Sex Addicts? - Tiger Woods? Spitzer? Sanford? Moffat? The SEC?

I'll start with some discussion of sex addiction or sexaholism. Addiction, in general, is a continuum. It is difficult and arbitrary to draw a line between addiction, obsession, kinky, or just plain love.
 
Sex addiction is tricky. If one is a sex addict, simply going cold turkey is not a good long-term solution. Sex, like food, is a part of the human condition and a good thing by itself. It's only when sex or food take on a purpose and control one's life that they become addictions.

Addictions aren't good because ultimately,  "Mental health is commitment to reality at any cost." The following folks did not exhibit that. They put up tremendous stakes, ranging from presidential ambitions to the health of their wives, to vast sums of money. They convinced themselves that they could get away with it. So basically they had unlimited downside. The upside, you decide...

Tiger On The Road

Tiger is the latest in a string of high-profile Americans who have been identified as sex addicts (or possible ones). Mark Sanford and Elliot Spitzer are a couple other recent examples.

Tiger did everything that sex addicts do. He risked everything in his private life to spend a night or two with women who were very much out of his league. He had unprotected sex, thereby endangering his wife's health as well as his own. He risked hundreds of millions of dollars.

Here's a cynical view on it.

What makes an addict or, more specifically, a sex addict? And what distinguishes a sex addict from a "player"?

Infidelity News

SF Examiner

Tiger, in his public apology, used a lot of the right words that one who is receiving treatment for sex addiction would use. Many criticized him for his scripted speech, but I think it was a great first step.

e4e Verdict: Tiger is a sex addict. Risking and losing tens of millions of dollars, his reputation, family, and health to have sex with women well below his status. His only gain here was sex on the road.


The Curious Case of Eliot Spitzer

Another prominent sex scandal had to do with Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York. His case is different in a few ways than Tiger's. First, he wasn't having sex with random people while on the road. He chose to use prostitutes. And not just prostitutes, but very expensive ones.

The prostitutes that he was using charged several thousand per night, and reputedly provided a "girlfriend experience." It is more than just having sex with someone, but actually going on a date. Conversing, a meal, perhaps a show followed by making out, and sex is the modus operandi.

Spitzer had the high rank and a lot to lose by his actions, so that certainly fits the mold. I wonder if his case is a little different. He is essence was going out with actresses, women who knew how to be a blank slate, and as Sasha Grey says in The Girlfriend Experience, "Sometimes clients think they want the real you, but, at the end of the day, they want what they want you to be. They want you to be something else... If they wanted the real you, they wouldn't be paying you." and "You really have to adapt and become something that they want." So they come across as a young, beautiful, intelligent girl who is truly interested in him as a person--perhaps what his wife was like when they were courting.

He feels that spark again that has been gone for so long--the first stage of falling in love. Deep down, presumably, he knows that it is a facade, an image of a real relationship with a real person, but he pays the big bucks to get that feeling again. From a political standpoint, he doesn't have to get divorced and he doesn't have to deal with a real relationship. I am guessing that he saw this as a lower risk way to have an affair. It's all upside...

Until you get caught. Affairs are not illegal and would perhaps be less damaging to a political career. That's why I think that he is towards the middle of the sex and love addiction spectrum. His motives were more about the thrill of a new relationship rather than simply notches in the bedpost, but he took big risks in his personal life. I am assuming that his sex was protected. If not, that would put him further towards the addict side.

Here are some other views on Spitzer.

Often times these high-end prostitutes do not even have sex with their clients.

This article from Slate has the following quote:

"The last time I met him, I gave him a bath," she told me. "I told him he was the most sensitive man I'd ever met. I never tell him he's a piece of shit; I make him feel like superman." (This was not about Spitzer).

e4e Verdict: More love addict than sex addict. Definite problems by risking his career and marriage for thrills. If he had marital problems he should have dealt with those directly. I'm not justifying his actions. I suspect he was lonely and not receiving emotional props at home.

Mark Sanford and His Argentine Girlfriend

In contrast to Spitzer, Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina was apparently having an actual girlfriend experience. He, in essence, threw out his marriage and possibly his political career for an Argentine woman, who was not a prostitute.

e4e Verdict: I don't think he's a sex addict, just a male who is in the first stage of love, where his hormones are completely dominating his common sense.

Robert Moffat of IBM

Although less well-known than some of the others, Moffat was a high level executive at IBM who got mixed up with an attractive analyst/former beauty queen who fed information from him to a hedge fund operator. He lost something on the order of $65MM. His wife of over 30 years had her MS flare up. Moffat apparently did not benefit financially from the arrangement, but that is not required to convict him. The only need to demonstrate that he obtained a benefit of some kind. Receiving sexual favors is considered a benefit.

