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ERIC GAY / Associated Press
Tiger Woods making his public mea culpa: "I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to."
READER FEEDBACK
Is sex addiction real?
Are 'sex addicts' victims of addiction?
When golfer Tiger Woods made a public apology to his wife and family for the pain and humiliation his sexual escapades had caused them, he said he was caught up in an "intoxicating cocktail of entitlement, fame and money."
"I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to," Woods said. "I was wrong. I don't get to play by different rules." Woods did not describe himself as a sex addict.
Nonetheless, Woods' sexual excesses, his intensive treatment in one of the country's premier addiction centers, and his subsequent apology have placed the controversial subject of sex addiction onto center stage.
An array of experts argue that sex addiction is real and treatable. Costly centers like the one Woods is attending have sprung up along with support groups and individual therapists who specialize in the area.
Yet mental health experts disagree sharply about what sex addiction is, how treatable it is and even whether it exists.
Rob Kurzban, an experimental psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, is incredulous that Tiger Woods' behavior would be called an addiction and is stunned that the media have bought into that concept.
"It is not that Tiger Woods or other high-profile people are addicted to sex," Kurzban says. "They are addicted to cheating, to sexual variety. They could have all the sex they want with their wives and no one would find that upsetting."
Sex addiction is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), the encyclopedia of the American Psychiatric Association, and it will not be listed as an addiction in the DSM-V, which will be published in 2013, though it could make later editions.
"There just isn't enough evidence in peer literature, as there is in alcohol, drug or even gambling, to classify it as an addiction," says Charles O'Brien, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the DSM-V working committee for substance-related disorders.
Does this mean, as Kurzban suggests, that Woods and other luminaries like Eliot Spitzer and David Duchovny may not be sex addicts, as has been suggested, but may simply have a broken moral compass? Would more ordinary men be called cheaters or worse?
The answer depends on whom you ask.
Those who treat sexual addiction maintain that while it is perplexing, there is no question that it exists. "The myth is that you have to take chemicals to be addicted," writes Patrick Carnes, considered a guru in the field of sex addiction and who heads the Gentle Path program where Woods was treated for 45 days before heading for another facility in Arizona. "We accept that people can be sick with alcoholism or destroy themselves with gambling or food - but not sex."
Studies at the Mayo Clinic indicate that from 3 percent to 6 percent of the population - men and women from all walks of life - suffer from sex addiction. Its hallmark, writes Carnes in his best-selling book Don't Call It Love: Recovery From Sexual Addiction, is a pattern of out-of-control, high-risk sexual behavior. That includes not just serial affairs outside of marriage, but excessive masturbation, having sex with anonymous partners including prostitutes, obsession with pornography, engaging in sadistic sex, exhibitionism, compulsive telephone sex or fixating on an unattainable sex partner.
Alessandra, 49, and Lee, 59, say they are sex addicts. Both are members of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA), a self-help organization modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous' 12-Step program. They joined local chapters because they could no longer tolerate their out-of-control sex lives. They and other patients interviewed here asked that their names be withheld to avoid the embarrassment of public disclosure.
In the four years following her divorce, Alessandra, then 45, says she had sex with 30 different men, most of whom she met through the Internet. Usually by the end of the first dinner date and certainly no later than the second, Alessandra, an attractive woman from Cherry Hill, and her newest companion would end up at his place. "My goal was seduction, then sex," says Alessandra, who calls herself a "soccer mom" and is given to dressing in short skirts and high-heeled sandals. "When it was over, I just wanted to leave. I didn't want to chitchat over breakfast or get to know him better. We had sex, then I was done."
Lee is a high-profile, well-traveled corporate executive who seemed to have it all - a seven-figure salary, an attractive wife, two handsome teenage sons, and a grand home in a Philadelphia suburb. But Lee had a secret life - a network of romantic liaisons around the world - in London, Paris, Geneva, and Hong Kong. He lived this double life for 26 years until his younger son came across an e-mail message from his Geneva girlfriend.
"What's this, Dad?" he demanded, shocked, and the secret was out. The next day, Lee's wife asked him to leave the house. A year later, they were divorced.
Alessandra and Lee say they are in various stages of "recovery," and will always have to work to maintain "sobriety," an absence of the shameful, destructive behaviors that defined their lives.
"Sex addicts just can't say no," says Eric Griffin-Shelley, a psychologist with a private practice in Lafayette Hill who focuses on those who can't rein in their sexual urges. "Every addict I know would be happy if they could do that. They want to stop and they can't."
Therapists in the field believe that sex addiction has become far more prevalent in the last 20 years; they blame the growth of pornography and its easy access through the Internet.
