Sex Addiction Doesn't Exist

Several years ago the world was agog at the discovery that Tiger Woods had cheated on his wife.. Anyone who could cheat on Elin Nordgren, an exquisitely beautiful blonde Swedish socialist, must be sick. Don’t you think?

So, everyone decided that Tiger Woods was a sex addict. Woods himself offered a therapy-speak laden apology and packed himself off to sex addict rehab.

The topic was too good to ignore, so I wrote several posts about it… here and here and here.

In them I suggested that sex addiction was not a real addiction and that sex addict rehab was, basically, a fraud.

It turns out that I was right. It doesn’t happen all the time, so it’s noteworthy.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail reported on the latest research:

Sex addiction may not exist, according to a study.

Many celebrities - including Russell Brand, Kanye West, and Tiger Woods - have claimed to suffer from the addiction and even used it as an excuse for infidelity. 

But new evidence suggests that 'hypersexuality' is not a real neurological or physiological disorder, but just a case of heightened sexual desire.

Why We Love Scandal

Every once in a while a magazine will run an article proclaiming that Freud is dead. And then, after a decent interval, another magazine will publish an important article declaring that Freud is alive and well and living on the Upper West Side.

And you thought that psychoanalysis had something to do with science.

Anyway, today's topic is scandal, or better, our attraction to it, our thrill at watching it, our joy at commenting on it, our delight in gossiping about it. What's so great about scandal?

So asks Laura Kipnis in her new book: How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior. Jezebel has an excerpt here.

I am not so sure that we all aspire to become scandals or that we should. Nor am I sure that we ought to make scandal a staple of our mental diets. An occasional scandal is well and good, but constant exposure might make us into voyeurs.

If people who watch scandals are exercising their moral muscles and affirming community values, then people who watch too many of them will care less about living up to community values and more about emulating those whose lives have become infused with scandal.

As it happens, Kipnis herself admits to a voyeuristic thrill, a frisson, in watching a scandal unfold. Obviously, this assumes that our interest in scandal resembles a sexual perversion or even an addiction.

If so, it does not feel like a worthy expense of our psychological capital. Unless, of course, you can write a book about it.

Whether you are observer or voyeur, you are certainly an interested party when you tune in to a scandal. You interest and attention, Kipnis notes, keeps the scandal alive, keeps the media looking for new salacious details, and keeps your attention riveted too long and too intently.

Scandals need an audience. To the extent that we gather around the water cooler to share our insights, we are participants in the scandal.

Here I would offer a caveat. Our gathering around a scandal does not necessarily make us into partners in crime or co-conspirators. Why not think of us as getting together to assert the values that our community holds dear.

Admittedly, Freud taught us to think the worst of ourselves and others. Some people, I daresay, have learned the lesson a bit too well.

If those whose scandal driven lives attract our atention are publicly shamed and humiliated, as Kipnis suggests, then we are not, almost by definition, really spectators at their drama. We are trying to turn our eyes away from their drama and return to our own lives.

So I would say.

A Freudian like Kipnis draws a different conclusion: "Scandals are... there to remind us of that smidge of ungovernability lodged deep at the human core which periodically breaks loose and throws everything into havoc, leading to grisly forms of ritual humiliation and social ignominy...."

No good Freudian would use the phrase, "smidge of ungovernability" as anything but irony. Kipnis is defining  scandal as the public display of our basic truth, our real human nature, the one that we must keep hidden and covered up to function in human society.

If this is true, people react badly to those who are caught up in scandal because they are angered by situations that remind them of where they came from, where they are going, and what their truth is. We condemn others because we cannot accept that we would want to do what they are doing. It's all about denial.

Anyway, Kipnis expresses her definition of scandal well here: "Someone decides to act out his weird psychodramas and tangled furtive longings on a nationwide scale, playing our his deepest, most lurid impulses, flamboyantly detonating his life-- it's like free public theater."

At least we are not in the world of smidges any more. Hopefully, we all do not delight in scandal as much as Kipnis does. There is something slightly unnerving about her evident joy at scandal.

Kipnis raises several interesting questions here. First, and perhaps the most important: whether or not the subjects of major scandals are choosing to make themselves into public spectacles.

Do you accept unthinkingly that these people choose to act out their darkest unconscious desires on the public stage?

Eliot Spitzer frequented prostitutes because he believed that he could buy discretion with monetary compensation. If most athletes have occasional dalliances while on the road, just as most rock stars do, perhaps Tiger Woods believed that his paramours, many of whom were sex workers, would remain silent... in exchange for proper compensation.

It may be the case that the media is more than happy, for its own purposes, to assume that these sterling individuals decided to act out their private passions in public. But, then again, the media has a direct interest in persuading you that they have.

Take a simple example. If you are coming home late at night and see a drunk passed out on the street in a compromising or immodest position, what behavior will your instincts dictate? First, to look away; second, to cover him or her up; finally to call for help.

Decency requires you to help someone who has inadvertently become too exposed. The first way you do so is by not ogling his or her involuntary self-exposure. The second way is to ensure that others cannot do so either. This is what it means to belong to a human community.

This tells us something interesting. Perhaps our our interest in the multiple scandals that animate a goodly part of the 24 hour news cycle derives from our wish to help these people out. Perhaps our motive is slightly more noble than prurient voyeurism.

Now, a different example. Think about your friendly neighborhood ecdysiast-- which is a nice way of saying, stripper. Should you happen to be in the presence of said ecdysiast while she is plying her wares, looking away or ignoring her performance would be rude. You would not be tempted, even in an excess of piety, to run up on stage and cover her up.