Moffat is quoted in the article as saying, "Everyone wants to make this about sex. Danielle had an extensive network of business people. And she added clarity about what was going on in the business world...I know in my heart what this relationship was about: clarity in the business environment." The author reveals his skepticism by saying, "He may even believe that."

e4e Verdict: He is delusional. He was getting exciting sexual favors in exchange for information, and rationalized it away by his lack of financial benefit and by convincing hinself that he was getting "clarity in the business environment." Moffat is not mentally healthy. He is probably a sex or love addict of some kind. There was not enough information in the article to make a clear call. He did some really foolish things though, had no upside and lots of downside.

There is an excellent article in Fortune on this if you want more details.

The SEC?

What does the SEC have to do with this? In this article from the Atlantic Monthly, the author asks the question, "Did porn cause the financial crisis?".

e4e Verdict: not addicts, but the regulators were fiddling with themselves excessively during work hours, as the financial system was burning. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those involved are sex addicts. Maybe they're just immature.


Some additional reading and resources:

Helen Fisher on Why We Love and Cheat in Ted Talks

Willard Harley from Marriage Builders on how infidelity can sometimes be misinterpreted as sex addiction

Scientific American article on Why Men Buy Sex
Covers all the bases.

Ask Amy, Curious Husband, and Love

One of my guilty pleasures is reading advice columnists. Most of the time they tell people who are not facing reality, what they already know. Amy Dickinson is one of the better ones. She replaced Ann Landers in 2003. I usually read her stuff through ether the Chicago Tribune or Washington Post.

She recently had a letter from a guy whose wife had an affair some years earlier.

The gist of it is that he caught her, they have rebuilt their relationship, etc. But something bugged him. She had done things for her lover, sexually, that she would not and still does not do with her husband. Amy's response was that he should romance his wife, without any explicit quid pro quo implied, get them out of their various ruts (bills kids, or whatever), and maybe the wife would come around. She ended by saying, " This could prompt both of you to begin a welcome new phase of your marriage."

In my opinion, this is weak. I'll explain why in a minute.

There was a follow-up letter from a woman's perspective.

It said in part
"An affair is an illicit and temporary relationship in which the participants can be different people than they are in their daily lives: This includes trying different things and being more comfortable doing them. I can tell you my husband would be shocked if I behaved with him the way I behaved with my lover. But I enjoyed every minute, and I am glad I got to be so free for a brief time.--Been There
To Which Amy Responded:
DEAR BEEN THERE: It is a shame that you don't feel free to be yourself and try new things in your own marriage. If you learned nothing else from your affair, surely you could take this lesson back home."

I think this was a better answer from Amy. unless "Been There's" husband is unadventurous, he might actually welcome the variety. But if he is unadventurous, perhaps Been There was fine with her response. She apparently has some needs that are not being fulfilled by her husband, and she should ask for them from him.


E4E Take On This

First I want to review a few things.
Definition of Love: Remember that love has two phases. In the first one, love is a feeling. Your hormones and enzymes go into overdrive and turn into an overpowering sense of love that prompts acts of selflessness. The recipient receives these acts as indicative of love.

In the second phase of love, the overpowering feeling is gone. Your hormones are back to normal. Sure you feel fondness, loyalty, call it love if you want. But it's different. M. Scott Peck in the The Road Less Traveled says that this is inevitable. The idealistic side of me doesn't want to believe that, but...

The second phase of love, is not the overpowering feeling. Rather, it's a mature conscious commitment to acts of love for your spouse. It's not about feeling; it's about doing. It is your choice.

You may also recall the posts I wrote on Emotional Needs in a Relationship. It lays out the needs in a few ways, but I personally like the one put together by Steve Harley of MarriageBuilders. There is a list of 10 needs, and in his experience, the normal breakdown by sex is shown below.
Men: Sexual Fulfillment, Recreational companionship, Domestic support, Physical attraction, and Admiration
Women: Conversation, Affection, Financial support, Honesty and Openness, Family commitment

So this is the framework in which to evaluate this question to Amy. So first, about the affair. Amy had it at least partly right when talking about the hum drum bill-paying stuff. It's just not exciting. Wife probably was in phase 2 of love and was wondering why she didn't love her dear hubby (DH) anymore. She just wasn't feeling, it. ...then along comes Prince Charming (Prince). She felt this overpowering surge of phase 1 love, with its flood of hormones. Prince, who was more experienced and aggressive than (DH), suggests she pole dance (or whatever) for him and she gets caught up in the spirit and does it for him--presumably the first time she has done that.

