At the professional conference on Friday of last week, I attended a workshop called "Exploring Sexual Compulsivity and Its Healing Path." The name gave me the impression that what was being presented was a "Health Model"of sexuality. I was sorry to experience this workshop as the most pathologically based, sex negative, user (people who like people who like sex) unfriendly presentation I've ever experienced. It frightens me that the presenter has a license and is "treating" people who are seeking help with their sexual issues. It made me shiver as I watched so many of the other licensed professionals lapping up this unwholesome fare up without reserve. Quite frankly, I was appalled.Definition of Abuse: Anything less than nurturing.Nurturing seemed to be defined as how the presenter personally chooses to nurture herself. Everything else is abuse.
Definition of Sex Addiction: A pathological relationship with a mood altering experience.If you are wondering what "a pathological relationship" actually looks like, well it's anything that the presenter doesn't personally agree with. I'm curious about what a "healthy relationship" with a mood altering experience looks like to her, if she would even agree that such a thing exists.
Now this presenter wasn't completely clueless, ignorant, nor out in left (or was it right, far right?) field with these issues. She obviously has a lot of knowledge and experience working with people with "out of control sexual behavior." She would probably define out of control sexual behavior as the same thing as "sexual addiction" but I don't. I don't find the pathological medical model of sexual behavior, quite frankly, very useful so I admit my own bias. For one thing, she understands a good deal about the shame and suffering people with out of control sexual behavior experience and how it can destroy lives. Unfortunately, I fear that her rigid definition of sexual addiction and many of the methods she uses must result in the accumulation of more shame and ultimately more pain for her clients.
When I was able to screen out the sex negative nonsense, she had some "interesting data" and personal observations that she threw at us throughout the day. Some of it I find insightful and interesting to ponder. Some, I find as ignorant projections. Some I'm not sure what to do with.
I quote her either exactly or loosely but this is the gist I took from it:
I have never met an addict who is just a sexual addict. With women, all sex addicts have an eating disorder too.Here are some interesting tidbits she offered about 12 step support groups for sexual addicts.
Parents traumatize their children by changing their clothes without shutting their bedroom doors.
The average healthy male (as opposed to the sex addicted male) thinks of sex every 52 seconds. The average healthy female thinks of sex once a day. (This wasn't her study but she found it valuable enough to repeat.)
Tattoos are a great diagnostic tools for discovering significant archtypical personally identification.
The goal of sexual acting out is mastery over the original wounding.
Shame is the birth of all addiction.
Fifty percent of sexually addicted women don't orgasm. (This is women she treats.)
Boredom is a good thing for an addict. If you are a sex addict, sexual recovery is one step above boredom.
All fantasy sex is based in sexual addiction.
All BDSM is caused from trauma. Light hand cuffing and other bondage play between a consenting married couple in their own bedroom is pathological.
Pole dancing is based in sexual trauma and is acting out behavior.
SM exchange: pain/pleasure center in the brain is connected.
Exhibitionistic sexual behavior is passive aggressive and emotionally violent.
You can't get better until you give up your secrets.
SA--Sex Anonymous. Sexual addiction is defined for you. Sex outside of marriage is not allowed. This includes masturbation. Sign me up again.
SAA--Sex Addicts Anonymous. Sex addicts define their own addiction.
SCA--Sexual Compulsives Anonymous. This is mostly for the Gay and Lesbian community.
SLAA--Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. Lots of cruising (sex addicts looking for other sex addicts to act out with) going on here.
RCA--Recovering Couples Anonymous. This one plays out differently depending on the area you live.
She talked about how shame creates "sexualized anger" which is then acted out and used a yoga advertisement as an example. A woman in a yoga position is pictured with a water bottle and she explains how it represents sexualized anger. OK, I can buy that maybe it's a subliminal message for sex. They try to sell everything with sex these days so why not yoga? But why project anger into it? Because it's all based on a sickness model. Everything must be pathologized.