Of course, you are engaging in an economic exchange; you are paying her to sacrifice her modesty to your enjoyment, and have no reason to ignore what you just paid to see.

So if we ogle scandals as though we were ogling an ecdysiast, we are simply following the rules of the specific game that is being played. Of course, the latter, by definition, will not appear on the nightly news.

Where Freud and Kipnis assume that bad behavior represents the truth of our repressed impulses, instincts, and desires, I would recommend that we consider such behavior within the realm of human possibility. Being possible does not make it a necessary truth. 

We are all be capable of eating human flesh-- to take some egregiously bad behavior-- but that does not mean that it is our heart's desire, and that we have repressed it into vegetarianism or sublimated it into a love of hamburgers.

If you follow Kipnis, and take Freud to be your source of dogmatic truth, you would have to assume that we all want to do what exhibitionists do, and that, since we can't, we envy them their courage.

If Kipnis or anyone else is consumed by a lust for scandal, then perhaps she believes that these people have more courage than she does, that they are more honest and open about their feelings, and thus that they should be emulated, even if she cannot do so herself.

Because that is one logical conclusion we can draw from the concept that scandal expresses something that the rest of us repress.

Hopefully, today's teenagers and young adults have not received that message from our culture's leading intellectuals.

Women's Inhumanity to Women, Next Chapter

In the history of women's inhumanity to women, count this story as the newest chapter. This report from the Masters Golf Tournament says it all: "High Roller Wives "On a Mission" to Snare Tiger." Link here.

And, no, they are not preparing to run off on a hunting safari to India. Truth be told, the women who hang around golf tournaments, wives of the players and other guests, have set their sights on Tiger Woods. And no, that does not mean that they will be following his round with special attention. They are not studying his drives or his putts or his play out of the rough.

In fact, they are trying to seduce him. Who would have imagined that after all the pain that Tiger has put his wife through these recent months, and with all the natural empathy these women feel for Elin Nordegren Woods, they would set out to lure the world-famous philanderer to their lair?

It may not be quite at the same level as bullying, but it certainly counts under the category of women's inhumanity to women. Julia Baird of Newsweek fame, just tweeted that it made her want to shoot herself. I hope she doesn't. The women in question are not worth it.

At the least, let us grant that however much the world-- not including the golf world-- is horrified by Tiger's behavior, he could not have done it alone. It would be nice if we used this occasion to try to gain a more balanced, less idealized, view of feminine behavior. Blaming it all on the man does not cover us in moral glory.

Tiger Woods and Monogamous Marriage

Writing in his blog on the New York Times website yesterday, Robert Wright continued his jag against Tiger Woods. Link here.

Wright posits that Tiger Woods is a powerful role model, especially for minority children, and that they are likely to emulate his bad behavior, thus damaging the already damaged institution of monogamous marriage. To Wright monogamous marriage is an unalloyed good.

We could argue about Wright's view of monogamous marriage-- I would tend to side with him on this point-- but I am not at all sure that celebrities are really role models. Children may want to play baseball like Alex Rodriguez, but do they really want to play Kabbalah with Madonna?

Besides, Charles Barkley famously said that he was not a role model. Who do you want to believe: Robert Wright or Sir Charles?

Generally speaking, I would assert that the most powerful role models in society are not the idle rich or overpaid entertainers, but people who command great respect and exercise great authority and responsibility. Like the President of the United States, for example.

All this to say that if Robert Wright really wants to rail against public figures who have undermined the institution of monogamous marriage through their bad behavior, he should spend more time pondering the influence of Bill Clinton and less time worrying himself about Tiger Woods. I would even suggest that if his list does not have Bill Clinton's name at the top, he has no business piling on Tiger Woods.

You may not have been moved by Tiger's apology, but it was many times more sincere than whatever Bill Clinton mustered to explain away his behavior with Monica Lewinsky.

[FYI-- I did a brief search to find out what Wright had said about Clinton at the time of the Lewinsky scandal, and, surprisingly enough, he evinced none of the moral outrage that he has marshaled against Tiger Woods. He did not even accuse Clinton of ruining the institution of monogamous marriage.]

Did We Just Send the American Competitive Spirit into Therapy?

Last week Tiger apologized. The event was so momentous that trading briefly stopped on the New York Stock Exchange as everyone tuned in to Tiger.

One of the greatest individual competitive athletes of our time, a man who was a hero and role model to businesspeople everywhere, had been brought down, at least temporarily, by scandal.

Tiger had cheated... on his wife. He did not cheat at golf. He was not dysfunctional in any real sense of the word. But he had been condemned by the media and by no small percentage of the populace for having gotten down and dirty with a few too many women.

For now I wonder what Tiger's downfall says about America. Tiger Woods was not just a guy who played a lot of great golf. He symbolized the American spirit, better yet, an American competitive spirit that had garnered a series of extraordinary successes.

As I watched and listened to what appeared to be a PR-driven apology, I was shocked to hear Tiger indulging therapy-speak, I could not help asking myself: Did we just send the American competitive spirit into therapy?

At a time when we need to restore our competitive fight, when we need to buckle down to restore the nation to its former greatness, we need role models. We need people who have fought and won, who have exhibited qualities of hard work, focus, and concentration. And who shown how to win. We need people like Tiger Woods.

And now, thanks to the therapy culture, we don't have him ... for a while.

We all do well to recall that many people in this country believe that our nation's success, its competitive spirit, its can-do attitude, its lust for victory covers a dark secret. Such people believe that America's success is tainted, that we could not have won fair and square, but that we exploit the less fortunate and oppress anyone we can.

Those who think such thoughts prescribe penance as the proper solution to the problem. They think that we need to be punished, the better to pay for our sins. In that way we will redeem our souls and get used to coming in second or third.

