Zapped

Well, why not beat a dead horse? What else do I have to do this evening?
 
Many words, including "addiction," have multiple valid dictionary definitions. (Skip over my bloviating if you want to jump to the OED definitions of "addiction.")
 
Our psychiatric and other physician friends have established for us that "addiction" as used as a medical diagnosis by psychiatrists and others who use the DSM-5 to guide their work (at least as far as terminology and, very importantly, insurance billing, goes) does not (yet) include compulsive behaviors not involving an external chemical substance. There's no "sex addiction" in the DSM-5, and so it doesn't exist as an officially recognized diagnosis.
 
On the other hand, there are many therapists and psychologists (and I assume at least some psychiatrists) who argue that some behaviors can accurately be called addictions. When it comes to "sex addiction," Dr. Patrick Carnes has taken the lead. I have a therapist friend who is being trained by Carnes and his associates to work with what they agree amongst themselves is "sex addiction."
 
Neither my psychiatrist nor my therapist have had a problem with me identifying as a "sex addict," although that's not the official diagnosis my psychiatrist uses (not could he for insurance purposes, since it's not in the DSM-5).
 
So there's the question of whether these therapists, lay people, etc. are being sloppy when we say "sex addiction," since it's not (yet) a medical term approved by the psychiatric establishment. Wikipedia, while it contains an increasing number of excellent entries, is still subject, for good reason, to skepticism; appeals to its authority are unconvincing to many of us. (While I sympathize with Zachary Prince's dismissal of "academics," I am one, and there's something to be said for checking the validity and authority of one's sources in this age of real and alleged "fake news." I'm also sympathetic to ZP's frustration with the DSM when it comes to trans issues.)
 
What are the valid, officially recognized definitions of "addiction"? Being a semi-retired academic and having free online access, I thought I'd look up the definitions of "addiction" in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which is viewed by most scholars as the most authoritative English-language dictionary.
 
The first definition of "addiction" in the OED is:
 


1. a. The state or condition of being dedicated or devoted to a thing, esp. an activity or occupation; adherence or attachment, esp. of an immoderate or compulsive kind.
 
[examples omitted]
 
1.b. Immoderate or compulsive consumption of a drug or other substance; spec. a condition characterized by regular or poorly controlled use of a psychoactive substance despite adverse physical, psychological, or social consequences, often with the development of physiological tolerance and withdrawal symptoms; an instance of this. Frequently with to (the addictive substance), or with distinguishing word.
 
[examples omitted]

Even the first definition of "addiction" contains multiple definitions!
 
1.a. is how lay people and many therapists use "addiction" in the context of "sex addiction." This way of using "addiction" as "adherence or attachments, esp. of an immoderate of compulsive kind" goes back, according to the OED, to the sixteenth century. 1532 or so: "An ouermoche addiction to priuate appetites, mixed with to moche heedinesse and obstinacy."
 
So calling compulsive sexual behavior an "addiction" is in keeping with centuries of English-language usage and the first definition in the OED. Lay people who refer to "sex addiction" are speaking accurately--as long as we don't assume we are using the narrower, officially-sanctioned medical diagnostic term.
 
No wonder people get frustrated!
 
This has been fun.
 
By the way, the other OED definitions (examples omitted) are:
 


2. Predilection, inclination; an instance of this, a ‘penchant’. Obsolete.
 
3. The binding of a person to another as a servant, adherent, or disciple; (also) the state of being so bound. Frequently with to. Obsolete.
 
4. Roman Law. The formal delivery of a person or property to an individual, typically in accordance with a judicial decision.

 
 
 

I can't even remember the last guy with whom I had sex. It seems to me he had the same name as the POTUS at the time, Abraham.

Wouldn’t have any idea. Way too many to remember.

There were showers in high school, but in all four years I took gym pluse was on the track team I saw exactly 3 boys use them, and only once each. We didn't shower after class so we never got totally naked, people kept their underwear on as they changed.
 
