(This is part two of a three-part series. Part one appeared last week.)

Dear MIGUEL:

For today’s column, we shall focus on two points, among the many others, you brought up in your letter (posted in last week’s column): sexual addiction and chemical castration.

As I mentioned last Sunday, the concept of sexual addiction suggests that some people who engage in "excessive" sexual activity are manifesting outward symptoms of a process of psychological addiction in which feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness and worthlessness are temporarily relieved through a sexual high.

Many professionals react negatively to the phrase ‘sexual addiction’ for two usual reasons: (1) because they are disparaging terms likely to induce unnecessary guilt in individuals who enjoy an active sex life and (2) because there is no clear criteria to establish what constitutes "normal" levels of sexual activity (let alone "abnormal" sexual activity that would qualify as addiction). However there is yet another reason professionals question such terms and this is the reason I feel that most applies to you (but please, Pleeeese feel free to write me once more if you think I got you wrong) and that is: that the term sexual addiction tends to glamorize (or "sanitize--if it’s an addiction it can hardly be your fault, can it?) what is a tawdry inability to keep your pecker in your pants.

To be sure, when Patrick Carnes wrote his 1983 book *The Sexual Addiction* recently titled: *Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction* and his later book Don’t Call it Love* (1991) based on a survey of nearly 1000 so-called sex addicts, it generated a lot of attention, but little support from the professional community. Not that it doesn’t exist. But sexologists believe it exists so rarely and is so lacking in distinction from other compulsive disorders such as gambling or eating disorders that it didn’t warrant a distinct diagnostic category. This decision is reflected in a decision not to include a category encompassing hyperactive sexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American

Psychiatric association, which is the most widely accepted system for classifying psychological disorders in the world. (At least, this is as far as edition DSMIII goes. I have yet to look at the latest edition, DSM IV to see if they’ve changed their minds).

A number of professionals acknowledge the validity of the arguments against the addiction concept but nevertheless recognize that some people may become involved in patterns of excessive sexual activity that reflect a lack of sexual control. Noteworthy in this group is sexologists Eli Coleman who prefers to describe these behaviors as symptomatic of sexual compulsion rather than addiction. Dr. Coleman has had extensive clinical experience with clients who view their sexual behavior as having elements of preoccupation, lack of control and self-destructiveness.

Does the above describe you, MIGUEL? Somehow I think not. I think you are not that far-gone.

Like Bill Clinton, you are merely a healthy, attractive man of 39 who up until this time found no reason to limit your sexual energies to your wife.

This does not diminish the gravity of your decision, it just doesn’t make you "sick.," which is what an addiction implies. That you are in most probability not a sex addict can be considered good or bad news, depending on your needs.

If your need is to be "forgiven," and/or to be considered fashionable, and/or to be treated with kid gloves, then it is bad news indeed, since addiction absolves you of responsibility. If your need is to be taken notice of--admired, even envied, possibly even reviled but certainly not pitied, then not being labeled a ‘sex addict" is good news indeed.

Imagine! (You are exactly) a guy like the President of the United States who has so much sexual energy he just can’t contain himself, and may actually even need to take a pill just to harness all of this raging libido!!

Speaking of which, when people talk of ‘chemical castration" they are usually referring to a class of drugs known as antiandrogens, that has been used in Europe and America to treat sex offenders and certain medical conditions such as advanced prostate cancer. Antiandrogens drastically reduce the amount of testosterone circulating in the blood stream. A number of studies have found that some antiandrogens *may* be effective in reducing both sexual interest and sexual activity in human males, but the operative word there is *may* and not *certainly does.*

Besides, one would have to look at whether the cure is worse than the ailment a-n-d whatever happened to good old self control?

In my next column we shall take up the other issues you brought up in your letter, particularly, whether love can, indeed, inspire, if not ensure, fidelity. All the best

MG Holmes

(BodyMind Vol. 2 No. 7 - First posted: 2-15-98)

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