Why ’Sex Addiction’ Treatment Won’t Keep Men Like Harvey Weinstein from Abusing Women Alison Durkee - Mic
go to original October 28, 2017

Harvey Weinstein at amfAR’s 24th Cinema Against AIDS Gala on May 25 in Cap d’Antibes, France (Alberto Pizzoli/Getty Images)

In the wake of the mounting allegations of sexual abuse — and rape — against him, producer Harvey Weinstein reportedly fled the country to seek treatment for sex addiction in Europe.

In doing so, Weinstein has become the latest high-profile man to use sex addiction as an explanation for his alleged sexual misdemeanors, following Anthony Weiner, Tiger Woods and other celebrities.

But is sex addiction an appropriate diagnosis for Weinstein and other alleged sexual offenders’ crimes — and is it even a real diagnosis at all? As men continue to point to sex addiction to justify their crimes, experts agree that this course of action isn’t what these men should be doing to address their patterns of abuse.

Sex addiction, according to the International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals, is defined as “any sexually-related compulsive behavior which interferes with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones and one’s work environment.”

The disorder “is when someone repeatedly uses sexual behavior to medicate, so to speak, for things like loneliness, sadness, anger,” John Giugliano, a Philadelphia-based researcher and clinician specializing in “out of control sexual behavior” — his preferred term for sex addiction — said in an interview.

“Just like [with an] alcohol or eating disorder ... the person uses that to feel better,” Giugliano said. “And people keep using that, repeatedly, despite the negative circumstances.”

Giugliano said sex addiction is when a person has an inability to regulate their sexuality and it becomes a problem in their lives, with the end goal of treatment being “healthy sexuality.”

Whether or not sex addiction should actually be classified as a mental disorder has been up for debate. The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists declared in a 2016 position paper that it “does not find sufficient empirical evidence to support the classification of sex addiction or porn addiction as a mental health disorder.”

This finding is supported by a 2013 study at UCLA, which found that though other studies have revealed brain activity heightens in drug addicts when they see images of the drug they’re addicted to, a similar test performed using those suffering from “hypersexuality” found their brain activity stayed the same. This suggests, the UCLA researchers noted, that hypersexuality “did not appear to explain brain differences in sexual response any more than simply having a high libido.”

Read the rest at Mic

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