After college when I went back home I joined the local YMCA which at the time just had a big shower room with 8 shower heads on the wall. About 10 years ago they put in clunky stalls around the shower heads, which was extremely annoying since there really isn't that much room and taller people are continually banking their elbows on the walls. I have since joined a different gym with larger shower stalls.

young gay me enjoyed it immensely when we had to take showers, which was actually rather infrequently in the first half of the 1980s. I remember taking a handful of showers in Jr High. But mainly I guess we weren't doing things that got us very sweaty. Same in HS. Only the semester of swimming my sophomore year required us to shower. (That was a fun semester...I think I've mentioned the story here before about colliding with a boy as I was exiting the shower and he was entering. He was a tall, handsome basketball player with a sizable appendage that struck my wrist.) Even in those days though showering was just not really done much. We also didn't have much time between classes and squeezing in a shower would have been tough. The sports teams all showered after practice and games though.

I was briefly talking about this yesterday with a good friend who is 42 (I'm 60). He said he is "uncomfortable" being naked in a locker room. I didn't ask, but I imagine he's young enough that he didn't have to take group showers after gym class. He was disbelieving and then incredulous when I told him nude swimming classes were common in high schools and colleges, at least for men, into the 1970s.
 
We had to take showers starting in junior high (the hell now known as middle school). Most of us got over it and got comfortable with being naked with other guys (and a few were, I'm sure, genuinely traumatized). We internalized that walking around a locker room naked was normal, usual, expected, etc. To cover up was seen as a sign of weakness. You were strange if you walked to or from the shower with a towel wrapped around you.
 
Guys who never had to take group showers? They never got over it.
 
And now there are young men whose dads never got over it.
 
The thing I miss about it is that for most of us, it was comfortable. I may have had body issues, but I wasn't uncomfortable about taking my clothes off in a locker room. I feel sorry for all these guys who are stressed out by changing after a workout.

I was briefly talking about this yesterday with a good friend who is 42 (I'm 60). He said he is "uncomfortable" being naked in a locker room. I didn't ask, but I imagine he's young enough that he didn't have to take group showers after gym class. He was disbelieving and then incredulous when I told him nude swimming classes were common in high schools and colleges, at least for men, into the 1970s.
 
We had to take showers starting in junior high (the hell now known as middle school). Most of us got over it and got comfortable with being naked with other guys (and a few were, I'm sure, genuinely traumatized). We internalized that walking around a locker room naked was normal, usual, expected, etc. To cover up was seen as a sign of weakness. You were strange if you walked to or from the shower with a towel wrapped around you.
 
Guys who never had to take group showers? They never got over it.
 
And now there are young men whose dads never got over it.
 
The thing I miss about it is that for most of us, it was comfortable. I may have had body issues, but I wasn't uncomfortable about taking my clothes off in a locker room. I feel sorry for all these guys who are stressed out by changing after a workout.

Well, why not beat a dead horse? What else do I have to do this evening?
 
Many words, including "addiction," have multiple valid dictionary definitions. (Skip over my bloviating if you want to jump to the OED definitions of "addiction.")
 
Our psychiatric and other physician friends have established for us that "addiction" as used as a medical diagnosis by psychiatrists and others who use the DSM-5 to guide their work (at least as far as terminology and, very importantly, insurance billing, goes) does not (yet) include compulsive behaviors not involving an external chemical substance. There's no "sex addiction" in the DSM-5, and so it doesn't exist as an officially recognized diagnosis.
 
On the other hand, there are many therapists and psychologists (and I assume at least some psychiatrists) who argue that some behaviors can accurately be called addictions. When it comes to "sex addiction," Dr. Patrick Carnes has taken the lead. I have a therapist friend who is being trained by Carnes and his associates to work with what they agree amongst themselves is "sex addiction."
 
Neither my psychiatrist nor my therapist have had a problem with me identifying as a "sex addict," although that's not the official diagnosis my psychiatrist uses (not could he for insurance purposes, since it's not in the DSM-5).
 
