I let it slip to a male friend that I thought Andrew Weiner is maybe a sex addict.
“Why?” He immediately seemed on the defensive. “Just because he was sexting? Or because he sent a picture of his – nether regions – to this woman?”
Oh my god, I thought, looking at my friend with bemusement. You have so totally done that.
“Not that I’ve ever done anything like that,” my friend said.
“No,” I said, “because he was so stupid about it.”
Sex addiction is a process addiction, which means that the addict gets his rush off the chemicals -- serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline – that the behavior activates in his own brain. Under this theory, Weiner made his highly questionable use of social media not because he was ignorant of the potential consequences -- but because he was in an altered state.
He was high.
Sending some near-stranger a picture of his underwear-clad erection through a public channel like Twitter no doubt seemed like an excellent idea at the time.
Which is usually how and why a sex addict gets caught – if he gets caught. He (or she) gets careless and leaves something on his cell phone or laptop for someone else to find. If he’s famous and/or wealthy, he leaves himself open to exploitation by the less-than-savory characters he encounters through the Internet.
“But you know what I think?” a girlfriend said to me over dinner at Spago the other night (I had the gnocchi, and it was awesome). “I think 99 percent of all men cheat on their significant others. Don’t you think that?”
“No,” I said.
June 19 2011, 03:22:50 UTC 9 years ago
I'm really not prepared to go down that road. Thankfully, I am pretty sure that 99% of the men I know/have known over my lifetime have not and will not cheat on their significant others.
June 19 2011, 04:15:50 UTC 9 years ago
I am not going to embrace either 99% as far as men cheating or not cheating. I know that when I was in a relationship that was winding down that I was tempted and actually kissed one girl but went no farther. I felt like I was cheating in a small way but I knew that I would feel worse cheating in a big way. And then on the other hand, there's my dad who was cheating on his wife when he got mom pregnant with me. It's the Don Draper mind-set of the man who has a wife for all the cooking and cleaning and whatever and goes out looking for other women for everything else, but it's still creepy.
June 19 2011, 06:35:43 UTC 9 years ago
I don't believe that 99% of men cheat on their partners any more than I believe that 99% of them are fully loyal to their partners (I just think I'm lucky in the men I know). I don't believe either case to be true of women, either.
But saying that almost all men cheat on their partners is like saying it's okay, and it isn't.
June 19 2011, 23:42:04 UTC 9 years ago
June 20 2011, 01:58:55 UTC 9 years ago
I do think a lot of people cheat, especially when it's easy to get away with - I work in the classical music industry, and we spend long stretches away from home, like actors on location. A lot of people step out on their spouses who stay home with the children.
June 19 2011, 12:58:33 UTC 9 years ago
PJW
June 19 2011, 23:47:57 UTC 9 years ago Edited: June 20 2011, 00:13:55 UTC
slight disagreement - although other facts might present themselves
June 19 2011, 04:11:11 UTC 9 years ago
Don't know if the picture ended up on a public forum or not, but as far as I can tell the anti-Weiner campaigns seemed very Orwellian. As far as I can tell it wasn't "some stranger" but a woman that he had formed a very questionable relationship with and who got off just as much as he did on sexting (or as we called it back in the day one-handed typing) and while that's a little creepy, it certainly doesn't say sex addiction since it doesn't seem like those conversations were ever supposed to be read by anyone besides the participants.
Re: slight disagreement - although other facts might present themselves
June 19 2011, 23:31:45 UTC 9 years ago Edited: June 19 2011, 23:36:22 UTC
I don't meant to imply that he's a sex addict *just because* he did this. Not the act itself, but the *recklessness* of the act that ended up costing him his freaking *career* and made him a national joke. When a sex addict is acting out, he/she often feels invincible, and ends up taking greater + greater risks.
(Keep in mind sex addiction isn't about being 'perverted' or 'creepy'. Addiction is a sickness, it is not a lack of willpower.) Addiction is characterized by the fact that you want and try to stop but you can't, despite the negative impact it has on your relationships, career, etc. And it's progressive (as in: it gets worse over time).
You're not a sex addict because you sext a woman or visit a porn site. You're a sex addict when you're on the Internet 5 hours *a day* -- despite the impact this has on the rest of your life and you feel ashamed about it and want to stop -- visiting porn sites and trolling for sexual encounters of one kind or another.
And I'm not saying he is for sure -- I was just saying, again, that for a smart man he made an incredibly foolish decision that put his career at risk (even if the messages had remained private, this woman could have blackmailed him, sold her story to a tabloid, etc.). It's the sheer lack of judgment, the pointless risk-taking, that makes me suspect him + that I'm concerned with -- that I think most people are concerned with -- the rest is just details (no matter how sordid).
ancient wisdom...
June 23 2011, 08:16:51 UTC 9 years ago
~~ Bringing Up Baby (1938)
I *swear* that quote came up as I was reading your last comment Justine! Now here's a test to your belief: Is/was William Jefferson Clinton also a sex addict? I ask because I said virtually the same exact thing that you did in that last paragraph as all the hoopla was going on in DC lo those years ago....especially that "he made an incredibly foolish decision that put his career at risk....It's the sheer lack of judgment, the pointless risk-taking, that makes me suspect him." (and in Clinton's case there was a pattern of it).
I'm saddened that every time this happens to someone of one party, the other party's supporters attempt to turn it into a political issue. As someone in the center I find both Liberals and Conservatives rather hypocritical when the subject of perversion or criminal behavior is uncovered.
I think *part* of the problem is a lack of understanding of addiction. Most people on the street are disgusted by the 400 lb woman eating a massive ice cream cone despite logically knowing that she probably despises herself for eating it.
Years ago, I used to go to Las Vegas with a friend who wasn't "happy" until he'd lost all his money. It sounds insane...and it is. He'd go on a hot winning streak and be up hundreds or even thousands of dollars but would then gamble (the craps table was the worst) in a way that he almost had to lose it all at some point. It was that thrill of riding along the razor's edge that he was addicted to...and the cycle of elation, depression and rejuvination that the addiction fed. He couldn't stop.
Re: ancient wisdom...
July 2 2011, 07:53:42 UTC 9 years ago
August 15 2015, 08:32:01 UTC 5 years ago
“No,” I said.
What does this mean? Given the reference of:
“Why?” He immediately seemed on the defensive. “Just because he was sexting? Or because he sent a picture of his – nether regions – to this woman?”
Oh my god, I thought, looking at my friend with bemusement. You have so totally done that.