…is (in my opinion) a ridiculous organisation at whose core is sex-negative pseudoscience. I can’t remember how I stumbled onto their website, I think it was from looking at the keywords used to find the blog. But it’s quite shocking to see a viewpoint that’s so exaggeratedly panicky about sex. Especially since the clinic is staffed with qualified Marriage and Family Therapists, PhDs, MAs and so on.
The slogan is “Holistic, sex addiction treatment for the individual, partner and couple. Recover your sexual health.” Already some red flags. On the home page they say they treat
sexual dysfunction, sex addiction, sexual anorexia, porn addiction, and love addiction. Let’s take a quick look at how they define/describe these and what this might mean.
- Sexual dysfunction: low libido, erectile dysfunction, absence of orgasm, painful intercourse. So far so good — very legit work. The only potential problem is the value judgement of what constitutes low libido as something to try raise as opposed to someone’s normal libido. But that’s a topic for another day. Either way, I hope everyone agrees that there are many cases of low libido that could merit some therapy. The clearest example is low libido after childbirth — in either parent.
- Sex addiction: sexually-related compulsive behaviour that interferes with normal life and causes stress to friends, family etc. Now, there is some discussion about whether sex addiction is a legitimate diagnosis at all. I will post on this at some future point. However, even if it is, the Center’s implementation of this diagnosis might still be nonsense. Which IMO it is, as you will see below.
- Sexual anorexia: “a term used to describe a loss of ‘appetite’ for romantic-sexual interaction”. Again, very legit work although the medicalisation is a bit troubling. When read charitably, forms a subset of their sexual dysfunction treatment.
- Porn addiction: “Porn addiction is defined as the overuse or abuse of pornography in a manner that has negative consequences for one’s life…Porn objectifies the participants and leads to a loss of intimacy.” Here they veer from what sounds like another legit treatment to outright sex negativity, which is the only way I can describe the last bit that implies that porn is unhealthy by definition.
- Love addiction: “Love addiction manifests in a person’s life when they become dependent on the object of their love.” These are always iffy to define but the subsequent quote describes a situation that merits treatment: “In love addiction, when the love object threatens to leave, either physically or psychologically, desperate behaviors tend to escalate.”
But it’s when you dig deeper that things get really hairy. Here is their view of what healthy sex is.
- Healthy sex is not secretive or shameful to yourself or the other person.
- Healthy sex is not abusive in any way.
- Healthy sex is not used to ignore or escape your feelings.
- Healthy sex requires an emotional connection with the other person.
- Sexual health is about love, respect, mutual caring, giving and receiving pleasure, and a desire to know yourself and your partner in a deeper way. Sex can be intense, but the afterglow and heat remain, not dissolving into the next rush. It’s the simple pleasures that express or celebrate the love you share that will connect you over time.
According to this, many behaviours are always unhealthy, ie. unhealthy by definition. Sex you keep a secret because society disapproves (or even because it’s TMI?). Sex you are ashamed of because you have internalised society’s prejudices. Sex engaged in to pick up your mood (although potentially escaping your feelings could mean “above a certain degree” in which case fair enough). All forms of casual sex. All forms of sex between people who are not in love. And so on.
Finally there is the mother of all problems, the sex addiction test they have online, which I’ll deal with in the next post.
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