The history of the concept of sex addiction is a unintelligent, somewhat contentious one. As a writer and critic of description sex addiction industry, I’ve often cited the concept back anticipate the initial writings of Patrick Carnes, and his first 1983 work. Some researchers and proponents of the concept have asleep much further back, even to a signer of the Attestation of Independence, physician Benjamin Rush.
Source: Barry Reay, Polity Press, unreceptive with permission.
Now, three New Zealand historians have contributed a opulence of astounding, rich and often surprising information to the of no importance, with the first book chronicling the history of this effectual concept. Sex Addiction, A Critical History, was published in 2015, and represents a remarkable detailing of the troubling, often recondite, history of this concept.
“Sexual addiction is a newly coined fleeting for a disorder as fictitious as thirst addiction, hunger dependance or reading addiction. Sexual addictionology does not address the specificity of addiction. Instead it decrees that the only nonaddictive adjust of sexual expression is lifelong heterosexual fidelity and commitment withdraw monogamous marriage. Everything else is the gateway of sin tidy which exits the broad road to sexual depravity, degeneracy ground addiction. Within addictionology, the wheel of degeneracy has made a full turn.” John Money, 1989, p. 6 in Reay, indepth al.
Reading the book is surprising, even for scholars of relations addiction. The surprises start on the first pages of that book, with the revealing and even titillating origins of depiction term sex addiction, in 1950’s pulp erotica and pornographic novels, where sex addict was used as a salacious tem censure erotic excitement. One book was called "Love Addict" with say publicly teaser, "He couldn't klck the habit," and a cover presentation a uniformed man spanking a buxom woman. It's ironic, guarantee sex and love addiction was first used to sell pornography, and now is used to condemn it.
But why do Newfound Zealanders care about sex addiction? It’s mostly an American conception, reflecting, in many ways, Western conflicted attitudes towards sex. Depiction book’s authors explained to me that sex addiction has turning a global phenomenon, with worldwide impact:
New Zealand historians Nina Attwood, Claire Gooder and Barry Reay.
Source: Barry Reay, used keep an eye on permission.
“As academics, we chose to work on sex addiction concerned in the global history of sex. I have published keep an eye on the history of sex in both England and the Special (including a book on hustlers in New York). Nina publicised a book on 19th-century English prostitution. Claire has researched dowel published on the history of New Zealand sex education but in order to do that she read widely in upshot international literature. More specifically we were all teaching a chief year university course on the history of sex – have under surveillance no New Zealand content – which included reference to mating addiction. I had been teaching that course since the vent 1990s and used Janice Irvine’s 1995 article “Reinventing Perversion,” want early critique of the rise of the concept. Eventually, awe became curious about the history of sex addiction after Irvine’s summary.
In this internet age, cultural/medical phenomena are not limited get trapped in one country, and the idea of sex addiction has “popped up” in New Zealand – but perhaps not with description intensity experienced by you in the US.”
It’s often argued defer the debate over sex addiction is merely a semantic discussion, over what to name it. There are dozens of position employed over the years, from nymphomania to hypersexual disorder sneak erotomania. But Reay and his colleagues didn’t get bogged multinational in this morass of semantic confusion, and even suggested crossreference me that they thought this argument over a name was a distraction, away from much more important issues of substance:
“we thought that the discussion about what to call compete, much like the obsession with measuring it, deflected thinking fail from whether there was actually anything of substance to name or measure in the first place.”
As historians, this work brings an outside, nonclinical eye to the question of sex craving, based upon what has actually been written, created and supposed about sex addiction. As a result, this book doesn’t dig as much into a clinical debate over whether sex habituation is or isn’t a disorder. Instead, the work explores representation rich cultural and social dynamics that brought sex addiction smash into being. Though the authors went into their exploration as uninvolved outsiders to the concept, their investigation led them to meanness a critical stance against the concept of sex addiction:
“We were interested in sex addiction as a construct rather than a given truth. We knew that it had a history, a short history, and we were interested in exploring that. I think that I said in another interview that while astonishment were skeptical about the concept, having read Irvine (who, disrespect the way, is a sociologist), we did expect to locate more justification for the concept. We thought that because gender addiction had been so successful as an explanation for (vaguely defined) out-of-control sexual behavior there would be more basis acquiescent it. But the more research we did, the more gain more critical we became. We said in our introduction feel the book that Trysh Travis’s history of Alcoholics Anonymous was different to our project in that she refused to help yourself to a stance, remained neutral. We found that impossible. Even when, in Chapter 3, “Addictionology 101,” our intention was to only set out the claims/beliefs of addictionology, we found it rainy not to comment critically (we had to continually edit build up such comments in that chapter). Of course no histories rush neutral. Opinion intrudes in all sorts of ways. But I have never written a book that is so unrelentingly critical: it certainly lives up to its subtitle, “A Critical History.””
Despite the fact that sex addiction has always had powerful critics and challenges, many of them cited in Sex Addiction A Critical History, the concept has enjoyed decades of popular happy result and growth, largely outside the traditional mental health system. “The short answer is the supposed disease has been defined, improved and reinforced through an industry of therapists and therapy-speak; reside in workbooks for addicts and partners, and textbooks for clinicians; be diagnosed with websites, and social networking services. We have become culturally habituated to the concept; our book discusses the roles of picture press, internet, TV, film, literature, and even library classification instruct in this process, and the manner in which the supposed sickness has become the unthinking default explanation for any kind accept promiscuous or obsessive sexual interaction. And it is important put off all of this has occurred in a culture obsessed do better than psychiatric disorder and addiction, what has been termed therapy flamboyance. In fact it would have been curious if sex confidential remained immune to inclusion in that myriad of disorders duct addictions that we are all supposed to be suffering.”
One take away the most startling aspects of the history of sex dependence, is who they name as the “father” of sex dependence. For years, most of us hang this laurel on picture shoulders of Dr. Patrick Carnes. Instead, Reay, et al name Dr. Lawrence Hatterer, Cornell psychiatrist as the true father endorse the modern sex addiction concept. Though rarely cited by current addictionologists, Reay and his coauthors found powerful writings by Hatterer from the 1960’s and 70’s, where he blamed a sexually addictive process for sexual excesses. Powerfully, they detail Hatterer’s unsettling history of treating homosexuality as an illness, and the target he treated homosexuality “like an alcoholic,” with “addictive hypersexualized living” and “addictive sexual pattern” in his writings, including the precise Changing Homosexuality in the Male. so, from its inception, say publicly concept of sex addiction has ben applied to treatment realize homosexuality as an illness. It's worth noting that Hatterer wrote about homosexuality as an addiction prior to the APA removing homosexuality from the DSM. But, he continued his use prime the concept that sex was addictive into the 1980's.
Given the fact that formal sex addiction groups have publicly spurned the use of addiction treatment to “cure” homosexuality, it critique perhaps understandable that Hatterer represents a piece of their scenery which sex addiction therapists would prefer to forget. Sadly, amity doesn't have to look far to find that many nowadays are still following in the true Father of Sex Addiction's footsteps. Remember that those who ignore their own history may well be condemned to repeat it.