As I said I was surprised to hear Tiger invoke therapy. Personally, I hope he was just paying lip service to our culture's values. As Ann Althouse noted, therapy has become, if not an adjunct to, a substitute for, religion. Link here.

Surely, this is all somewhat confusing. In principle, Tiger Woods is doing sex addict rehab. I have already expressed my doubts about that. Link here. Since I want to keep some hope alive, I even accepted the reports that Tiger has been a less than willing participants in the 12 step-inspired meetings.

But many people mistake 12 step programs for psychotherapy, so it is worth the trouble to distinguish them. First, 12 step programs guide people to change their behavior. They do not concern themselves with examining root causes or true issues that lead to addiction. Second, 12 step programs, when they exist outside of a medical facility, are not led by health care professionals. Nor are addicts' sponsors required to be health care professionals. Most often they are not. Third, 12 step programs aim at a spiritual re-birth. Therapy presumably seeks something akin to medical treatment or cure.

So let's hope for Tiger's sake that he has not succumbed to the siren song of therapy. About the American competitive spirit I am not so optimistic.

"Women Will Never Forgive Tiger"

According to Jessica Grose: "Women will never forgive Tiger." Link here.

She adds that it does not really matter. The audience for golf is so predominantly male that it is not all that important whether women ever forgive Tiger Woods.

Rachel Larrimore agrees that it does not really matter all that much, because Tiger Woods is not running for public office. He is not Mark Sanford. He is not a role model for children and adults alike. Link here.

So far, so good.

As I read these remarks one thought keeps coming back: What about Bill Clinton?

Perhaps it is a slight exaggeration to say that women forgave Bill Clinton. Truth be told, most of them, including so-called defenders of women's rights, were lining up to rationalize his behavior. If feminists did not forgive Bill Clinton, the reason is that, in their eyes, they did not have to. He did not do anything wrong.

And what about Hillary? You might say that she was absent when Bill Clinton offered his insincere apology.

True enough. But it is also true that she was out in front, in public, defending him against his critics. To her mind the Lewinsky affair, to say nothing of the other accusations of sexual indiscretions and worse, were simply a Republican plot to undermine the Clinton presidency.

When it came to her dignity as a woman-- question that motivates the discussions about the behavior of Jenny Sanford, Elin Nordegren, and Silda Spitzer-- Hillary Clinton was not exactly a role model.

Tiger Woods in Sex Rehab

The issue seems to have faded with time, but still, inquiring minds want to know: How's that sex rehab stuff working out for Tiger Woods?

Thankfully, the National Enquirer, that intrepid seeker of truths the mainstream media dares not touch, has found a source, a person who was in the same Mississippi sex rehab clinic as Tiger Woods. Link here.

Before jumping to a conclusion, let's examine the facts, as reported by the Enquirer.

Fact 1: Tiger denied that he was a sex addict.

Fact 2: Tiger treated the program as a joke.

Fact 3: Tiger ridiculed his fellow patients (presumably because they did not take it as a joke).

Fact 4: Tiger refused to cooperate with his therapists.

Fact 5: Tiger exploded in rage at having to be in rehab.

Fact 6: Tiger treated group therapy with contempt.

Fact 7: Tiger made one female patient cry.

The Enquirer's source concludes that Tiger is in extreme denial. He went in as a sex addict and he will come out as a sex addict.

Let's not be so quick to condemn.

Even if we grant that the source is reliable, we must acknowledge that when this person told all to the Enquirer he was compromising the secrecy of twelve step program meetings. There is a reason why AA stands for Alcoholics Anonymous. Meetings to treat real addictions rely on the cloak of anonymity. Someone who presents himself as an enlightened participant in such meetings does not betray their secrets.

If we assume that these facts are true, that still leave us with a serious question: Is Tiger in denial or is he reacting normally to a bogus and insulting program?

Of course, this depends on whether or not you believe that sex addiction should be a diagnostic category. I have expressed my own views here and here.

If I'm right and Tiger Woods is not a sex addict, then he is simply reacting normally to an offensive and demeaning program.

Perhaps the question comes as a shock to your sensibility, but we are far too quick to assume that if someone gets angry at a therapist this is proof that he is in denial, or is resisting, or is transferring emotion that needs to be directed at someone else.

As it happens, anger is a normal reaction to rudeness and disrespect. And the kind of heads-I-win/tails-you-lose attitude that infests far too much therapy deserves to be called into serious question.

Sometimes anger is legitimate; sometimes it is not. Sometimes you express anger in the right way to the right person at the right time; sometimes you do not. It is simply wrong to assume that when you offer a treatment that is systematically disrespectful the patient's anger necessarily means that you are right and that he is in denial.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, when sex rehab instructs the "addict" to tell his wife of all of his exploits and dalliances in detail, the right response is to get angry and to refuse. It takes an extraordinary level of insensitivity to imagine that such a torture session could benefit a marriage.

Maybe the healthy thing is to get angry and to walk out of such treatment, roughly as one of Freud's first patients, Dora, did.

Of course, if we were talking about a true alcoholic or drug addict, then I would certainly be in favor of rehab. For my views, see this link. And I have consistently expressed a positive opinion of twelve step programs.

While it is well known that AA works well for the alcoholics who work the program, that is not a reason to assume that anyone who engages in bad behavior is necessarily an addict. When you see the Sex and Morals Police trot out the term "sex addict" to condemn and to shame people, you should be very wary indeed.

Meantime, other reports have suggested that Tiger Woods is out of rehab, and that he bought his wife a new diving boat. Apparently, that places them on the path toward marital reconciliation.

