Sex Addiction: A Mental Health Issue or an Excuse to Cheat?

A few weeks ago I spent a couple days with close family friends. Over dinner one night, the conversation somehow drifted to sex addiction: Is it a real addiction? Is it as serious as, say, alcohol, drug or even gambling addictions? And does it really deserve a spot in the next edition of the DSM?

Unfortunately I can't report back that we came up with any conclusions. We left the table unclear as to whether Tiger Woods has a psychological problem or just a love of intimacy, whether Jesse James should seek medical help or if he really just wanted to explore his sexuality beyond his marriage.

That said, this concept has become prevalent in the media. It seems like every few weeks we hear of another unfaithful boyfriend or husband (yes, the news seems to focus more on the male cheaters.) Maybe Americans like this drama or take pleasure in the doom of celebrity marriages. Perhaps our own social lives are so boring that we find ourselves thirsty to know the gossip of even people we don't know personally. For some, other people's failures (specifically relating to infidelity in this instance) validate their own life choices.

What we don't hear about, though, is what actually "transforms" these cheating men into born-again innocent husbands. We know, for example that Tiger Woods was sent to sex addiction rehab in Alabama or Arkansas or one of those southern places where he wouldn't be able to sleep with anyone anyway because he's not their blood relative. But what really went on there? What was his treatment like and why is he suddenly on his road to recovery?

When I posed this question to one of my (male) roommates, he came up with a clever idea. Maybe, he explained, you go to the rehab, and they let you sleep with, say, ten different people on your first day there. Then you get to the second day and, WHAM, just like that, you're only allowed to sleep with nine different people that they find for you. The number really could keep gradually decreasing until you're healed of your endless sexual appetite!

I'll admit that I was laughing hysterically when he explained his idealistic views of rehab. However, I understand that this can be construed as highly offensive, especially for the people who battle what some consider a legitimate mental illness.

I think the real answer here is that it's important that we teach our kids to get on the right path from the start. It should be made explicitly clear that just like in sports or Monopoly cheating isn't allowed, it's not in the adult world by any means either. Grown ups don't lose TV or dessert privlidges when they cheat on their significant others, but there are consequences to this behavior, and dire ones for that matter.

We need to remember that kids are smarter than we think and capable of conceptualizing more difficult ideas than we realize. For that reason, if monogamy is taught early, maybe it won't be as much of an issue later on in life when they become the next American presidents. That was something that I briefly considered when I was teaching The Ten Commandments to a class of thirteen eight year olds this year. (Yes, I teach religious school each week and I happen to love it as a means to earn extra money!)

As I printed each commandment on the board for the children to copy, I got towards the end and stared in disbelief. Adultery. Adultery. ADULTERY. Why hadn't I thought about this earlier? How com I hadn't considered the fact that I'd have to explain this concept to a group of young kids right on the spot? I mean I know that I read their textbook pages for the first time the morning that they do, but really, how could I have been so idiotic?

Out of nowhere, it hit me: I knew how to explain it.

"What do you think it means when God said that you shall not commit adultery?" I asked.

One girl sheepishly raised her hand. I called on her and she explained that she was "pretty sure" that it meant that you "shouldn't act like an adult."

"Hmm...not quite, sweetie, but close" I responded. "Really, you guys, what it means is that if you are a girl, and you're married, you aren't allowed to have any other boyfriends besides your husband. And if you're a married boy, you aren't allowed to have any other girlfriends besides your wife."

Somehow, with that explanation they got it. Even when I asked them weeks later what adultery meant, they all precisely regurgitated my definition.

So if these kids can get it, why can't their role models? Why are the celebrities and athletes that they look up to given what I'd consider a "free pass," or the excuse that it's a mental illness? Clearly I don't have any answers and it's likely easier for kids to understand this idea conceptually rather than in practice later on in life.

When considering this regarding those men who cheat on their girlfriends and wives, I often flash back to what Rachel Green on Friends. "Once a cheater, always a cheater," she squawked in a bird-like voice.

Always definitively true? Maybe not. Worth considering when thinking about people who do it? Absolutely.



XOXO,
R.