I recently got around to reading an article I clipped on sex addiction than ran more than a year ago in Time magazine and wondered if I, like so many of us in The Life who are mesmerized by cock in this 24/7 web age, fit the definition.
Maybe.
Then again, maybe not.
The American Psychiatric Association, which is still grappling with whether sex addiction is a disease at all, defines hypersexual disorder as spending so much time pursuing intercourse or masturbation as to interfere with your job or other important activities. I guess what they mean by “other important activities” is social interaction, the responsibilities of daily living, etc.
OK, I can buy that if you’re constantly getting a hard-on by your desk at work fantasizing over the cutie in the next cubicle or the daddy on your pc screen instead of working on that report for the boss; or you call in sick because you were on an all night bender edging yourself up on X-Tube til four in the morning. And your place looks like a contender for the next installment of that hoarders series.
But what if you live alone, don’t have a wifey or kids to contend with, or have a partner who’s on auto pilot, you work from home, are retired, or fulfill your 9 to 5 duties, do your food shopping or laundry, and than spend the rest of the evening thinking about dick? Is that interfering with your job or other “important activities”? Is it worse than some jock beer-bellied wannabe watching football or baseball six nights a week or obsessed with violent video games on his X-Box? Or some meth head getting perpetually high?
Hey, I teach college level writing online (thankfully not in real time), and in between grading papers, reviewing assignments or responding to students’ e-mails, I’ll check the hook –up sites as a reward to see if anybody loves me. (He loves, he loves me not, he loves me …).
Now the APA definition of hyperactive sex doesn’t distinguish between intercourse ( i.e., actual in-the-flesh hookups) and masturbation, and while studies show regular sex with a committed partner once a day is healthy, only 3% of horny college age men reported they got off that many times with their dick in a hole. So does that mean guys who get it less than seven times a week are just as less healthy as guys who get it a lot more?
Me and fellow gay guys I know here in Lauderdale average 2 to 3 in the flesh web or sex club spurts a week minimally, and probably twice that amount playing with ourselves on our laptops. After all, it’s not our fault the web has made access to homo porn as easy as taking a piss. Or that sexy men are everywhere here in sunny SoFlo, including the supermarket. But does that make us sickos?
As I already surmised as an amateur sociologist, sexuality, according to the experts, including orientation and level of your horniness, involves your brain’s hormonal system which is regulated by our inherited genetic make-up but also molded by environment. (See my blog, “Shades of Gay,” 8/19/2011.)
Whether it is a form of diversion or recreation, or borne out of boredom, the desire to be wanted, or just plain lust, is wanting to get it on for real or virtually all that wrong if we have the rest of our life’s ducks in a row?
As for the reclusive isolationism a runaway sexual appetite padlocked to a pc may create, more and more, thanks to camming, smart phones and texting, haven’t all of our direct face-to-face social encounters taken a nosedive?
So as the Time article astutely concluded: “Should we regard out of the control sexual behavior as an extreme version of normal sexuality or an illness?”
What do YOU think?
Tomorrow: Gay Pride – Proud About What?
