and the circle is now complete

Some months ago I had cause to discuss whether or not I accepted the premise or existence of "sex addiction". I am pretty sure this is an actual condition, but I am also pretty sure the common use of the term is an abuse of meaning. That is, that the people who claim to have it or need treatment for it, don't actually have what might be termed a medical dependency or addiction as it relates to sex or sex-related activities. What they usually have is a problem that they were caught indulging in their interest in extramarital sexual contacts by others and were faced suddenly with significant and perhaps unexpected consequences by those others (usually their wives). If they persist in such activities when the knowledge of consequences is real and visible, then we can talk about addiction.

As this relates to morality, my impression is that much of what we might deem through public perceptions as "sexual addiction" is little more than non-standard sexual practices or deviancy. With the immigration debate, one "hidden" motivation of critics of such laws is that they do not wish to see such laws enforced. To the conduct of sexual mores, I admit that for the most part I do not feel it our state interest to govern over private and consensual sexual practices, including perhaps extramarital affairs. What I do think might be a compelling interest is that if we are going to have default contractual arrangements for marriages or civil unions, that they could default to an expectation of monogamy, but that people who don't wish to have monogamous relationships could either:
1) not get married
2) sign alternative contractual arrangements privately more suitable to their needs and mutually agreed upon desires and wants.

And of course a third problem is that we say publicly that we desire people to fulfill these contractual obligations to each other (such as sexual fidelity) but in practice we have wildly divergent opinions on what to do to hold people accountable to these terms. Some people feel the contracts should be nullified (divorce or marital separation), others accept some middle ground (marital therapy or "sexual addiction") and still others seem inclined to offer no penalty at all, and seem to hold no one accountable. Without a coherent public and indeed private response to such activity, it seems most beneficial to leave the response, ie, the level of enforcement for "adultery" to the private parties involved with the level of state and cultural involvement restricted to mediating between the parties involved based upon contractual arrangements.

It does not however seem appropriate to start throwing around behavioral problems like addiction when they probably do not apply to the situation as the actual problem. The actual problem is that powerful people, usually men in this case, are held unaccountable for almost any activity, including marital infidelities. The reason this is so is that the broadened definition of "sex addiction" includes unrelated sexual aspects like viewing pornography (there are ways which porn could be addiction related, such as when it costs thousands of dollars or is consumed in a "risky" manner, say in a public parking lot) or masturbation, or for other issues like casual extramarital sex without the knowledge of the other marital partner (or the likely and anticipated reaction of the other marital partner). In essence our understanding of sex addiction is becoming something like "does not have 'normal' sex with their spouse", which is a dangerous notion upon which to found a moral condemnation, not to mention an unhealthy way to discover methods of treatment for people who demonstrate real addictive behavior patterns (persisting in behaviors despite considerable and unacceptable risks and harms).

The added notation is that the attitudes of Christian (and other religious) fundamentalists toward especially female sexuality is one of repression. Much of the abortion debate, rather than focusing on the suppression of causes of abortions (unprotected sex and lack of access to appropriate birth control information and use), centers on the idea that our young women should not be having sex at all outside of marriage and, by extension, should not be having dirty thoughts relating to sex. I myself have, because of this cultural artifact, sometimes experienced a feeling of surprise when women do express "dirty thoughts" or any casual reference to human sexuality at all. And I consider myself an enlightened scoundrel. I assume the notion is that the problem underlying sexual addiction is men acting out on these dirty thoughts, and, despite the fact that most men can have them, sometimes quite often, without acting out through extramarital sexuality (and more or less universally "suffer" through masturbation), it is assumed that women should have to repress these things as well.

Personally, I find it more amusing, not to mention a helluva lot clearer and healthier for dating purposes, when women have a dirty mind side that they can share, even if it is privately done for only each other's amusement and pleasures (or solely their own in the case of porn or masturbation). I don't quite understand why that must be repressed as a result. It also seems incredibly contorted logic to tell people that sex is dirty and shameful but then somehow that they should have to sustain private relationships with people who they do these dirty things with.