A Torah Perspective On Sex Addiction

From Monday night’s show:

Rabbi: “Are you just going there to meet chicks?”

Luke: “God forbid. I’m not going there because I have behaviors out of control. I haven’t had sex in almost a year and a half.”

Rabbi: “With a person?”

Luke: “And I haven’t looked at porn in three months.”

Rabbi: “You haven’t looked at your own website?”

Luke: “No.”

Rabbi: “I haven’t looked at porn in two weeks.”

Luke: “Because your computer is busted.”

“I was describing my fantasies to my therapist about a month ago and he said, ‘That sounds like eroticized rage.’ All of my fantasies are eroticized rage.”

“I read these books on sex addiction. I don’t even fit stage one because I’m not acting out. I’m not doing anything behaviorally but all my fantasies are basically anger acted out. I said, I want to get clean. I want to get sober. Because I’m walking around dreaming about boinking chicks. There’s gotta be a finer, higher way to live my life. Why don’t I fantasize about being married? Why do I fantasize about boffing chicks at Ralphs? So long as they’re not tattooed and pierced.”

Rabbi: “I don’t buy sex addiction. Torah tells us that that is the way God made us and we have to fight.”

“Are you banging broads?”

Luke: “No.”

Rabbi: “Then you’re doing great. Why do you have to go to Sex Addicts Anonymous? That’s phony baloney.”

“There’s no such thing as sex addiction. It’s called being a male.”

Luke: “A longtime therapist of mine said to me, ‘You’re not a sex addict. I treated you for years.’ I said, ‘I’m not particularly interested in whether or not I’m a sex addict. I’m interested in whether or not the 12-step program can enhance my life. The price of entrance is to say, I’m a sex addict.

“Number two, I’m not interested in reducing my sexual desire. I’m interested in reducing certain emotional problems that hurt my life. For instance, in high school, I was a gambling addict.”

Rabbi: “Now that’s a real addiction.”

Luke: “It got really bad. I got thousands of dollars in debt [to a fellow student who I paid off about $100 total and we went our separate ways]. After high school, I said, I’m never going to gamble again. And with the exception of two times when it was with other people’s money, I have not.”

“So I’ve got this underlying addictive personality. What’s important is what’s underneath that. I’ve got this hole in my soul that I try to fill through excitement. Gambling fed that excitement. So I cut out gambling. Then it was chasing scoops. Big stories got my adrenalin pumping. That excitement fed my junkie side. I needed that excitement. Sexual conquests, real or imagined, would feed that junkie side. I know that I wouldn’t be so jonesing for a fix if I had my life together.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I tend to talk about sex inappropriately and too often.”

Rachel Resnick wrote the memoir Love Junkie. She is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller Go West Young F*cked-Up Chick. She has published articles, essays, and celebrity-profile cover stories in the Los Angeles Times, Women’s Health, and BlackBook.

in December 2010, Luke Ford talks to Kirsten Rogoff, a licensed marriage and family therapist with offices in the South Bay, California. She is a trained psychoanalytic in sex addiction.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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