Sex addiction has, over the past decade or so, been the celebrity ‘get out of jail free’ card.

We saw it with Tiger, we saw it with Charlie Sheen, and turn on any C-Grade celebrity rehab show and you’ll see a few more examples.

Of course the latest famous ‘sex addict’ is Harvey Weinstein, whose addiction was so rough he raped multiple women, sexually abused and assaulted countless others, and once masturbated into a pot plant at a restaurant in front of a horrified Lauren Sivan.

Read more about that HERE if that one slipped you by in the deluge of Harvey’s depravities.

So, sex addiction – real or just an easy out? Newsweek reports:

Over the last several years, scientists have become increasingly united in their stance that sex addiction isn’t a medical condition. In 2013 Nicole Prause, an assistant research scientist at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, found the brains of supposed sex addicts don’t respond to sexual stimuli the way an addict’s would.

And just last year, American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, considered to be the “leading national body of sex experts,” published a statement rejecting any classification of sex addiction as a mental health disorder, citing a lack of “sufficient empirical evidence.”

That diagnosis, or dismissal of sex addiction as a real medical condition, is not unanimous. There is an entire industry of sex therapists and counsellors who believe that people can become addicted to sex just as they would any drug or substance, but they are at loggerheads with many scientists and their findings.

How about Doug Braun-Harvey, co-founder of the now aptly named sexual health organisation the Harvey Institute, who came out swinging:

…he finds it particularly disturbing that Weinstein is using the specter of sex addiction to shield himself from allegations of rape.

“I disagree with the sex addiction field, in which they lump nonconsensual and exploitive behaviors [sic] together with someone who compulsively masturbates, has multiple relationships or purchases sex,” Braun-Harvey says. “That’s why this is so controversial.”

…“When a behavior that conjures up great disgust and disdain can move into the purview of a disease, then people have more empathy for the person who behaves that way,” he explains. “It tends to provoke more understanding.”

Feel sorry for me, I’m powerless to prevent my urges. Get f*cked, pal.

The Daily Mail are also pretty over this whole ‘sex addict’ excuse:

Let’s be clear here: being a crass, offensive, misogynistic lech is not a medical condition. Sexually assaulting women is not a mental illness. Sex addiction is not a medical diagnosis. It is not a clinical condition recognised in either of the main diagnostic manuals used by psychiatrists…

It is a made-up condition invented to absolve the lecherous and the unfaithful from responsibility. It has been used to explain away the behaviour of selfish, wealthy, powerful men who don’t see why they should play by the same rules as the rest of us. Because once something has a label, any criticism is deemed heartless and uncaring.

Sorry, Harvey, you’ll have to come up with another whopper.

Of course there are people who genuinely struggle with containing their urges, but the days of powerful male celebs caught with their pants down using the easy out might just be coming to an end.

[sources:newsweek&dailymail]