So there's the question of whether these therapists, lay people, etc. are being sloppy when we say "sex addiction," since it's not (yet) a medical term approved by the psychiatric establishment. Wikipedia, while it contains an increasing number of excellent entries, is still subject, for good reason, to skepticism; appeals to its authority are unconvincing to many of us. (While I sympathize with Zachary Prince's dismissal of "academics," I am one, and there's something to be said for checking the validity and authority of one's sources in this age of real and alleged "fake news." I'm also sympathetic to ZP's frustration with the DSM when it comes to trans issues.)
 
What are the valid, officially recognized definitions of "addiction"? Being a semi-retired academic and having free online access, I thought I'd look up the definitions of "addiction" in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which is viewed by most scholars as the most authoritative English-language dictionary.
 
The first definition of "addiction" in the OED is:
 


1. a. The state or condition of being dedicated or devoted to a thing, esp. an activity or occupation; adherence or attachment, esp. of an immoderate or compulsive kind.
 
[examples omitted]
 
1.b. Immoderate or compulsive consumption of a drug or other substance; spec. a condition characterized by regular or poorly controlled use of a psychoactive substance despite adverse physical, psychological, or social consequences, often with the development of physiological tolerance and withdrawal symptoms; an instance of this. Frequently with to (the addictive substance), or with distinguishing word.
 
[examples omitted]

Even the first definition of "addiction" contains multiple definitions!
 
1.a. is how lay people and many therapists use "addiction" in the context of "sex addiction." This way of using "addiction" as "adherence or attachments, esp. of an immoderate of compulsive kind" goes back, according to the OED, to the sixteenth century. 1532 or so: "An ouermoche addiction to priuate appetites, mixed with to moche heedinesse and obstinacy."
 
So calling compulsive sexual behavior an "addiction" is in keeping with centuries of English-language usage and the first definition in the OED. Lay people who refer to "sex addiction" are speaking accurately--as long as we don't assume we are using the narrower, officially-sanctioned medical diagnostic term.
 
No wonder people get frustrated!
 
This has been fun.
 
By the way, the other OED definitions (examples omitted) are:
 


2. Predilection, inclination; an instance of this, a ‘penchant’. Obsolete.
 
3. The binding of a person to another as a servant, adherent, or disciple; (also) the state of being so bound. Frequently with to. Obsolete.
 
4. Roman Law. The formal delivery of a person or property to an individual, typically in accordance with a judicial decision.

 
 
 

Well, why not beat a dead horse? What else do I have to do this evening?
 
Many words, including "addiction," have multiple valid dictionary definitions. (Skip over my bloviating if you want to jump to the OED definitions of "addiction.")
 
Our psychiatric and other physician friends have established for us that "addiction" as used as a medical diagnosis by psychiatrists and others who use the DSM-5 to guide their work (at least as far as terminology and, very importantly, insurance billing, goes) does not (yet) include compulsive behaviors not involving an external chemical substance. There's no "sex addiction" in the DSM-5, and so it doesn't exist as an officially recognized diagnosis.
 
On the other hand, there are many therapists and psychologists (and I assume at least some psychiatrists) who argue that some behaviors can accurately be called addictions. When it comes to "sex addiction," Dr. Patrick Carnes has taken the lead. I have a therapist friend who is being trained by Carnes and his associates to work with what they agree amongst themselves is "sex addiction."
 
Neither my psychiatrist nor my therapist have had a problem with me identifying as a "sex addict," although that's not the official diagnosis my psychiatrist uses (not could he for insurance purposes, since it's not in the DSM-5).
 
So there's the question of whether these therapists, lay people, etc. are being sloppy when we say "sex addiction," since it's not (yet) a medical term approved by the psychiatric establishment. Wikipedia, while it contains an increasing number of excellent entries, is still subject, for good reason, to skepticism; appeals to its authority are unconvincing to many of us. (While I sympathize with Zachary Prince's dismissal of "academics," I am one, and there's something to be said for checking the validity and authority of one's sources in this age of real and alleged "fake news." I'm also sympathetic to ZP's frustration with the DSM when it comes to trans issues.)
 
