Taylor Edwards
Psychology 150-01
November 16, 2014
Peer Review Journal Summary
Sex Addiction in Teens Today, the curiosity about sexuality, which is normal for teenagers, can take a different turn if not navigated in a healthy way. The Internet and cable television have ushered in an age of unique access to hardcore pornographic images and teenagers are jumping in with both feet. The largest consumer of internet porn is teenagers from age twelve to seventeen. Our culture seems to have gone astray and continues to push the envelope without really thinking through the long-term effects of how it will affect the teen population. When treating sexual addiction in adults, clinicians often find that the addictive patterns began in adolescence and progressed into other forms in adulthood. This is why it would be irresponsible and unwise for us to ignore the fact that our culture is handing teenagers loaded weapons of social and personal self-destruction. Sex addiction has been around for as long as anyone can remember. Peter Cryle and Thomas Laqueur have discussed the “word” and the “thing” in the history of sex. The condition is now labeled as hypersexual disorder. This condition is now up for consideration as a diagnosis to be included as a research topic in the DSM-5. In a paper published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine researchers studied two hundred seven people who had visited outpatient clinics and reported problematic sexual behavior. The clinics offered either specific counseling and treatment for sexual addiction or more general treatment for drug addiction or psychiatric problems. The participants were randomly selected among those seeking admission whose problems included at least some compulsive sexual behavior. The authors used the criteria proposed for DSM-5 to make the diagnosis. So for at least six months, a person must suffer from a preoccupation with sex or sexual fantasies and repeatedly engage in related behaviors to the point where it risks causing harm and significantly impairs normal functioning in work and relationships. The behavior must occur not just while the person is drunk or high, and the potentially addicted person should have tried and failed repeatedly to change their behavior without success. The compulsive behavior must also occur either in response to stress or negative emotional experiences or both. In fact, only one of the twenty people who sought help primarily for drug addiction also turned out to have hypersexual disorder and only three of those who sought psychiatric care for disorders like anxiety or depression were also diagnosed with the condition. Of those who sought treatment specifically for compulsive sexual behavior, eighty eight percent qualified for the diagnosis. The study suggests that ninety three percent of the time, the diagnostic criteria will exclude those who are not sex addicts. The DSM-5 criteria require that patients are at least 18 before being diagnosed, primarily because normal sexual development can make diagnosing a sexual disorder