.
One male client came to me stating that he was a "sex addict." What were his symptoms that led to this characterization of himself? He was, from time to time, having "girlfriend dates" with sex workers he located online. These are the more socially interactive types of sexual hook-ups.
He was married; therefore he was a sex addict. It turned out that he was married to a very immature woman in her forties. She was totally enmeshed with her extremely intrusive parents, so much so that this client once reported a dream he had that included his being in his bed with his wife and both of her parents. She stalwartly refused to take a look at the dysfunctional relationship with her parents. Her first partnered sexual experience was after 30 with her husband. He experienced her as giddy and immature.
Yes, he could have sought couples therapy with her, but he didn't. Instead he thought that he was a sex addict. He was having sex that was more grown up with paid sex workers. He was handling his marital problem by staying married and finding his sexual expression elsewhere from time to time. Was it an ideal solution? No, but it didn't make him a sex addict. He eventually divorced and later became involved with a woman whose chronological age corresponded with her sexual maturity.
I wonder how this would have turned out if this client had entered a sex addict treatment program. Would they have learned enough about their sexual relationship to uncover the impermeable parental enmeshment? I don't know.
Duchovny may be like many folks. He wants a plan that comes with a map. That's what sexual addiction treatment programs tend to offer. I think that the complexity of human nature defies a map - particularly when it comes to sexuality. And, one of the signs of sexual ownership is a person's willingness to rely on oneself and see it clearly through one's own lens. I see that as a developmental process rather than a step process.
Related Topics:
1 Comments:
I think it becomes "addiction" when a person starts making unhealthy or dangerous choices related to sex; they know better, but they can't stop themselves. Simply engaging in sex that others might not approve of doesn't qualify as addiction. For example, one person might enjoy going to a strip club and buying some champagne room entertainment on occasion, but he is able to stay within his budget for recreational spending of this type. Another man might way overspend in the champagne room, skipping out on work in the afternoon to be there, amassing debts, and perhaps even turning to embezzlement because he can't get enough of the champagne room. That's addiction.
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