What are the valid, officially recognized definitions of "addiction"? Being a semi-retired academic and having free online access, I thought I'd look up the definitions of "addiction" in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which is viewed by most scholars as the most authoritative English-language dictionary.
 
The first definition of "addiction" in the OED is:
 


1. a. The state or condition of being dedicated or devoted to a thing, esp. an activity or occupation; adherence or attachment, esp. of an immoderate or compulsive kind.
 
[examples omitted]
 
1.b. Immoderate or compulsive consumption of a drug or other substance; spec. a condition characterized by regular or poorly controlled use of a psychoactive substance despite adverse physical, psychological, or social consequences, often with the development of physiological tolerance and withdrawal symptoms; an instance of this. Frequently with to (the addictive substance), or with distinguishing word.
 
[examples omitted]

Even the first definition of "addiction" contains multiple definitions!
 
1.a. is how lay people and many therapists use "addiction" in the context of "sex addiction." This way of using "addiction" as "adherence or attachments, esp. of an immoderate of compulsive kind" goes back, according to the OED, to the sixteenth century. 1532 or so: "An ouermoche addiction to priuate appetites, mixed with to moche heedinesse and obstinacy."
 
So calling compulsive sexual behavior an "addiction" is in keeping with centuries of English-language usage and the first definition in the OED. Lay people who refer to "sex addiction" are speaking accurately--as long as we don't assume we are using the narrower, officially-sanctioned medical diagnostic term.
 
No wonder people get frustrated!
 
This has been fun.
 
By the way, the other OED definitions (examples omitted) are:
 


2. Predilection, inclination; an instance of this, a ‘penchant’. Obsolete.
 
3. The binding of a person to another as a servant, adherent, or disciple; (also) the state of being so bound. Frequently with to. Obsolete.
 
4. Roman Law. The formal delivery of a person or property to an individual, typically in accordance with a judicial decision.

 
 
 

I was briefly talking about this yesterday with a good friend who is 42 (I'm 60). He said he is "uncomfortable" being naked in a locker room. I didn't ask, but I imagine he's young enough that he didn't have to take group showers after gym class. He was disbelieving and then incredulous when I told him nude swimming classes were common in high schools and colleges, at least for men, into the 1970s.
 
We had to take showers starting in junior high (the hell now known as middle school). Most of us got over it and got comfortable with being naked with other guys (and a few were, I'm sure, genuinely traumatized). We internalized that walking around a locker room naked was normal, usual, expected, etc. To cover up was seen as a sign of weakness. You were strange if you walked to or from the shower with a towel wrapped around you.
 
Guys who never had to take group showers? They never got over it.
 
And now there are young men whose dads never got over it.
 
The thing I miss about it is that for most of us, it was comfortable. I may have had body issues, but I wasn't uncomfortable about taking my clothes off in a locker room. I feel sorry for all these guys who are stressed out by changing after a workout.

While sex, pornography, and other behavioral issues may not (yet) be classified as disorders in the DSM-V, there certainly are a lot of people in the mental health community, especially those doing clinical work, who accept "sex addiction" and "porn addiction" as, at a minimum, useful working terms. Whether or not they are true addictions depends a lot on how "addiction" is defined. It can be a long path for something to make it into the DSM, especially if there isn't a drug company pushing a medication to treat the condition! It must be difficult to secure funding to do the necessary research to get something like a behavioral pattern classified as an addiction.
 
Meanwhile, I personally have found it very helpful to participate in the Sex Addicts Anonymous program, and very, very helpful to think of certain thought and behavior patterns as something addictive for me. For example, if I start in on porn it leads to phone sex which will take up all time I can make available, with my work and relationship with my husband suffering. And the fantasies get more and more extreme and exhausting.
 
What are fun, recreational sex activities for many guys are something I just can't handle. Saying to myself "I'm an addict" is really useful in keeping myself from starting something that I have found over and over I can't stop.
 