So far, so good. I don't know anything about the marriage, what DH's role was in the disintegration of it, etc, but this seems like a pretty common set of circumstances. After that is where Amy loses it. She says he should just be nice to her, then maybe she will come around.

Let's recap graphically.



Now consider a similar scenario.
Hubbie goes out and has an affair with his secretary. He buys her flowers every week and gifts, while at the same time complaining at home about not having enough money (he was never much of a gift-giver anyway). Now that the affair is over, he still won't buy his wife gifts.

Here's how it looks graphically,

The wife writes a letter to Amy who says, "Here's what you should do. Give him staggering, mind-blowing sex as if he were your forbidden lover. Do anything he asks for (and some things he doesn't) with no stated "quid pro quo," but just because you want to treat him differently. This could prompt both of you to begin a welcome new phase of your marriage."

It's pretty much an idiotic answer. The positive is that it focuses on what the wronged person can do to help set things right and is ok as far as it goes. DH should be giving his wife what she needs.

However, Amy is suggesting that DH grovel to the person who violated her marital vows, in hopes that she will actually fulfill her vows by satisfying his emotional needs. Again, I do not know what stuff he did over the years to set up the conditions precedent in which the wife cheated, but by not giving him the full measure of her abilities as a lover, which he apparently desires, she is withholding love.

Wife should give DH what he needs. She is fully capable of pole dancing, yet she refuses to do it for the one man in the world for whom she absolutely should. I can't imagine an act more disrespectful of her husband or her marriage, unless she were to pole dance again for someone else.

She is in a marriage in which she is content (she's probably fond of DH and what sahe gets from him), but unwilling to love him in return. How long will he take that treatment?

Edit: Nov 1, 2009 - I have been thinking about this a bit and want to restate the issue that the woman in the drama has. Above I said, "...she refuses to do it for the one man in the world..." In line with the idea that we have limited free will, I think a better characterization of the issue is that when she met Prince and her hormones were screaming, it pushed her to be able to do things that she would otherwise be ashamed to do. When she was back with poor DH her hormones were back to normal and her shame overrode her hormones and her husband's needs. 

Shame can be a healthy emotion, it prevents us from doing things that would truly shake up society. That is not likely the case here. Her pole-dancing would remain only between her and DH, so to be charitable, I will assume that she is not consciously withholding her skills from DH, but rather feels terribly ashamed about it. I think the answer is the same. She should get past it and become able to love her husband.


Another (perhaps offensive) View

Finally, another blog picked up on this letter and absolutely raked Amy (and the husband) across the coals. Before I give you the link on this one though, I have a few disclaimers. It is a very male oriented blog that usually gets way nasty in its opinions about women. It endorses very dominant (alpha as opposed to beta) male behavior. I do not condone or endorse either the opinions or the way they are voiced. It is an interesting perspective, which if communicated differently, in some cases has some merit. You are likely to be offended by many of the viewpoints there. In any case, it seems to have a lot of people enthusiastic as evidenced by hundreds of comments on every blog post.

The column that I am linking to explains a rationale for making the husband in the first letter the beta of the month for July. He is candidate number 2.

In a nutshell, he says that Confused Husband is a candidate for beta of the month for not a.) insisting that she give him what she gave her lover or b.) sending her packing.

What Am I Missing?

Does my analysis make sense? Is the analogy good?

Assuming DH still wants the "treatment," is there any good excuse for the wife not to give it?

In Praise of Joy Toys - Asa Baber

Warning: The following is R-rated due to sexual content

Asa Baber was a columnist for Playboy magazine for many years. I used to read his "Men" column, as well as the stories he wrote. He wrote about many issues related to men: their rights, responsibilities, growing up, etc. His writing was always provocative and usually spot on.

He wrote a column in the June 1994 Playboy that had a huge impact on the way I think about sex. Not the mechanics of it or the squishy making love side, but more a philosophy of mutual pleasuring.

In summary, he says that men should remove the ego from lovemaking, and put the focus on their partner rather than using sex to prove their physical prowess or soothe their ego. He says it much better than I ever could, so I won't say more about it.

I'm not sure exactly how this ties in to Emotions for Engineers except to say that engineering is a predominantly male profession, sex is a part of many love relationships, so we might as well do it right. Besides, I wanted to have this as part of my own "FAQ."

I searched all over the internet for the article (I wasn't sure which month and year) and finally found it. It wasn't even available on Playboy's website (I would have preferred to link to them). So I have reproduced the article here.

