Hollywood Shows No Sympathy For The Sex Addict

THE distributors of "Choke," a forthcoming film about a sex addict's struggle to overcome his demons, have been handing out a strange promotional gift at preview screenings. Attached to a bookmark, the gift is a set of beads typically used as a sexual toy.

"Not for small children," the bookmark warns.

In "Blades of Glory," last year's ice-skating comedy, Will Ferrell's character attends a Sex Addicts meeting where the 12-step serenity prayer has been rewritten: "God, grant me the serenity to not have sex with my friend's girlfriend, the courage to go home tonight without having sex with my friend's girlfriend, and the wisdom to walk away from my friend's smokin' hot girlfriend." Many of the meeting participants, unhealed, wind up coupling in the bushes outside.

Move over, tubby; take a break, old maid, there's a new straw man available for theatrical ridicule: the sex addict. Even as Hollywood has learned, slowly, not to mock the handicapped or brand all Middle Easterners as terrorists, and has turned a more sensitive eye toward alcoholics and drug addicts, it has shown little tact in portraying people diagnosed with sex addiction.

Comments

[cinemaven]

If I'd ever heard of someone seeking help for this "addiction" BEFORE their wife/husband found out about all of their affairs or complained about the ridiculous amount of time they spend surfing web porn, I might be able to take it seriously.

Y'know, I've never once seen a sex worker (and you'd think that someone with a sex addiction would make a living selling their body) say they were sex addicts. Often, they start out in prostitution because of an addiction but it's not to sex.

Labelling sexual expression in this way is a giant step towards repression.

My sexual fantasy can be someone elses addiction, the number of times you masturbate could be seen as unhealthy and dangerous to someone else, and one man's time spent looking at porn is another's addiction because of a label. One look at the supposed indicators of sexual addiction shows that it can be applied to most everyone at one time or another... and it can be applied to pretty much every 15 yr. old.

[AdultFilmLegend]

"Hollywood Shows No Sympathy For The Sex Addict"

What about Rob Lowe? He got another job.

Mulder will have a job waiting when he gets out.

[rjmiller]

While the main character of "Choke" is a sex addict, this fact is not the primary focus of the plot. It was a good book, despite Palahniuk's need to inject cringeworthy material into everything.

Note: if this is a success and they next make "Haunted" into a movie, well, then I just don't get people like I thought I did

[flipbiscut24]

Ehhh, who do you think is the sex pimp of all time?
Hollywood?
Maybe?

Think about it.

Why would the pusher want the addict to quit?

[Truye]

Ahem. "Choke" is a novel as well. And anal beads are pretty important to the plot.

[hypnotoad72]

More proof it's always about sex.

Plenty of other _____ addicts, though you'll never see them on any screen unless they're modified to make sex relevant in some way.

[Ides]

Meh, they made fun of Jack Black's drug addiction, Dudley Moore's alcoholism, Nicolas Cage's obsessive compulsion. Hollywood doesn't really put much off-limits.

[wedgie]

Yeah. I'm a sex addict.

It's true. I am.

But I'M STILL NOT HAVING ANY SEX.

Sigh.

**

[WRPrintz]

Sexual addiction is BS, just another drama for people to stir up and scalp.

Humans are supposed to have sex. Often. With lots of different other humans. Look at our genetic cousins.

This is Puritan BS, in the guise of new age blah blah.

[danton2000]

If only you knew what you were talking about... Ignorance is bliss.

[pasdeflicdansmatete]

I keep forgeting that in the States they think compulsion, obsession, consumerism and porn are sex.

If they didn't have such big guns the world would just die laughing.

[SneathLane]

Perhaps Hollywood just recognizes the psycho-babble nature of a "sex addiction" diagnosis.

Do some people find themselves working out non-sexual problems by immersing themselves in sex? Yes, of course, that's always been true. But it's not the sex that's the problem - the sex is just one of many symptoms.

Concentrating on stopping the sexual expression, rather than concentrating on fixing the underlying problems, is a very American approach.

The American mental health industry has always had weird American attitudes about sex. As a recent example, a psychologist told a friend of mine that if a mom lets her children see her naked, she's committing child abuse.

My Swedish friend was appalled that this "professional" considered all Swedes to be both child abusers and abused children, since the Swedes do not consider nudity to be nasty, and casual nudity has been common there for a couple of thousand years at least. It's amazing what psychologists will believe and teach with absolutely no scientific evidence to back them up.

Sex addiction is as real as nudity-is-child-abuse. Which is to say, it's a made-up disease that reflects the twisted minds of some psychologists.

[ignorantwillyharper]

Don't know about Drugs, or Alcohol, but do know there is one surefire cure for being a sex addict...It's called, OLD AGE!

[luckyoldson]

Does masturbation count?

I mean, it is with someone who you love and loves you back.

[Puller58]

The irony is apparently lost on this post given such tripe as "Sex In The City."

[magentagreenx]

oh, boo hoo!

[MeanGreenMachine]

At least WE'RE gettin' it.

[Mustang Sally]

I show no sympathy for this $ite posting $OMETHING L1KE THIS.