Now we can go back to the most important question: Will Tiger will play the Masters this year?

The Tiger Woods Saga: Feminism Weighs In

No one has ever accused me of being a feminist. Perhaps I have been gender-disqualified, or perhaps the phrase "male feminist" feels too much like an oxymoron for anyone to embrace it willingly.

Even if I were offered honorary membership is what looks to me like a cult, I would respectfully refuse. Feminism is an ideology; its cause is the propagation of its own ideas.

As best as I can tell as a self-defined outsider, feminist ideology is founded on a fundamental category error. Feminism is blind to the distinction between equal and identical.

No serious individual would disagree with the notion that women should have equal rights and equal opportunities. To go from there to believing that men and women are really the same thing, and that they will become the same thing once we have overcome the patriarchal repression that has set up artificial gender roles... is an error.

Unfortunately, it is a fundamental error.

Far too often I have seen mixed-gender relationships undermined because one of the partners decides that both should have exactly the same roles. No one seems to have noticed or seems to care about the fact that the division of labor makes for a more efficient and harmonious household.

Assuming, that is, that feminism really wants to produce more harmonious relationships. I suspect that it does not.

Relationship harmony requires each party to accommodate gender difference. Pretending that men and women are all the same gives each party a way out of accommodation and a way into drama. If you don't believe me, try it.

But it is not all one-sided.

Prof. Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" wondered out loud why women cannot be more like men. Today's feminists are less tolerant than Higgins. They insist that men be more like women, that they get in touch with their feminine sides, and that they become metrosexuals. If it happens that women are not especially attracted to these omega male types, then that is surely a sign that the culture has not evolved beyond gender differences and gender prejudice.

Truth be told, anyone who believes the the two genders are identical or the same is suffering from what the clinicians call narcissism.

If you believe that when you look in your lover's eyes you should feel like you are looking in a mirror, if you believe that whatever you do he or she should do, then you are indulging a narcissistic misunderstanding of human relationships.

Excuse this rather long preamble to my comments on a recent feminist text on the Tiger Woods saga. Link here. Written by Hanna Rosin it purports to present us with the latest in feministically-correct thinking about Tiger Woods. As the French would say: il ne nous manquait que cela. Rough translation: just what we needed.

According to Rosin, calling men sex addicts is a victory for feminism, regardless of whether it is a valid diagnosis and regardless of whether it is true.

Since women have been labeled promiscuous and nymphomaniacs, Rosin considers it a good thing that men who fool around too much have their own psychiatric diagnosis. How else can we show that these men are really sick? How else can we shame them?

We will not even get into the great debate about how much is too much? And we will pass over the obvious point that what is too much for a woman might not be too much for a man.

Making our way through Rosin's muddled thought is no small task. Perhaps nymphomania was a psychiatric classification in the 19th century; it is surely not part of the DSM IV. And since when is a psychiatric classification used to shame people? Should people be shamed for suffering from an illness?

And keep in mind, that in everyday parlance, terms like promiscuous, slut, tramp and the like, when used to describe the sexual behavior of women ... are most often uttered by women. It is women who stigmatize promiscuity, not men.

Amazingly, Rosin declares that she is thrilled that "predatory" men can now be called promiscuous. In her fantasies, perhaps. In reality, surely not.

She believes that the term promiscuous had henceforth been used to describe hysterical women... which is not true.

Besides, she is committing an unconscionable slander when she conflates promiscuity with being a predator. In our culture sexual predators are rapists and pedophiles. A man who calls up a prostitute or two for an evening's romp is not preying on anyone. He is paying for their services. A man who takes up the offer of a young woman who throws herself at him and offers her sexual favors is not preying on her. He is being kind enough not to reject her.

These distinctions make a considerable difference. If you miss them you are wearing ideological blinders, and cannot see reality for your obscurantist mythology.

After all that, Rosin concedes that according to the standards that define sex addiction, Tiger Woods does not seem to qualify.

Does it matter? Not to Hanna Rosin. Woods is a man; he cheated on his wife; he deserves to be punished. Being called a sex addict shames him. The monk-like existence that he is enduring in Mississippi might help him to get in touch with his feminine side.

So, sex addiction is a good thing because, from a feminist perspective, it offers yet another way to humiliate men.

But Tiger Woods might not have been a sex addict. From a feminist perspective it does not matter, because we do not want to miss the opportunity to punish him.

Even though Tiger Woods might not be a sex addict, it is good, from a feminist perspective, that he be treated for it anyway.

As I said, this is an extraordinary muddle, enacting an adolescent revenge fantasy against men.

From Rosin's perspective the important point, expressed as a subtitle, is that: "sex addiction is victory for feminism."

Of course, you might read this subtitle to say that when a man becomes a sex addict it is a victory for feminism... which does not make a lot of sense.

More likely, Rosin means that the diagnostic category of sex addiction, which is not in the DSM IV, is a good thing because it allows women to humiliate men. One man's pain, one man's humiliation, one family's hard times... all the suffering is redeemed because it is a victory for feminism.

Is it a victory over sexual difference? Is it a victory for ideology over human nature? Or is it a victory for a culturally-induced gender dysphoria?

Feminism gains at the expense of men, but also, by extension, at the expense of the women and children who love them or are related to them. As I said, this is about ideology, about propagating ideas, regardless of the effects on real people.

Nowhere does Rosin show any willingness to accept the intuitively obvious point that male and female sexual behavior are not the same thing. And we haven't even gotten to the question of the sex drive of alpha males. Where is Darwin when we need him?

