“Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” has been a pretty accurate summary of pop culture for decades.
But these days it has boiled down even further, and rock ‘n’ roll has virtually evaporated (or perhaps morphed into pop, but I digress). So sex and drugs are left.
Individually, each occupies a pretty substantial role in our culture. Sex sells, so naturally it’s everywhere.
Drugs also sell and are equally in-your-face. You can’t find any magazines or prime-time commercial breaks without an ad urging you to “ask your doctor” about something.
While you’re at it, name five celebrities who haven’t made recent news for some sort of addiction. It’s not impossible, but it’s a lot easier to identify the ones who have.
When combined, the appeals of sex and drugs make a dynamite force in society. The combination partially explains why the “beautiful people” have such a cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.
It’s no surprise, then, that the Los Angeles Times reported last week on the growing national industry of “sex addiction rehab” after the likes of Tiger Woods, David Duchovny and Russell Brand confessed they have the disorder and admitted themselves into treatment centers.
“My practice wouldn’t exist without [celebrities],” California therapist Alexandra Katehakis said, according to the LA Times.
She has a point. Sex addiction, clinically referred to as “hypersexual disorder,” isn’t even recognized by the American Psychiatric Association.
Yet, as the LA Times noted, the largely consumer-driven diagnosis has led to a business boom, with sex rehab centers opening in California, Arizona, Texas and Mississippi.
VH1 also cashed in on the sex addiction bandwagon, teaming up with celebrity health guru Drew Pinsky for the 2009 reality series “Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew.” The show aimed to lend awareness and credibility to a controversial illness that supposedly affects 6 percent of Americans, according to Pinsky’s website.
As part of the effort to spotlight this “oft-dismissed compulsion,” Drew and the participants of his televised boot camp appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show for a special “sex addiction” episode.
It’s worth noting that the cast consisted mainly of porn stars, Playboy models and other Hollywood stereotypes. This should tell us a little something about the main sufferers of “sexaholism.”
If VH1 is the first place you’ve ever heard of sexual addiction as a genuine physiological problem, then there’s a good chance it’s not a bona fide illness. And if the rehabilitation process is so legitimate, the specialists at these centers wouldn’t cater only to the elite members of society who can afford them.
But as these so-called experts are quick to divulge, the addiction often arises from some type of early-life trauma like physical abuse. So the sex addiction rehab is simply a much more profitable way of making up lost years of counseling the victim.
People spend small fortunes in the programs of such cheerful-sounding places as Promises and Gentle Path for 12-step treatment when sessions with their local therapists would be enough to deal with past demons.
The truth about “sex addiction” as a disorder: It isn’t one, unless you’re a celebrity.
If only our medical industry focused its resources on curing diseases we already have rather than creating others.
Normalizing our sexuality is a tricky topic, as drug company Boehringer Ingelheim learned this past summer when it couldn’t convince the Food and Drug Administration to market the anti-depressant flibanserin as a “female Viagra.”
This time the ailment in question was “hyposexual disorder” for women who just didn’t feel like having sex as often as someone thought they should be.
I guess there weren’t enough famous women asking their doctors for the little pink pill.
We don’t take sex drugs unapproved by the FDA, so we shouldn’t be diagnosing ourselves with an intimacy disorder the APA doesn’t recognize — not even if Oprah says we should.
Kelly Hotard is a 19-year-old mass communication sophomore from Picayune, Miss. Follow her on Twitter @TDR_khotard.
 
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