Whether or not this is a true addiction, strictly defined, is a good question. What's true for a lot of people like me is that it works to think of ourselves as addicts, in my case, anyway, knowing I'm using the term somewhat loosely.
 
There are a lot of therapists with "sex addiction" practices, books, articles, etc.

snapfitness.com — we have one of each where I live. Here, the Anytime Fitness is much more popular. Worth checking both out.

I'm watching a sitcom from the '50s "Meet Corliss Archer". In this episode Corliss and her boyfriend are trying to get a date for "homely" girl.
 
The date has not shown up and the girl keeps calling Corliss. Finally Corliss' father answers the phone. The girl thinking it's her date asks him if he is tall, dark and handsome. The father tells her who is and that he is "medium, gray and passable". I thought that could describes so many of us!
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_Corliss_Archer_(TV_series)

Child, when you're around me go ahead and run naked. You'll still be a cute guy to me.
 
If they treat you poorly when you're naked they're not the people you want to be around. When you show up in Las Vegas and I'll take you to a bar where you can present however you want and you won't be the only one.
 
Tits don't make a woman; Dicks don't make a man. It's all skin!
 

It would take many pages to unpack everything going into the very complicated cluster of issues surrounding the rise in "nudity sensitivity" among American men under 40, though there are some veins of these issues in all Western cultures nowadays. It's the result of the highly managed parenting done by Boomers and GenX. It's the result of the Sexual Revolution & Gay Rights succeeding in raising the awareness of Objectification, Youth Worship, and other powerful ideas. Add all of that to the growing awareness of just how prevalent sexual abuse, assault, and harassment are in the USA coupled with decades of "child predator" scares. All of that overlaid on the general hum of anxiety and worry most millennials experience given "terrorism" and massive inequality along with the end of the "American Dream" for many and it's no surprise how millennial men aren't big on "public nudity" but are fine with "private nudity."
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/fashion/mens-style/mens-locker-room-designers-take-pity-on-naked-millennials.html
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/26/the-stark-difference-between-millennial-men-and-their-dads/
 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/07/study-two-thirds-millenials-sleep-nude/1225852002/
 
https://www.sfgate.com/weird/article/Old-nudists-boomers-naturists-millennials-7423088.php
 
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/15/millennials-anxiety-generation-y-housing-careers
 
[MEDIA=reddit]nudism/comments/6io627[/MEDIA]

Less than 1/3 for escorts. Sex addiction is not conducive to being successful as an escort. There’s nothing about escorting that satisfies the compulsiveness on our part. Quite the opposite, in fact. People might GET INTO sex work because they have some kind of addiction toward sex, and they think that this would’ve a good way to monetise the fact that they’re having lots of sex anyway. But being a successful escort in the long run requires setting healthy boundaries and treating this work as a real job. Endeavours that addictive tendencies are really not conducive to at all. That’s not to say that absolutely no one can manage to combine the two. But very few can.
 
On the client’s side, I couldn’t really speculate a percentage, but the client side of things IS much more conducive to satisfying compulsive urges. I know for sure that at least some significant percentage of clients have addictive tendencies. They go thru cycles where they realize that the way they’re engaging with the industry is damaging their life, swear to quit, manage for some time, compulsively return to hiring, often even detailing their addictive tendencies to their providers. In the phone sex world this is particularly common, probably due to the very accessible, instant-gratification nature of phone calls. Hard to say that I could agree with 1/3 tho. It also really depends on who you are and how you market yourself what percentage of the clients you attract will have addictive tendencies. I’ve literally put the word “addicted” in phone sex listings before and that of course attracts a higher percentage of them. But it’s well known in that world amongst PSOs in general that a high percentage of the clients cycle in and out due to issues with compulsion, addiction, or whatever else you want to call it.

As I said in my earlier reply on this topic, I find it not only helpful but, at least in this phase of life, to use the word “addiction” to describe my relationship with erotic videos, porn, and phone sex to myself. And clearly it is very helpful for the many other men in SAA and other 12-step programs for whom the program is working.
 
