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By Rome Jorge, Lifestyle Editor
Sex addiction—even sex researchers can’t agree what it is. But
David Duchovny knows. He is Golden Globe award-winning actor famous
for his role as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and Hank
Moody, a character who happens to be a sex addict, on
Californication, and who received his big break in the erotica
television series The Red Shoe Diaries. He is also a self-confessed
sex addict, having entered a rehabilitation facility on August 28.
On October 7, Duchovny checked out. His 11-year marriage with fellow
actress
Tea Leoni with whom he shares two children
was soon sundered. The condition is real
and so are its consequences.
Other celebrities who suffered the condition
include platinum-album selling crooner Eric Benet, ex-husband of
Oscar Award-winning actress Hale Barry; and allegedly Michael
Douglas, Oscar Award-winning actor and husband of actress Catherine
Zeta-Jones.
To the common Filipino, this malady of Hollywood
celebrities seems as remote as other “vanity” conditions as
bulimia and anorexia. After all, it seems only the rich, famous and
handsome can afford to have sexual addiction. Just as the everyday
struggle for sustenance saves the masses from even entertaining
bulimia and anorexia, the reality that stares most men in the mirror
seems to make sexual addiction a problem they only wish they could
have.
The common man and woman may raise a skeptical
eyebrow to sex addiction. Many feel it is just an excuse for
philandering and a scheme for rehab clinics to expand their market.
Also adding to the confusion is the abuse of
rehab facilities by Hollywood celebrities. It seems they go to rehab
for just about everything. Conservative Catholic Mel Gibson went to
rehab to “cure” his apparent racism when he rambled on with
anti-Semitic slurs after being apprehended for driving under the
influence in July 2006. Britney Spear’s one-day rehab stints (or
stunts) did nothing for the fallen pop star.
How does one differentiate sexual addiction with
normal healthy libido? What is the difference between a condition
worthy of therapy and a lame excuse for stupidity?
Despite debate among experts on whether sexual
addiction should be defined as an addiction, a compulsion or a
disease, a definition based on the findings of Patrick Carnes, Ph.D.
who pioneered the Certified Sex Addiction Therapist program in the
US can be distilled into the following:
1. It an uncontrollable compulsion. One cannot
stop despite consequences. It is an obsession that occupies all of
one’s time.
2. It damages one’s life, be it one’s
relationships, career, finances, self-esteem or happiness. That’s
when you know you have a problem.
3. Sex addiction can manifest as masturbation,
pornography, patronizing prostitution, sadomasochism and other
fetishes, infidelity as well as promiscuity. It is not these acts
per se but rather the uncontrollable urge to indulge in them that
defines sexual addiction. In the age of the Internet and free
downloads, sex addiction is now within reach of the common man.
4. Sexual addiction has many of the
characteristics of drug and alcohol abuse and gambling addiction:
the need to indulge in greater amounts to achieve the same
“high.”
5. Just as with substance abuse, heredity and
social conditioning are important factors. As with other conditions
such as alcoholism, people may have a genetic predisposition to
sexual addiction. Researchers at the Hebrew University and Ben
Gurion University of the Negev, Israel have isolated the alleged
gene common to sexual addicts known as D4 which is activated by
pleasure chemical dopamine released by the brain. Just as with other
conditions, having the gene does not automatically make one a sex
addict. Rather it makes one more vulnerable to the condition. An
abusive childhood can also contribute to one’s sexual addiction.
These genetic and environmental factors means that one must be more
aware of one’s family history.
As with other forms of addiction, the treatment
of sexual addiction follows a similar path. These steps include the
following actions:
· Identify and accept the problem. Dichotomize it from other
problems one may have such as alcoholism or any other compulsion.
· Quit cold turkey. Don’t go for gradualism.
· Eschew the lifestyle, habits and friends associated with the
condition.
· Get support. Family, support groups and spirituality all help.
Sexual addiction is no longer an unknown as
strange and a dubious as UFOs and aliens worthy of an “x-file.”
It’s real. It’s out there.
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