Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- One What is enigmatic about sexual desire?
- Two Explaining desire: multiple perspectives
- Three Sexual desire in a broad context
- Four An incentive-based model
- Five Sex and levels of organization
- Six Sexual attraction
- Seven Shades of desire from simple to complex
- Eight Details of the brain and desire
- Nine Arousal
- Ten The consequences of sexual behaviour and associated expectations
- Eleven Sexual familiarity and novelty
- Twelve Inhibition, conflict and temptation
- Thirteen How did sexual desire get here?
- Fourteen Setting the trajectory: link to adult sexuality
- Fifteen Sexual desire in interaction
- Sixteen Representations of sex
- Seventeen Sexual addiction
- Eighteen Variations in desire: general principles
- Nineteen Some forms of desire at the fringes
- Twenty The toxic fusion: violence and sexual desire
- Twenty one Sexually associated (serial) murder
- Twenty two Concluding remarks
- Notes
- References
- Index
Seventeen - Sexual addiction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- One What is enigmatic about sexual desire?
- Two Explaining desire: multiple perspectives
- Three Sexual desire in a broad context
- Four An incentive-based model
- Five Sex and levels of organization
- Six Sexual attraction
- Seven Shades of desire from simple to complex
- Eight Details of the brain and desire
- Nine Arousal
- Ten The consequences of sexual behaviour and associated expectations
- Eleven Sexual familiarity and novelty
- Twelve Inhibition, conflict and temptation
- Thirteen How did sexual desire get here?
- Fourteen Setting the trajectory: link to adult sexuality
- Fifteen Sexual desire in interaction
- Sixteen Representations of sex
- Seventeen Sexual addiction
- Eighteen Variations in desire: general principles
- Nineteen Some forms of desire at the fringes
- Twenty The toxic fusion: violence and sexual desire
- Twenty one Sexually associated (serial) murder
- Twenty two Concluding remarks
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
O Lord, my helper and my Redeemer, I shall now tell and confess to the glory of your name how you released me from the fetters of lust which held me so tightly shackled and from my slavery to the things of this world.
(Augustine, Confessions, viii.6)The phenomena to be explained
If psychotherapists and gossip columnists had been plying their trades at the time of St Augustine, some would surely have diagnosed ‘sexual addiction’. These days, when news breaks on a sex scandal involving a public figure, pundits are sought in an attempt to answer the question: ‘Why on earth take the risk, since surely he must have known of the potentially disastrous consequences?’ The cases of Bill Clinton and Tiger Woods come to mind. Television journalists, psychiatrists and psychologists argue for and against the validity of the term ‘sexual addiction’.
Alas, such discussions are likely to descend into semantic hair-splitting. Those interviewed often cannot even agree that sexual addiction exists as a useful diagnostic category, let alone whether a particular individual qualifies for the label. (For a criticism of the notion of ‘sexual addiction’, see Ley, 2012.)
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- How Sexual Desire WorksThe Enigmatic Urge, pp. 314 - 345Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014