And since Rosin wants Tiger Woods to be punished, to do penance in a monk-like facility, she seems to know nothing of reality of the sex rehab program. When she says that sex rehab does not even allow a hint of sex she is demonstrating a woeful ignorance.

As I mentioned in my previous post on the topic (link here), sex addiction rehab involves talking about sexual experiences. Since this runs the risk of exciting and arousing the participants, the groups has a safe word that any member can pronounce to stop the description.

And if Rosin or anyone else imagines that sex rehab meetings do not lead to hook-ups, she is either naive or blinded by her ideology.

Last, Rosin shows no awareness of the fact that sex rehab at Dr. Carnes' clinic involves coming clean to one's spouse. As has been widely reported Tiger will be obliged to tell his wife all of his sexual indiscretions, in detail.

Is there a woman alive who would want to hear about all of it, in graphic detail? I do not know any. Would Rosin want to hear about it herself? I doubt it.

When you are trying to save a marriage you should never, never, never, never engage in a willful effort to humiliate and abuse your spouse. Why would any woman want to be tormented by visions of her husband's sexual acts with other women?

If you want to humiliate a man, and if you want to proclaim a victory for your ideology, then you are likely to ignore the effects these horrors will have on real human beings.

As I was saying, an ideology is about propagating its ideas, not about improving the lives of real people.

Is Tiger Woods a Sex Addict?

It may not be the most burning issue of the day-- or better, it is surely not the most burning issue of the day-- but we have all learned from a reasonably reliable source-- that is, the National Enquirer-- that Tiger Woods is being treated for sex addiction in Mississippi. Link here.

We have also learned that he's theret because his wife urged him to do it-- or better, because she threatened to take his children to Sweden where he would never be able to see them again.

Not much of this makes a lot of sense. Have you ever seen or heard of a pre-nup that stipulated that one parent could take the children so far away that they other could not have normal visitation? Or else, have you ever heard of a judge who would allow such an arrangement?

Are we so consumed with anger at Tiger Woods that we are willing to believe just about anything about him? And are we so compelled to side with his wife that we are willing to grant her everything? For my previous posts about Tiger, see here.

Back to today's question: Is Tiger Woods a sex addict? And what is this thing called sex addiction anyway? Is it a treatable condition that can be controlled with a 12 step program or is it, in Tiger's case, a public relations move designed to salvage Tiger's reputation and endorsements?

Is rehab going to cure Tiger's addiction or restore his public image?

Nowadays America believes in rehab. Rehab has become the new therapy.

America also believes in 12 step programs. 12 steps have become the new psychoanalysis.

America is so thrilled at the effectiveness of 12 step programs that physicians are working to label each and every moral failing as an addiction.

Rehab has helped solve the greatest problem with 12 step programs. Clinicians have always know that these were effective against alcoholism. But the same clinicians could not embrace these programs because... they were free.

Now, with rehab, they have learned how to monetize 12 step programs. Apparently, Tiger Woods is paying $60,000 for his stay in the Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Clinic.

Would Bill Wilson and Bob Smith be proud?

Anyway, is Tiger Woods a sex addict?

Personally, I would vote No. An addict will show signs of dysfunction in his everyday life. Addiction compromises focus and concentration, making it difficult for the addict to relate with others, and to complete his work successfully.

An addiction is a compulsion that consumes your life and makes it nearly impossible to function. For some people sex might become such an addiction. But does this describe Tiger Woods?

Golf is an especially unforgiving taskmaster. If your focus and concentration are off, if you mind has been pickled by alcohol or addled by narcotics or flooded with images of naked lovelies, you game is going to suffer.

In golf it does not take very much to break down your concentration. When it does, the effects are immediately evident.

A golfer-addict plays like John Daly, not like Tiger Woods.

I would also vote No because Tiger's sexual antics can be explained by other factors. To diagnose Tiger Woods as a sex addict you have to distinguish a sex addict from someone who has a strong sex drive, fueled by competition, victory, money, and a gaggle of readily available women.

Also, when you make sexual indiscretion into an addiction and try to treat it with 12 step programs you will create several problems. When someone is addicted to alcohol, narcotics, or gambling he can begin treatment by renouncing the behaviors. You can live without alcohol, narcotics, and gambling. It is far more difficult to live without sex, which is, a normal adult activity.

Next, when an alcoholic goes to an AA meeting he hears stories of the abjection visited by alcoholism. These visions provide a cautionary reminder of what happens if he abandons the program.

What happens when a sex addict goes to meetings for his addiction?

As everyone knows, if you go to a sex addiction meeting and listen to people recount their sexual experiences, you might get aroused and you might find someone who is similarly aroused.

Sex talk can easily become pornographic. Assembling a group of recovering sex addicts in a room to talk about sex can easily become combustible.

Those who run these programs have tried to deal with this problem by creating a "stop word," known to all participants, whose utterance by anyone signifies that the account is getting too racy and that it needs to be stopped.

Wherever did they get this idea? I would guess that they did not glean it from a medical or psychological textbook. If it resembles anything, it represents a staple of extreme forms of masochistic rituals, where the victim of sadistic abuse will have a word he can utter to stop the process.

But that is not the worst. As the New York Post headlined, Woods' sex addiction treatment will involve something called "Disclosure Day." On that day he will be required to tell his wife about each and every time he betrayed her. In detail...

I have it on very good authority that such a practice would never be permitted in AA. It is not one of the traditional 12 steps. Even if you stretch things and class "Disclosure Day" under the step of making amends to those you have hurt, that step also says that you should not do so when you will be hurting the other person.

Can any sensible person really imagine that Elin Woods wants to hear all about her husband's sexual escapades. Isn't this a clear case of adding insult to injury?

