Review: The Myth of Sex Addiction, by David J. Ley

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Dec 042012
 

Ley, David J. The Myth of Sex Addiction. Rowan and Littlefield, 2012 Amazon

Sex scandals  are so prevalent that the publishers of The Myth of Sex Addiction by David J. Ley could reasonably expect that one would be in the news when the book launched. David Petraeus, former commander of US forces in Afghanistan and former director of the CIA, stepped up and performed adequately, but there were plenty of others waiting in the wings. His affair with his biographer was revealed when his mistress sent harassing emails to a female friend of the family, leading to an FBI investigation and ultimately his resignation. Predictably, people have applied the sex addiction label to the Petraeus affair.

Sex addiction has become our all-purpose rubric for sexual deviance, whether qualitative or quantitative, harmless or horrifying. Infidelity, porn use, homosexuality, masturbation, rape, fetishes, pedophilia, are all seem as symptoms of sex addiction. For a condition that is not recognized by many major medical and psychiatric organizations, sex addiction has amazing cultural currency, whether one views it as a moral failing or an illness.

Delve into the histories of those slapped with the sex addiction label, says Ley, and we will find a host of other problems: low impulse control, mood disorders, poor socialization, relationships between people with incompatible desires, etc. You find a guy crippled with guilt and shame because he masturbates twice a month. Examined closely, sex addiction dissolves into other conditions that are better known and more treatable.

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Kinkophobia and presumed knowledge

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Aug 202011
 

A newspaper in Vancouver, BC, ran a story yesterday on complaints, or rather a complaint, about noise from a swing party in the suburb of Delta.

The story itself is pretty thin, but what really interests me is the comments. Most of them are people saying “What’s the big deal?” or defending swinging, but many of which display a virulent hatred of the sexually deviant (swinging, in this case) combined with a presumed knowledge about the truth of swinging.

I worked for a swinger. He was a bit of a deviant. His second wife joined him for a while, then divorced him because she couldn’t stand the lifestyle. We got all sorts of pornographic mail at work. I quit my job when he said I should try it. Creepy.

PS: Most of the photos of the men were really ugly.

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Have fun with those festering , infected, bleeding sores…down there…hope you don’t get them on your face!

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If you have this kind of lifestyle, you have a 75% percent chance of having genital herpes. You may not have symptoms In fact most people don’t.But they are still randomly infectious.
And, your kids will find out about your lifestyle eventually.You are living in a dream world if you think this won’t effect them.You could keep this a secret which is really hard to do.But if you are successful, are you prepared for the day when your son shows up to one of your parties?
Condoms fail. How many women do you know who got pregnant because a condom broke? And, you can still get STDs with perfect condom use. Check it out yourself.
I would love to tell you that there is a sexual utopia. I would love to tell you that you can have sexual adventures galore without getting your heart or body broken. Who doesn’t want that? I would love to tell you that your kids won’t take huge sexual risks that endanger their health because they see you doing it.
But that, would be a lie.

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My wife and I wanted to try this lifestyle out, and now we too are divorced. I am trying to hold together the pieces of innocence for our children, while she is claiming to them her friendships with 20 somethings make them look cool. Its a sick sick World.

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I’ve been around the block more than a few times.These things were around in the 60s.And all the people I knew who did this stuff-all eventually divorced.Disbelieve me if you like & find out yourself.Respect and communication aside, when you do this stuff, your marriage is not an exclusive relationship. Someone almost always winds up getting hurt. Usually, it’s just a matter of time. As for being uneducated as you claim, seriously, educate yourself about STDs. Condoms fail 10 % of the time across the board. You can get herpes, HPV and syphilis with perfect condom use. You can also get these from oral sex.The risks are real and include serious long term consequences including head and neck cancer from HPV.The rates of which by the way are rising rapidly.Go to any government website on STD information and get the facts.
What people do is their own business. And honestly, nobody cares in this day and age. But the truth is, there are consequences which was my point.