I also understand that “addiction” is used by some people, particularly medical professionals, very narrowly, in the way that RudyNate has articulated. And some of us use it more loosely, with a broader definition. This includes lay people like you and me, and also some counselors and some clinical psychologists and psychiatrists.
 
In my subjective experience, I experience it as an “addiction,” even though there is no external chemical involved. From an objective, empirical point of view, if there’s not an external chemical involved, it doesn’t fit the narrow, formal definition used by the psychiatric research community.
 
Hope I got that right!

I don’t have the time to find the link right now, but there is a YMCA in Pennsylvania (I think) that actually banned nudity in the locker rooms.
 
How things have changed. 60 years ago, even 50 years ago, high school and college men’s swim classes were done in the nude. Colleagues told me that until sometime in the 1970s there were sex-segregated swim times for the college pool, and the men swam nude.
 
Now I have at least one younger colleague who wears shorts to shower in the common shower area.

Compulsive behaviours which are harmful and cannot be stopped even if stopping is desired are addictions. That is the distinction. Eating is an example of a compulsive behaviour that is not an addiction, except in the case where someone knows that their manner of eating is harming them & wants to stop their compulsive eating habits but cannot. In that case it is an addiction.

Rudynate for the win!

That is incorrect. A compulsion is a repetitive behavior from which an actor is unable to refrain. An addiction is a compulsion compounded by a physical dependency.

Thank you for making the important point that an interpretation that you find useful is not true in an absolute sense.

While sex, pornography, and other behavioral issues may not (yet) be classified as disorders in the DSM-V, there certainly are a lot of people in the mental health community, especially those doing clinical work, who accept "sex addiction" and "porn addiction" as, at a minimum, useful working terms. Whether or not they are true addictions depends a lot on how "addiction" is defined. It can be a long path for something to make it into the DSM, especially if there isn't a drug company pushing a medication to treat the condition! It must be difficult to secure funding to do the necessary research to get something like a behavioral pattern classified as an addiction.
 
Meanwhile, I personally have found it very helpful to participate in the Sex Addicts Anonymous program, and very, very helpful to think of certain thought and behavior patterns as something addictive for me. For example, if I start in on porn it leads to phone sex which will take up all time I can make available, with my work and relationship with my husband suffering. And the fantasies get more and more extreme and exhausting.
 
What are fun, recreational sex activities for many guys are something I just can't handle. Saying to myself "I'm an addict" is really useful in keeping myself from starting something that I have found over and over I can't stop.
 
Whether or not this is a true addiction, strictly defined, is a good question. What's true for a lot of people like me is that it works to think of ourselves as addicts, in my case, anyway, knowing I'm using the term somewhat loosely.
 
There are a lot of therapists with "sex addiction" practices, books, articles, etc.

While sex, pornography, and other behavioral issues may not (yet) be classified as disorders in the DSM-V, there certainly are a lot of people in the mental health community, especially those doing clinical work, who accept "sex addiction" and "porn addiction" as, at a minimum, useful working terms. Whether or not they are true addictions depends a lot on how "addiction" is defined. It can be a long path for something to make it into the DSM, especially if there isn't a drug company pushing a medication to treat the condition! It must be difficult to secure funding to do the necessary research to get something like a behavioral pattern classified as an addiction.
 
Meanwhile, I personally have found it very helpful to participate in the Sex Addicts Anonymous program, and very, very helpful to think of certain thought and behavior patterns as something addictive for me. For example, if I start in on porn it leads to phone sex which will take up all time I can make available, with my work and relationship with my husband suffering. And the fantasies get more and more extreme and exhausting.
 
What are fun, recreational sex activities for many guys are something I just can't handle. Saying to myself "I'm an addict" is really useful in keeping myself from starting something that I have found over and over I can't stop.
 
Whether or not this is a true addiction, strictly defined, is a good question. What's true for a lot of people like me is that it works to think of ourselves as addicts, in my case, anyway, knowing I'm using the term somewhat loosely.
 
There are a lot of therapists with "sex addiction" practices, books, articles, etc.