She addressed the common event of when people stop acting out they can experience intense somatic responses. OK sure. Of course. The problem is that she is so stuck in the medical model of "sexual addiction" that she follows all these threads into pathological assumptions for everything. She infers that somatic responses are due to the fact that when the person stops engaging in their acting out behavior, it is because the brain has stopped producing certain chemicals and the resulting symptoms of irritability, headaches, etc. occur. I'm not so interested in whether the brain ends up with a chemical imbalance or not. Lets say it does. Now what? What really interests me is what going on inside of those somatic responses. What secrets lie to be unfolded in this process? When one stops the acting out behavior and also stops resisting the somatic responses that arrive in their stead and fully experience the secrets trapped inside, then what? Will the brain chemicals be in balance once again? There is a lot to suggest that the answer to this is yes.
She offers no leeway for sexually healthy people to engage in any sort of kink whatsoever. Kink is seen as acting out that is a result of trauma. OK, just like with the brain chemical thing, lets just agree (or pretend to agree) for a moment that all kink is the result of trauma. Does that automatically suggest that the only conclusion available is that engaging in kinky behavior equals the acting out of a sexual addiction and is detrimental?
She goes on to say "Healthy sexuality is about connection with self and another. It is intimate. You are present. You are connected." OK, no argument from me. But she disallows the possibility that people can engage in any sort of kink whatsoever and also be simultaneously experiencing intimacy, presence and connection. She purports that these two things are mutually exclusive because kink creates an altered state of consciousness and you can not be in an altered state of consciousness and intimately present and connected. Excuse me? From my experience, intimate connection creates an altered state of consciousness.
She concludes with, "Addicts live in extreme black and white thinking. It's all or nothing."
Hello?
6 comments:
Oh my...so glad I wasn't there. Was there opportunity for discussion? Like...did anyone challenge her at all? I don't know if I would have been able to keep my mouth shut.. you see I must be a sex addict with pathological actualities (not tendancies) for acting out much of my childhood shit.
Did she walk funny from her ass puckering so much? Heheheh...liked that one. That was really really good.
Gillette, yes it was painful for me and I totally kept my mouth shut. I made the choice to be silent because I wanted to just see were she would go without any encouragement/intervention/challenge. I was interested in being more of a fly on the wall and although it would have been easy for me to challenge her I wanted to see if anyone else would. Nope, not one. One man asked very respectfully about the pole dancing and described a young single mother he knew who was putting herself through grad school...sorry, she is acting out, simple as that. The presenter was a nice looking woman who described herself as a recovering sex addict. Talk about some repressed shame issues she was projecting all over us and her poor clients. She works in a recovery center called The Meadows. Sad. Her presentation actually felt like a sales pitch for The Meadows recovery center.
Wow...That's all I can say.
You're right...that person is going to hurt people with all those attitudes. Scary indeed
Greenwoman. Wow is right. That's just how I felt sitting through the workshop. Wow. Unbelievable. But, I also attended a great sex positive workshop too and I'll post about that one which will take some of the bad taste away.
hi Adrienne, thanks for the comments over at my blog. I'm glad you did, because that means I found you.
Love the stuff I've read so far.
This workshop you describe is so bad it's comical.
you said, she disallows the possibility that people can engage in any sort of kink whatsoever and also be simultaneously experiencing intimacy, presence and connection. She purports that these two things are mutually exclusive because kink creates an altered state of consciousness and you can not be in an altered state of consciousness and intimately present and connected.
obviously she has not really experienced kinky folks in action. or how much more deep intimacy can be if you allow a natural altered state of consciousness. i mean, what the hell is an orgasm otherwise?
funny how you never see aversion to sexuality pathologized the way hunger for sexuality is. hmmm, could it be because most religions repress it?
oh, and sexual addicts have eating disorders? oh really. could that have anything to do with societal fetishes over dieting and control messing up our natural responses to natural hungers?
Hi Heidi. Thanks for stopping by and glad you like what you've read so far. Yes, the workshop left so much to be desired. The altered state of conscious thing really hit me and it might have been comical if it wasn't so sad. I hate pathologizing things but I think you're right--I for one probably have a bias towards sexual aversion as the real sickness! Thanks for your comments.
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