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yawn…swingers are just immoral deviants that are not even worth discussing..let them rot from their various STD’s and continue running away from the truth of what they truly are, which is too ugly to even contemplate

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Anyone I’ve known, and I’ve known lots, who get into that lifestyle, almost always divorce.
In the end you don’t have a real marriage, you have an “arrangement” Once the guy hits midlife, he has absolutely no reason to be faithful to you, nor to honour your marriage vows. Think about it; they meant nothing. You talk about your kids being well behaved, but so what.They are learning things that will ultimately harm them.
Your talk about the facts of life with your daughter will, of course, now have to include how to deal with the constant herpes outbreaks and then there is the tender moment when your child realizes she has genital warts. She decides not to worry about HIV because you didn’t. Then there will be the heartbreak of seeing men just use your daughter and then dump her. Your lifestyle has a price. By the time most people figure this out, it’s too late. They are old, alone with their many lovers long gone and their kids seriously messed up and an

So, the attackers claim to know the dark side of swinging, though they don’t cite anything to support this. They even presume to know more about it than the swingers themselves. I think this supposed expertise is similar to the junk science that gets trotted out by homophobes.

Ann Coulter vs. Conversio Virium

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Jun 072011
 

After hearing about this 2006 incident on the Masocast, I dug up a transcript of Ann Coulter’s views on the Conversio Virium, the BDSM educational group at Columbia University:

Well, what’s sort of surprising about it, and which is why I really think you should get a picture of the members of these clubs and, you know, a picture of the young College Republicans and the Christians, because someone who needs to join a club at college to find a way to have sex, probably not your lookers.

I realize this was five years ago and documenting Coulter’s inanities at this point is akin to flogging a dead horse, but it bears repeating.

Coulter’s attack is based on unsupported assumption about the people in this club. Coulter doesn’t take the standard feminist tack of arguing that this legitimizes sexual coercion and violence against women. Instead, she makes social attacks on the people involved: they must be ugly or socially inept, coming from broken homes. Conversative Christians are implied to be the true sexual experts, and more physically attractive.

This is a different strain of outside criticism against BDSM, that kinky people are unattractive, damaged and deeply unhip.

The “BDSM panic” defense and the silence of Laurie Moore

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Mar 192010
 

Via Clarisse Thorn’s blog, the murder (manslaughter, according to the courts) of Steven Morris by his submissive’s estranged husband, John R. Moore III.

Thorn’s analysis of this case suggests that this is a variation of the gay panic defense, which would explain why Moore got manslaughter instead of homicide. Thus, when the media and the general public look at this tragic affair, they look for a person with whom to identify. Morris? Nope, he’s an adulterer and a BDSM dominant; doesn’t make a good victim, and he’s dead besides. Laurie, Moore’s wife and Morris’ lover? Nope, she’s an adulterer and a BDSM who met Morris via collarme.com; must be either crazy or a slut, and therefore not a good victim either. That leaves Moore, even though he shot a guy, violating his wife’s protection order in the process. He’ll have to do for the audience’s sympathy. There’s a marked failure of empathy in the coverage, without any quotes from Laurie Morris, who’s been through a horrible experience even before the shooting. (Presumably there’s a reason she had protection order against her husband.)

As a side note, I notice that Moore is a Blackwater defense contractor who had spent time in Afghanistan. This dovetails with the news item that David Grisham, the leader of the Texan Christian organization Repent Amarillo, is an armed security guard at Pantex, a company that works with nuclear material disposals and high explosives. Grisham’s organization drove the Route 66 swinger club (with some BDSM elements) out of business, by noting down license plates in an adjacent parking lot to the club and notifying family members and employers.

These are the men we should fear: not the Islamic terrorist, not the big black guy on the street. Fear the middle class white guy with the military-industrial complex job who keeps his gun and his Bible in the same bedside drawer, who loses it when his control over the world begins to crumble, when anything disrupts his view of how the family should be. Both Moore and Grisham reacted violently to perceived threats against the family and sexual normality. There’s only going to be more of that in the future: more visible gays, poly people, kinky people, trans people. How will men like Moore and Grisham react?

