NEVER ENDING QUESTION? –

Dec. 24, 2021 – This definition does appear to meet a number of the criteria for addiction. For example, sexual behavior becoming a central focus of an individual’s life indicates salience. Neglecting health, personal care, other interests, and responsibilities indicates conflict. Recurrent unsuccessful attempts to reduce sexual behavior might indicate relapse processes. However, there are key aspects of the addiction definition that are not present in the description of compulsive sexual behavior disorder. For example, there is no suggestion that sexual behavior becomes more frequent, intense, or deviant over time (thus not meeting the tolerance indicator). There is also no suggestion in the definition that sex is used as a method of emotional regulation (thus not meeting the mood modification indicator).

There is also an argument to be made about the ‘problematic’ nature of compulsive sexual behavior. Whether the frequency of sexual behavior causes harm or distress might, to some degree, be dependent upon the individual’s own evaluations of these indicators. In this sense, a pattern of sexual arousal or behavior might only be considered problematic at the level of the individual, rather than being designated as such as a diagnostic category.

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