And why would any sensible person imagine that this would be therapeutic for a marriage?

The fact that the program is being administered by a physician who has written a book on sex addiction does not justify putting these two people through such a harrowing ordeal.

If Tiger and Elin want to put their marriage back together, one good step would be to look forward, not backwards. Making Tiger assume a posture of extreme abjection will not contribute to their marriage. Nor will forcing Elin to feel utter and complete disgust about her husband's behavior.

It is bad enough that this practice has received legitimacy and respectability because it is being called medicine and is being practiced by a physician. Larger problems arise when people who have committed sexual indiscretions, regardless of whether they rise to the level of a life-consuming compulsion, start thinking that they now know how to solve their problems.

They can proclaim themselves sex addicts, declare that they have no control over their behavior, and propose that they work their way out of it by telling all of the sordid details to their wives.

Do you really think that that will help?

America's Moral Temperature Via Jenny Sanford, Elin Nordegren, and Adam Lambert

As much as I hate to disagree with Peggy Noonan, her column making Adam Lambert a leading indicator of our cultural decline is wildly off the mark. Link here.

Noonan has always been astute at taking America's moral temperature. But, when she says that Lambert's raunchy performance at the American Musical Awards typifies everything that is culturally wrong with the nation, she misses more than one point.

Do you really believe that the country is losing its moral bearings and confidence because an entertainer put on a sexually suggestive performance at 11:00 p.m. Eastern, long after the tots had been packed off to bed.

Besides, Lambert was singing a song about being "the entertainment."

Why do we take "the entertainment" so seriously? Why do we feel that entertainers are moral beacons for our nation? Do you really believe that people are going to take Adam Lambert to be a role model? Is there going to be an Adam Lambert guide to proper executive behavior? Are people going to learn how to compete in business by emulating Adam Lambert?

The difference between a professional golfer like Tiger Woods and a professional entertainer like Adam Lambert is that Tiger Woods was a role model, a fierce competitor, someone that businesspeople could emulate. No sensible person would assert as much about Adam Lambert.

But Noonan is quite right to pay attention to the way our role models behave in public. And she is right to judge their behavior.

That is why the Mark Sanford love saga was important. Not only because a sitting governor made a fool of himself for love; and not only because he betrayed his wife.

For me, as readers of this blog know, the most compelling aspect of the story was the behavior of Jenny Sanford. Link here.

Mrs. Sanford behaved with decorum and dignity. She did not exactly stand by her man. She did not defend or justify his behavior. But she did not try to destroy him either; she tried to save her marriage.

I felt that Jenny Sanford did better at public behavior than the other members of the wronged political wives club: Hillary Clinton and Silda Spitzer.

Perhaps these women were loyal to a fault. Perhaps they understood that it was a bad idea to destroy the father of their children. All of them, to some extent, tried to maintain a semblance of dignity and decorum.

We cannot say the same about Elin Nordegren Woods.

If you are worried about the effect of Adam Lambert on the culture, what about the behavior of Elin Nordegren Woods.

Elin Nordegren did not even make a show of standing by her man. She had no sense of spousal loyalty whatever. When she discovered evidence that he was cheating, she set out to destroy him. There is no other way to express it.

First, she tried to assault him with a deadly weapon. A woman who was capable of smashing the window of an Escalade was sufficiently consumed with rage to be capable of almost anything.

With the exception perhaps of Glenn Reynolds, no one seems to be capable of judging her behavior. Link here. Even the people like Hanna Rosin who believe that she actually hit him have no problem proclaiming her to be a romantic heroine, even to the point of comparing her to Jenny Sanford. Link here.

By Hanna Rosin's lights, if both women are divorcing their husbands, then they are both romantic heroines. Why is it that someone as intelligent as Hanna Rosin can fail to make the most elementary moral distinctions?

Of course, you will not be surprised to hear that in some quarters Elin Nordegren has been idolized as a new feminist heroine, a model of sanity. Link here. A spontaneous overflow of rage is now considered to be a good thing.

If you were wondering why men and women can't just get along, look no further.

For whatever reason, people are extolling Elin Nordegren for having done the right thing. Chasing your husband out of the house by threatening to assault him is now considered to be an unimpeachable example of moral virtue. Taking his children away from him; running off to find a divorce lawyer. These are the good and proper thing to do. Don't even maintain the appearance of trying to put your marriage together. Avenge yourself against your cheating husband.

Becoming the effective leader of those who are now devoting themselves to destroying Tiger Woods... this counts as a good thing.

And you were worrying about Adam Lambert!

One other thoroughly disagreeable question is haunting the discussion about Tiger and Elin. Why are people cheering when Tiger loses an endorsement? Why are so many people lining up behind Elin, defending Elin, and forming what feels like a mob attacking Tiger Woods? Why is Woods being treated differently from other athletic philanderers?

The answer is: we do not really know. Yet, we do know that one of the most shameful chapters in American history involved the treatment meted out to black men who were accused of consorting with white women. It was not very long ago that black men were lynched for doing far less than Tiger Woods did.

Given that history, people would do better to step back, take a deep breath, and not blindly follow Elin Nordegren in her campaign to destroy Tiger Woods.

Even if it is just a question of appearances. All things considered the attacks on Tiger Woods, as distinct from the criticism of Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, and Mark Sanford, have an unsavory tone that we can really do without.

What Next, Tiger? Rebranding...

For well over a century now therapists have agonized about curing trauma. As men and women of science they have hypothesized, experimented, and tried out different approaches.

But what if the answer does not lie in a scientific treatise or a medical experiment? What if the answer lies outside of the field of therapy, in fields like marketing and public relations?

