Sexual addiction

Articles

Sexual addiction     

Sexual addiction and clergy

In this article the concept of sexual addiction is defined and briefly illustrated. It is argued that this is a viable concept for understanding the sexual misconduct, including abusive and exploitive activity, of some clergy. The author believes that sexual addiction becomes intertwined with the role of pastor to form the identity of the sexually addicted clergy. A typology of how is offered. It is concluded that pastoral role is used by clergy in an attempt to manage their sexual addiction, deny its presence, and minimize its consequences both to themselves and to victims. It is urged that this understanding will help provide healing to sexually addicted clergy and the Church.Mark R. Laaser, Ph.D., is a faculty member of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine of Golden Valley Health Center in Golden Valley, MN. He specializes in teaching about sexual addiction and clergy. He received a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary and the Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in the field of religion and personality.     

Sexual addiction and compulsion: recognition, treatment, and recovery

The management of patients with compulsive sexual behavior requires an understanding of the profile of the sexually compulsive or addicted patient. This article summarizes patient characteristics and their implications for treatment. Data from a study of the recovery of 957 patients who had problematic, sexually excessive behavior are presented. Spanning 5 years, the study shows six distinct stages patients experienced and the clinical activities that were most useful to them. A trajectory of a typical diagnosis and treatment path is provided, as well as important resources for physicians and patients.     

Understanding Intimate Partner Sexual Assaults: Findings from Sexual Assault Kits

ABSTRACT

In 2013, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, began DNA testing and investigating nearly 5000 previously unsubmitted sexual assault kits (SAKs) from 1993 through 2009. We examined case files from a sample of SAKs that were tested but not previously adjudicated (n = 429). More than 10% (n = 45) involved victims who reported to police that a former or current intimate partner sexually assaulted them. This article integrates the available data on the offenders, the victims, the initial investigation, and the specifics of the assaults to provide a more complete understanding of intimate partner sexual assault (IPSA). More than one-third of the IPSA offenders were serial sex offenders; that is, the offenders sexually assaulted an intimate partner and another person(s). Comparing IPSAs to all other sexual assaults, IPSAs more frequently involved bodily force, less frequently involved a weapon, and IPSA investigations were more frequently closed because (1) the victims stated they lied or the police doubted the victims and (2) the victims declined to prosecute. The most common sequencing of events was a demand for sex by the offender followed by a verbal refusal by the victim and the use of bodily force in the sexual assault. The findings, however, indicate a great deal of variation in the sequencing of events surrounding the sexual assault, with over 25% involving no physical confrontation before or after the sexual assault and no demands for sex. Unsubmitted SAK data provide a unique window into understanding the understudied and underreported issue of IPSA.     

Victim Resistance: Theory and Data on Understanding Perceptions of Sexual Harassment

This article reports on a study of perceptions of sexual harassment when a victim offers verbal resistance, and introduces the theoretical application of the notion that women sometimes use token resistance to sexual attention. Perceptions of sexual harassment were examined based on a vignette in which physical or verbal harassment and victim's facial expression were varied. Participants were 337 undergraduates (91% European American, 5% African American, 1% Hispanic American, 1% Asian American). Perceptions of sexual harassment were stronger for physical harassment than verbal harassment, except when the target smiled. Overall, women had stronger perceptions of harassment than did men. Also, a stronger belief in women's use of token resistance to sex was associated with weaker perceptions of sexual harassment. These findings suggest that a number of factors influence perceptions of harassment, even when a victim verbally resists.     

Understanding the phenomenon: a comparative study of compassion of the West and karuna of the East

This article aims to bring some understanding to the phenomenon called compassion. The use of particular linguistic expressions to denote the phenomenon of compassion in the East and West can confuse us, as those terms are embedded in unique cultural settings. This article undertakes a historical, etymological, and philosophical exploration of the terms, compassion and karuna (an Eastern equivalent of compassion). The article will include a short literature review of these concepts and an investigation of the differences and similarities between them. The concluding speculation is that the Western perspective on compassion is founded on an individualistic, self-centred vision, and the karuna of the East is founded on a communitarian, non-self based vision.     

Understanding and Responding to Victims of Interpersonal Sexual Violence and Sexual Assault within Committed Relationships

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to increase therapeutic discussion surrounding intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) by increasing understanding in how victims of IPSV perceive and respond to the assault. Although IPSV has received little research attention, sexual violence within relationships occurs at an alarmingly high rate. Theories of sexual assault, such as sex-role socialization, are discussed to aid clinicians in better identifying assaultive behaviors and common physical and emotional responses of victims. Additionally, the authors provide a framework for the assessment of IPSV and suggestions on “best practices” for creating conversations that promote hope and healing.     

Ecological Way of Understanding and Explaining Clergy Sexual Misconduct

In trying to understand and explain clergy sexual misconduct, this article seeks the help of two interrelated interpretive frames: (1) social structures and other network of relationships that immediately surround or embed persons, and (2) human behavior which is expressed through and because of social rules and resources, groups and grids, structures and systems. It presupposes that the not-so predictable and less-visible sexual misbehavior could be brought into discussion with the help of other ideas: habitus (enduring predispositions) and limen (threshold). Through these ideas, covert behavior may become less hidden for it will be conceptually gathered from its entangled condition between the psychological and socio-cultural factors. In its more integrated psycho-social environmental way of explaining, this essay avoids both the overly psychological and the too-sociological approaches of interpreting behavior. In other words, it avoids a single manner of viewing sexual misconduct. This manner of understanding misconduct is a way of broadening the canvass and giving up an outdated either-psychology-or-sociology strokes. This study also raises some questions regarding character formation and institutions.     

