“I was using sex as a drug and couldn’t stop.” His girlfriend of four years found out and left him. “I was a junkie,” says George, who ended up in a 12-step program after he hit rock bottom: seven sexual encounters in seven days. Also, they try to stop and are unsuccessful. The proposed diagnosis would apply to people who, for a period of six months or longer, meet at least four of five criteria, including engaging in repetitive, intense sexual fantasies, urges, and behaviors in response to stress, anxiety or depression and without regard for physical or emotional harm to themselves or others. According to Ken Zucker, a Toronto psychologist and chair of the DSM subcommittee on hypersexuality, the proposed term is neutral enough to address all theoretic perspectives on compulsive sexual behavior, including addiction, and open doors for critical research. It is likely that the term hypersexual disorder - not sex addiction - will appear in the updated version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the psychiatric Bible, due out in 2013.
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His story is a critical one, and comes at a time when mental health experts are debating whether compulsive sexual behavior is a true addiction, and celebrities such as Tiger Woods and Jesse James are rumored to be in treatment for their serial affairs. The fortysomething has been a recovering sex addict for 12 years and is one of 12 million Americans who struggle with it, according to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapists.
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George is a fictitious name used to protect this Oakland graduate student’s anonymity.