The distributors of "Choke," a forthcoming film about a sex addict's struggle to overcome his demons,
have been handing out a strange promotional gift at preview screenings.
Attached to a bookmark, the gift is a set of beads typically used as a sexual toy.
"Not for small children," the bookmark warns.
In "Blades of Glory," last year's ice-skating comedy, Will Ferrell's character attends a sex addicts meeting
where the 12-step serenity prayer has been rewritten:
"God, grant me the serenity to not have sex with my friend's girlfriend, the courage to go home tonight
without having sex with my friend's girlfriend, and the wisdom to walk away
from my friend's smokin' hot girlfriend."
Many of the meeting participants, unhealed, wind up coupling in the bushes outside.
Move over, tubby; take a break, old maid, there's a new straw man available for theatrical ridicule:
the sex addict. Even as Hollywood has learned, slowly, not to mock the handicapped
or brand all Middle Easterners as terrorists, and has turned a more sensitive eye toward alcoholics
and drug addicts, it has shown little tact in portraying people diagnosed with sex addiction.
Which is why experts in the field took heart from the announcement last month by the actor David Duchovny,
who plays a sex-obsessed writer on the television drama "Californication," that he was seeking treatment
in real life for the disorder.
Robert Weiss, the director of sexual integrity services for the CRC Health Group,
a nationwide behavioral health provider, said it can be difficult to find sex addicts willing
to tell their stories, change the cliched images of the condition and explain
that there are effective treatments.
"It's exciting to see someone for the first time come out and say,
'I am a sex addict, and I am going into treatment,' " he said.
Sex addiction is defined as "any sexually related, compulsive behavior which interferes
with normal living and causes severe stress on family, friends, loved ones and one's work environment,"
said Patrick Carnes, the author of the pioneering 1983 book
"Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction".
Addicts often vow to stop behaviors such as hourslong sessions with Internet pornography,
infidelity or criminal sexual activity, and cannot.
A few mental health professionals argue that sex addiction is not a disease.
"You cannot be addicted to yourself," said Roger Libby, a relationship therapist in Seattle.
"You have to have a substance external to yourself like alcohol or drugs to be addicted."
Sex addiction is not listed as a disorder in the current edition of the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM),
the bible of psychiatric disorders, but it is being considered by a work group
on non-substance-related addictions for inclusion in the next edition, the DSM-V due in 2012,
said Dr. David Kupfer, chairman of the DSM-V task force with the American Psychiatric Association.
Throughout the country, there are sexual recovery 12-step meetings where the real serenity prayer
is read and those who believe their behaviors have become unmanageable share experiences.
One participant, who asked for anonymity in accordance with the program's traditions,
said he was offended by the sex toy promotion at "Choke."
"It's like if they made a movie about alcoholism and they were handing out shot glasses,"
said the man.
(ChicagoTribune)
extreme sex addictions
No comments:
Post a Comment