After all, the pain of trauma involves a loss of dignity and reputation. As we often forget, how you look to others is a major factor determining how you feel about yourself.

Losing your reputation, falling into disrepute... these are certainly traumatic experiences. Even when a child is abused or molested, his or her anguish derives in the loss of modesty, the feeling of having been exposed unwillingly to another person, someone who now knows things that he should not know.

The work of reputation-recovery is difficult and arduous. If we are looking for new techniques to help people on this journey we would do well, in my view, to look outside of therapy into the worlds of marketing and public relations.

Don't think curing trauma; think rebranding.

Don't think insight; think self-management.

As any good life coach knows, the key to rebuilding reputation does not lie in insight into what went wrong, but in knowing how to start getting things right.

And yet, in order for the rebranding to work, you need to deal with the trauma.

Now, The Economist has published an article about how Tiger Woods should rebrand himself, recover his reputation, and return to what he does best. Link here.

The article begins by saying that Tiger has not done a very good job protecting his brand. He and his advisers have failed at crisis management and damage control. This, of course, is the first task for anyone who has undergone a trauma.

I have suggested in a previous post that I did not think it would have been a good idea for Tiger Woods to go public immediately after his automobile accident. Assuming that his wife injured him-- before, that is, she trashed his car with a golf club-- he did not need to show the world his wounds.

As an athlete, as a man among men, Tiger would have solved nothing by displaying his wounds, that is, his stigmata.

I still believe that this was correct, though I now see that it was only partially correct. As more and more women started coming forth to expose their trysts with Tiger, his absence from the public eye made it appear that he was in hiding.

And this is not a good thing.

The branding experts consulted by The Economist found an excellent way to split the difference. They would have advised Tiger to designate a spokesman to address the media, to answer questions, to change the context, and to shift the focus.

As of now, the only person who has spoken up for Tiger Woods is John Daly, a golfer whose bad behavior has been so consistent that it has become part of his brand.

What should the spokesman have said? One rebranding expert said that the message should have been that Tiger Woods was a golfer, and that he was not hired for how he conducted his personal life.

Clearly, this is an approximation of the truth. But if it allows some people to think their way out of the prurient details surrounding Tiger's reputation, it will have served a purpose.

This presentation would not have been ideal, but it would not have been nothing.

Say what you will, no one ever suggested that Tiger Woods cheated at golf.

If the press was unable to accept the "spin," the spokesman should add that Tiger Woods had not committed any crime, did not have problems with drinking and gambling, and was a good father.

Rebranding involves placing a fault or flaw within a larger context. The fact that Tiger cheated on his wife diminishes his reputation, but it does not mean that he has no character.

If Tiger erred in not having a spokesman speak for him, he has done the right thing, the experts say, by withdrawing his product from the market, thus, by taking a break from golf.

Clearly this demonstrates shame and shows a willingness to accept that he is taking responsibility for his mistakes.

The next step must involve relaunching the brand, returning to public view.

The rebranding experts say that this will involve two things: returning to tournament golf and constructing a new narrative that contains Tiger's flaws but shows him overcoming them.

Since most golfers and lovers of the game are still sympathetic to Tiger Woods, the chances are good that his return to golf will be greeted with cheers from his fans.

After all, this morning the Associated Press named Tiger Woods the athlete of the decade!

But Woods also needs to present a new narrative, not because life is a narrative, but because disruptions and traumas need to be covered by a narrative. A new story would explain what happened and show the path to recovery. The narrative is a bridge back to normality.

Yet, rebuilding a brand, like recovering your reputation, requires long work and consistent good behavior.

A redemption narrative must be accompanied by a rebuilt marriage or scenes of Tiger as a great father, or even a new beginning with a new marriage.

People are like companies. As one rebranding expert explained, companies that apologize when they make mistakes, and that do everything in their power to correct the error, often end up with: "better customer relations than before."

He adds that Tiger Woods: "...hasn't committed a crime against humanity. He has just been caught with his pants down-- which actually adds drama to his story, and could improve his long term value."

The Economist adds: "Accenture could even start running adverts featuring a triumphant Tiger with a new slogan: 'However bad it looks, it can be turned around.'"

Tiger Woods could become a role model for those who despair of overcoming adversity or recovering from trauma.

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Less Bright

I wasn't thinking of it at the time, but my last post, on indiscreet women and the war between the sexes, might have been a commentary on the Tiger Woods scandal.

It might refer to the story of how Tiger's late night auto mishap became a scandal when a bevy of indiscreet beauties came forth to testify about their meaningless impersonal sexual encounters with Tiger Woods.

Some were garden-variety groupies, some were professional ladies of the evening. Most have been blissfully oblivious to their own reputations. They happily sacrificed their dignity for notoriety.

Most people have been so appalled about the bad behavior of Tiger Woods that they have not bothered to call these women out on their own indiscretion.

Among those who have we must count one Ashley Dupree, the "other" woman at the center of the Eliot Spitzer imbroglio. Thanks to Ms. Dupree we have been reminded that even prostitutes have a sense of honor, a sense of discretion, and a sacred duty not to share.

Keep in mind that those who cheer this motley assortment of trollops, strumpets, tramps, and tarts are announcing to the world that women cannot be trusted. Surely, social media sites, blogs, and a culture of celebrity have already communicated this message, to no one's benefit. The last thing we need is yet another series of indiscreet women undermining the sacred bonds that hold men and women together.

For better or for worse there is a sexual divide in the way people react to the Tiger scandal. Women sympathize with Mrs. Woods; they do not want to walk even a foot in her shoes; they want their men to know in no uncertain terms that such behavior will be met with the most stringent sanctions.

