Sexual Health Conversations: Crossing Boundaries to Liberate Us from Sexual Addiction

Excerpt

Despite more than 30 years of exponential growth in research on sexual addiction, there remain fundamental gaps within the popular notion that problematic sexual urges, thoughts, and behavior can be linked with an addictive process. Over the same span of decades, definitions of sexual health expanded from mere absence of a problem to balancing sexual safety and pleasure within a framework of sexual rights. I believe that the inherent flaw surrounding the increasingly insular sex addiction industry and its never-ending focus on ameliorating pathological sexual acts is the absence of a relationship with sexual health discourse. Inspired by Georges Didi-Huberman’s reflections of his relationship with French philosopher Michael Foucault, I propose that an individual’s personal crisis of facing their out-of-control sexual behavior needs to be reframed as an opportunity for envisioning their sexual health. Perhaps, the rigid protection of the sovereign sexual addiction identity restricts us all from developing reliable knowledge? Much can be learned when we move our collective gaze upon out-of-control sexual behavior research and clinical practice towards the honorable principles within sexual health.