The Sexual Harassment Seminar: A cultural phenomenon of indoctrination into feminist ideology

I have been doing nationwide research on how faculty are accused of sexual harassment, and what happens afterwards. It is frightening—as due process is often absent, and faculty are often convicted merely on the alleged unhappy feelings of one female student or female employee (Eisenman, 1999).     

Understanding Sexual Revictimization of Women Through Metaphors: A Qualitative Research

The aim of this study was to contribute to the phenomenological understanding of revictimization through metaphors used by women when describing their revictimization experiences. Data were collected through in-depth semistructured interviews with 9 women regarding their repeated sexual victimization. Content analysis focused on metaphors used by the women when describing revictimization. Analysis of the metaphors revealed vulnerability in relation to the self and to interpersonal relationships. The metaphors relating to the self are portrayed through images of imprisonment, homelessness, contamination, and disability. Interpersonal relationships are described through the image of boundaries. These metaphors reflect duality: the profound need for security and the perception of boundaries as limiting and confining. Metaphors can be useful as a heuristic instrument for understanding women’s experience of the duality and the contradictions in coping with revictimization, and for intervention.     

Multigenerational Sexual Abuse: A Cognitive Developmental Approach to Understanding Mothers in Treatment

This paper takes a cognitive developmental perspective in the qualitative analysis of 9 interviews of women who were sexually abused as children and whose children were also sexually abused. It discusses ways in which the development of cognitive self-understanding can by stymied by childhood sexual abuse and how this, in turn, can affect a woman's ability to parent her children and take full advantage of psychotherapy. It studies the recovery process that participants describe at various stages of a social cognitive developmental model of self-understanding. Finally, it promotes the use of a cognitive developmental perspective in clinical work and offers suggestions for counselors addressing issues of childhood sexual victimization.     

Adolescent Sexual Risk-Taking in the Informal Settlements of Nairobi, Kenya: Understanding the Contributions of Religion

Young people in sub-Saharan Africa are at the centre of the global HIV epidemic as they account for a disproportionate share of new infections. Their vulnerability to HIV has been attributed to a myriad of factors, in particular, risky sexual behaviours. While economic factors are important, increasing attention has been devoted to religion on the discourse on sexual decision-making because religious values provide a perspective on life that often conflicts with risky sexual behaviours. Given the centrality of religion in the African social fabric, this study assesses the relationship between adolescent religiousness and involvement in risky sexual behaviours using data from the informal settlements of Nairobi. Guided by social control theory, the paper explores if and how religion and religiosity affect sexual risk-taking among adolescents.     

Toward a Greater Understanding of Antigay Prejudice: On the Role of Sexual Orientation and Gender Role Violation

Prejudice against gay men and lesbians could be driven by at least two types of expectancy violations: those pertaining to sexual orientation per se, and perceived violations of traditional gender roles (e.g., the fact that gay men are often inferred to be feminine and lesbians to be masculine). However, it is unclear whether one or the other (or both) of these expectancy violations are actually important in driving prejudicial reactions. In a completely crossed design, participants were asked to evaluate a target who varied with respect to biological sex, sexual orientation, and gender role (i.e., whether they were masculine or feminine). In addition, we also examined the contingency of these variables on preexisting individual differences in prejudice toward gay men and lesbians as a whole. Results showed a moderate trend among high prejudice participants to disparage “double violators,” that is, individuals who simultaneously violate expectations about both sexuality and gender roles. Implications for current research and practice are discussed.     

Subjective Importance of Masculinity as a Factor in Understanding Risky Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors among Sexual Minority Men

Sex Roles - In the present study we evaluated relationships among internalized stigma, subjective importance of masculine gender roles, and risky sexual attitudes and behaviors among men who...     

Friendship Values and Cross-Category Friendships: Understanding Adult Friendship Patterns Across Gender, Sexual Orientation and Race

The present research used an intersectional analysis in examining whether women and men who have, versus do not have, cross-category friendships differ in what they value as important in a close friendship. Parallel analyses were conducted to examine cross-orientation and cross-race friendships across gender and identity status (minority and majority), with age as a covariate for all analyses. Participants were 1415 adult women and men, ranging in age from 18-80, residing in the United States, who completed a friendship profile questionnaire by reporting basic demographic information about themselves and their close friends. Participants’ importance ratings of six different friendship values were utilized to interrogate existing friendship patterns. Three general friendship values (trust and honesty, respect friend as person, there when needed) and three cross-identity salient friendship values (similar lives & experiences, similar values, nonjudgmental) were considered. Individuals with and without cross-category friendships did not significantly differ in their ratings for any of the three general friendship values. Individuals with cross-orientation and cross-race friendships placed less importance on similar lives & experiences than those with no such friendships. Other cross-identity salient friendship values were uniquely related to cross-orientation and cross-race friendship patterns. Although women rated all six friendship values as more important than did men, women and men displayed similar friendship value patterns across cross-category friendships and identity. These findings are discussed in the context of feminist intersectional theory.