Most women want Tiger to be punished, to be shamed, to be shunned, to be treated as contemptible trash. To the point where very few men have had the courage to say anything good about a man whom they idolized as recently as last month.

Last night on television conservative columnist Jim Pinkerton and liberal columnist Ellis Henican agreed that Tiger should just tough it out, wait for the furor to subside, and then go back to doing what he does best: play golf.

After all, the PGA depends on Tiger Woods.

These men do not want Tiger to come forth and apologize. They do not want to seem him embracing abjection on Oprah. They want to see him hitting a perfect drive down the fairway or holing out from the rough.

As John Podhoretz wrote, Tiger Woods did not betray a public trust. He cannot be compared to politicians who cheat on their wives. These latter owe the public an apology because they work for the public good. Whether it is Clinton or Spitzer or Stanford they are indulging their less-than-honorable impulses on the public dime.

Tiger Woods does not fall into that category.

The male mind, dare I say, feels a certain quantity of empathy, to say nothing of suppressed envy, over the behaviors of alpha males. Those who keep saying that they want men to get in touch with their feelings, should hope that they do not get what they are wishing for.

Who among us knows the serotonin rush and testosterone rush involved with winning a major golf tournament? Or the Super Bowl or the World Series, or even a playoff game? Great athletes attract groupies. So do pashas; so do maharajahs; so do Kings.

Alpha males collect harems. It goes with the territory. To be shocked and dismayed because the greatest athlete of our time has allowed himself to be lured by sports vixens is almost naive.

As I said, women tend to empathize with Elin Nordegren Woods. Some women are willing to look away when a man whose wife is a harridan gets a little on the side, but that does not apply to Elin Woods.

One reason that women are so horrified about Tiger Woods is that when they look at Elin Woods they are asking themselves, paraphrasing the late Paul Newman: Why would a man go out for hamburger when he can have steak at home?

Whatever you think of Tiger Woods or his bevy of buxom accusers, there is something wildly unbecoming in the media's mania about bringing him down.

Some people believe that the media likes to flex its muscle, to show how important and powerful it is, by lifting obscure people to the ranks of celebrity and then destroying them.

But Tiger Woods is not a mere media fabrication. He was not silly putty in their hands. Tiger Woods was and probably still is one of the greatest golfers of all time. He became a star by competing, mano-a-mano against other great male athletes, and by coming out on top more often than anyone else.

People admired Woods for his steely determination, his competitive spirit, his focused concentration, and his ability to thrive under superhuman pressure.

Why is the media so hellbent on destroying the man? Could it be because, in the darker recesses of their collective mind, they see the tale of Elin and Tiger as an allegory for the struggle between socialism and capitalism.

So writes Lee Siegel, in an article entitled: "If Only Tiger Were a Socialist." Link here.

Siegel argues that Tiger Woods is a monument to capitalist greed. He would have been better off being a socialist. Rather than having married one.

The first time I read Siegel's article I thought it was an amusing flight of fancy, nothing to be taken too seriously. Then I reread it, saw the error of my first impression, and found something rather interesting in it.

Siegel seems to believe that Woods suffered from the sin of greed. Keep in mind that greed or avarice is one of the seven deadlies. And that his capitalist greed was inadequate to the high socialist ideals of his Swedish wife.

If Tiger were a socialist, Siegel muses, he would not have been so greedy. He would have been a man of the people and would have been a modest, unassuming husband.

According to Siegel, Elin Nordegren Woods represents "Swedish decency;" Tiger Woods represents "American rapacity."

Let's see, the multicultural, multiethnic personification of American capitalism marries the Aryan socialist princess. He is vulgar and "rapacious." (Note the resonance between rapacity and an ugly term for deviant male sexual behavior.) His wife is fine and decent and a socialist.

Siegel's allegory seems to involve a disturbing and outrageous racial subtext. We must take it with more than a grain of salt.

Anyway, one should always be careful bandying about concepts one cannot control. If you don't know what you are playing with they may come back and bite you.

Look at it from a different angle. Why did the Swedish socialist marry a rapacious capitalist? Elin Nordegren knew what she was marrying. Tiger Woods has never been a candidate for the New Socialist Man.

Tiger was king of the world; he was richer than any athlete. No sentient adult could have imagine that life with Tiger Woods was going to resemble life in that Worker's Paradise, Sweden.

Take it a step further. Tiger Woods accomplished extraordinary things. Crowds adored him. The public was avid to purchase anything that had his name attached. The world was at his feet; he was a conquering hero; he could have anything he wanted and much that he did not want.

How did his wife deal with the fame? Did Woods feel, as he confessed in a text message to mistress Rachel, that his wife did not understand him?

If so, what does that mean? Perhaps that while the world was at his feet, his wife was indifferent to his achievements. If she was not proud of his accomplishments, what effect would that have on his psyche? What if, in her egalitarian socialist mindset, Tiger Woods was just another guy, with his faults and foibles, his flaws and quirks... no better or worse than the rest?

Try out this exercise in empathy. How would you feel if the world treats you like a champion and your wife complains that you did not take out the trash or that you left the toilet seat down? And how would you react if your wife told you that you were not all that great, that you needed to tone it down, to work less, to compete less, to spend more time at home caring for the children?

You are winning the PGA or the Masters and she finds you inadequate because you did not change enough diapers.

Maybe the problem is not that Tiger was not more of a socialist, but that his fine and decent Swedish wife kept treating him like he was less of a man than her socialist compatriots.

I do not have any privileged knowledge of the inner workings of the Woods marriage, but these are, following the logic of Lee Siegel, plausible. Again, if you were in Tiger's shoes, how would you react?