Why BDSM matters, politically

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Feb 192008
 

Sometimes I wonder if devoting so much of my time and energy to the culture and history and practice of BDSM is worthwhile. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, does BDSM matter any more than, say, lacross or beekeeping?

Actually, I think it does. The reason why comes from a surprising source.

I’ve been following the career of Peter LaBarbera for some time now. LaBarbera has made a career out of investigating the homosexual and kinky world and exposing The Thruth about these public depravities to the Christian right wing in the US, through venues like Fox News, the Illinois Family Institute and Concerned Women for America. His current gig is the Americans for Truth about Homosexuality blog, which appears to be a one-man operation.

LaBarbera is a part of the anti-gay media, who spread misinformation or disinformation about homosexuality, STDs and so on. He’s developed an interesting sideline in the BDSM culture, particularly public events such as the Folsom Street Fair, and posting about the shocking – shocking – things that go on there.

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Concerned Women for America

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Nov 082005
 

During my stay in NYC, someone at TES told me about Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian group that has targeted the BDSM subculture in America.

Their website has some interesting press releases regarding BDSM:

An April 2002 press release objects to Howard Johnson hotel hosting a play event. “This is medically unsound and morally wrong,” said Mrs. Joey Davis, state director for Concerned Women for America of Missouri. “HOJO was once known to families as a safe place to stay and for its ice cream and restaurants. Now they don’t seem to care that they are identified with perverse, dangerous behavior.”

Another in October 2001 objected to TES deciding to hold its film festival in the aftermath of 9/11. “It was hoped by some that the spirit of unity and the uncommon valor shown by the heroic firemen, police, and rescue workers during the tragedy might spark a return to traditional values and a closing down of the “Business as Usual” sign. It remains to be seen what will happen in the long term.”

“What’s Going on at Homosexual Churches?” prints two ads for events held at Metropolitan Community Churches: one drag-king show, one BDSM workshop.

“Portland, Oregon, Mayor Proclaims ‘Leather Pride Week’ for Sexual Sadists” attacks Mayor Katz.

CWA President Sandy Rios said, “Whereas ‘your honors’ of old have paid tribute to visitors with keys to the city, perhaps Mayor Katz can now present keys to the city’s fur-lined hand-cuffs and bondage chamber. It’s amazing to behold how — in the name of ‘diversity’—committed liberals can’t say no to any perversion, yet we’re supposed to somehow believe they will still draw the line at sex between adults and children.”

CWA’s press releases have a calm, reasoned tone. They take the position that just describing what these events are will sufficiently horrify their constituency. Their secondary position is appeals to people’s health, family values and patriotism.

CWA also responded to the NCSF’s activism against it.

Just as pornographers use the First Amendment to defend the sale of porn, NCSF hopes to expand the realm of “free speech” to other “sexual areas,” including “sex enterprises, sexual-purpose clubs and educational and social groups.” If they succeed, it would limit the ability of citizens to keep sex clubs catering to sadomasochists, “swingers’” or other perversions out of their neighborhood and away from their children.

There’s also a little conspiracy theorizing.

“Homosexual activists have always been the largest supporters of, and the driving force behind, S&M perversion among heterosexuals,” Kleder [policy analyst with the Culture and Family Institute] said. “That is because normal, healthy, monogamous, heterosexual, marital relations are the biggest threat to their ultimate acceptance.”

“Once the unspeakable is openly promoted as a valid choice for heterosexuals, then the perversions of homosexual and related behaviors will seem less shocking to the public at large,” she added. “We should have expected something like NSCF to follow on the heels of the success of the homosexual lobby.”

Nice to know the we hetero kinksters have the vast power of the Homosexual Agenda behind us.

It’s an odd quirk that CWFA literature repeatedly uses the word “bondage” to describe addiction or anything that they don’t like. An “ex-lesbian” describes how one kiss put her in bondage for 16 years.