[hamster-bamster]

I suggest adding a sticky to the sexual addictions forum for teenage boys who self-diagnose themselves with sexual addiction. Something reassuring for them would be nice to have. It would also help cut down on the number of posts in which individual PC users try to persuade the teenagers that there is nothing wrong with their masturbation and prod them towards getting more involved in social activities, being outdoors, physical movement, volunteering, music and arts, and in generally diversifying their interests, contacts, and involvements.

Note that the site already tries to avoid having members diagnose each other's problems over the Internet. I think the message behind this is that diagnosis should be made by professionals and in person. In line with this general attitude, the site can discourage members from self-diagnosing, especially teenage members.

[Altered Moment]

Maybe PM a Mod with your suggestion.

[hamster-bamster]

It has been a month since I posted and alerted the moderators; I would like to see the administration respond. It is bad enough that food addictions, sex addictions, and other novel concepts are highly controversial; if the administration decided to open a forum for a controversial "diagnosis", I think it should take steps, possibly in the form of a FAQ section, to alleviate the concerns of people who attach those controversial labels to themselves, often in a completely baseless and self-defeating way.

This forum has "BEFORE YOU POST" section with the links to FAQ and help. However, that section, although conspicuous, is not enforceable. I think that a similar section is an absolute must for the sex addictions forum.

Better yet would be to enforce reading faq using the following logic:

if user X tries to post on the sex addictions forum, opening their own thread, the system checks whether X has opened their own threads on the sex addictions forum in the past.

if X is opening their first thread on the sex addictions forum, X is being taken to the FAQ section; this is not a terms of service agreement so a checkbox is not necessary , but just present the FAQ in a coherent, compassionate, objective, and well-informed fashion.

if X has already opened another thread on that forum, X can open more threads without being shown the FAQ.

I hope this is doable.

[DocJohn]

Sorry, we can't do something like that.

Thank you for your thoughtful idea. We've added some additional language to the "Welcome" post in that forum. That is the extent of what we're comfortable doing to help people better understand this concern here.

Thanks,
DocJohn

[hamster-bamster]

DocJohn, thanks for the response. I have checked the Welcome post and could not find the additional language in the recent posts added to that thread. Or did you add it by editing the introductory post? Maybe I was looking in a wrong place?

[hamster-bamster]

OK, sorry, found it. It is in the introductory post. I think the introductory post is great as written. However, I have concerns about the content of the link to which the introductory post points. Let me paste the criteria from that link here and in bold highlight circular reasoning. My subsequent post will address the circularity of this logic.

Frequently engaging in more sex and with more partners than intended.

Being preoccupied with or persistently craving sex; wanting to cut down and unsuccessfully attempting to limit sexual activity.

Thinking of sex to the detriment of other activities or continually engaging in excessive sexual practices despite a desire to stop.

Spending considerable time in activities related to sex, such as cruising for partners or spending hours online visiting pornographic Web sites.

Neglecting obligations such as work, school or family in pursuit of sex.

Continually engaging in the sexual behavior despite negative consequences, such as broken relationships or potential health risks.

Escalating scope or frequency of sexual activity to achieve the desired effect, such as more frequent visits to prostitutes or more sex partners.

Feeling irritable when unable to engage in the desired behavior.

You may have a sex addiction problem if you identify with three or more of the above criteria. More generally, sex addicts tend to organize their world around sex in the same way that cocaine addicts organize theirs around cocaine. Their goal in interacting with people and in social situations is obtaining sexual pleasure.

[hamster-bamster]

So THREE criteria involve the circular (fallacious) logic, and yet, THREE criteria are sufficient for suspecting addiction.

I would remove all the three criteria with circular logic. About the rest: the very best part of this list of criteria is in the end, the last two sentences. That the criterion is so comprehensive - not "how many times a week do you do XYZ" which is arbitrary, but "does your life revolve around sex, the way the life of a cocaine addict revolves around cocaine?" - makes it especially valuable. Comprehensive approaches are smart.

Notice that in this list of criteria, the most comprehensive criterion is demoted to the very end and introduced with a modifier phrase, "more generally". So the author chose to start with the specific/concrete and only add the general at the end and in passing.

I would want to see the opposite order. I would start with the general points and only then proceed to concrete examples (some of which involve arbitrary judgments). Plus, the progression from the general point to specific illustrations is actually a more common/standard way of presenting material.

Plus, if you reorder it, it would drastically cut down on the posts from socially anxious teens who masturbate to soothe themselves. This is because if such a teen asks himself: "Is my goal in social situations to obtain sexual pleasure?", he would have to say, most likely, "no, unfortunately I do not have that many social situations to develop ANY goals for them, alas". And not keep reading. Whereas the criteria that are not so strongly comprehensive would have the teen equivocate and keep doubting himself.

***

I would think that revising the criteria by eliminating circular reasoning and BOLDLY highlighting the last two sentences AND moving them to the very top of the list would completely resolve the issue many people, me included, have been observing.

[hamster-bamster]

Reread the article. Bringing the general points up is only logical, in addition to helpful. The article opens with a possible analogy with chemical dependency. Then it jumps into criteria that have to do with sex. At the end only, it links the sex addiction (let us use it as a working term until something better emerges) to cocaine. So the author starts by showing that one can conceptualize sex addiction by analogizing with chemical dependency, then drops this thought, and then returns to it at the end but writing as if this idea were just introduced. Removing such "jumps" from point to point and back would make the text read more fluidly.

Just one more example of circular logic:

"While there is no official diagnosis for sex addiction, clinicians and researchers have attempted to define the disorder using criteria based on chemical dependency literature."

This reads as if the disorder for sure exists, but we do not have an official name for it... a way yet to put it inside the nosology (classification taxonomy etc). But it exists. And yet, we are not even sure of that.

I would go way vaguer and talk about a cluster of problems, issues, symptoms, behaviors that make one organize one's world to revolve around sex in some form, just like a cocaine addict's life revolves around cocaine, to the detriment of everything else.

Does this sound reasonable, without too many labels yet getting at the core of the issue?