Enjoy.

MEN

In Praise of Joy Toys
by Asa Baber
Playboy Magazine
June, 1994

After you and your partner are through making love, and after she has complimented you on your sexual prowess and praised Mr. Happy for the way he has taken care of business, and after she has given your satiated weenie a final kiss and turned over and pretended to go to sleep, are you so foolish and naive as to have believed her terms of endearment?

I’ll bet you are. Admit it: You love I when a woman praises your talents. “Way to go dickmeister,” you say to yourself with a smile. The smile of a self-satisfied lover that is.

I don’t want to ruin your day Space Captain, but allow me to ask you a few questions:

• Once in a while, does the mattress seem to jiggle as you fall asleep after sex? And do you ever ask yourself, “If that’s not an earthquake, then what’s causing those mysterious vibrations?”

• After making love does she periodically go into the bathroom and take a long shower with that complicated showerhead she bought last year? And does she perhaps sleep a little late the next morning?

• After she has praised you and treasured you, do you wake up a few minutes later to find her gone?Do you then hear a subterranean hum emanating from the living room?

• When you turn on the light by the bed after she has gotten up at night, does the electricity surge, and are there cries of pleasure from the basement?

• When sorting through the mail, do you come across personal letters to her from your utility company that say: “Thank you for your excessive use of our services. We consider you one of our most highly valued customers.”

You get where I’m going with this, don’t you? If you really believe the gold dust that your lover sprinkles on your pillow at night, check your gullibility factor in the morning. Because you are clearly a self-deceived man who has forgotten one of life’s most important rules. I’m talking about the Always Three In Bed Rule, of course. Read it and apply it and your life will change for the better.

The Always Three In Bed Rule reads as follows: “You shall not make love with any woman without understanding that she will often be more orgasmic than you are. Therefore, you will have at least one vibrator in bed with you and your companion at all times to join the two of you while you play and to take over when you need a break. Furthermore, you shall not be embarrassed or threatened but shall instead adopt your vibrating ally as an equal partner and encourage your lover to use it on herself (and on you too if she remembers you are there) whenever and however she chooses.”

This rule applies especially during your downtime, when you can only lie there and and watch in amazement at the female capacity for numerous and continual orgasms. Remember, the central operating principle of the Always Three In Bed Rule: The couple that vibrates together stays together.

It is time for us to accept the fact that women are capable of more orgasms than we are. We think we’re hot stuff if we come a couple times a night. But on their hornier nights, women view their first orgasms as nothing but foreplay, and they are secretly looking around and wishing for more.

Given that fact, we should encourage women to bring their joy toys out of the closet and into the open bed. Let us offer praise to those pulsating love probes. They prove that while a man’s dick may sometimes droop, his ministrations can go on forever. They are our pinch hitters and friends. So roll over, red Rover, and let the vibrators take over.

Rare is the sexually sophisticated woman who does not have several types of toys to play with. These include:

The penis shaped vibrator. Be brave, be humble, be bold; take her to an adult bookstore and let her buy the size she wants. You’ll learn a lot about her when you do this, I promise. And if, as you leave the store she tries to reassure you by saying, “Size doesn’t count,” let her get away with that lie.

Clitoral stimulators. Known in some circles as the tired-man’s accomplice, these vibrators are small and handy. They are also great for her to use during intercourse. Snuggle up behind her, slip into her love nest and hang on for your life.

In response to demand, many stores now sell vibrators of all shapes and sizes. You can buy ultrasound vibrators, two-headed vibrators, infrared vibrators,. You can buy dildos that throb, and dildos that thrust. There is a cornucopia of joy toys for you and your lover to experiment with, and she will respect you in the morning if you allow her to satisfy herself at night. I have a theory about the nature of the lives of men and women. I can’t prove it, but I suspect that the anger some women have displayed toward us is, in part, a sexual anger. They are telling us that we have not taken the time to understand their bodies or their needs. And if that theory is true, it is also correctable.

Many years ago in the bedroom of a young woman in Berlin, I was making youthful love with what I thought was skill and abandon. My partner seemed to be enjoying herself, and after several orgasms, I lay back in a satiated state of mind and body.

“Ace, I have a machine that always lets me finish many times,” my partner said to me with some shyness.

“Be my guest,” I said. I watched while she played, and when I had my strength back, I joined her. It was one of the most exciting and educational evenings of my life.

“Be my guest,” you shall say. “Come. And come again All night long, if you choose. Because that’s what our mutual joy toys are all about.”


Online sex toy shops

Libida
Babeland
Good Vibrations