QI’ve been a fan of your Savage Lovecast for a long time, but I had to write after hearing Marty Klein’s awesome talk about the fallacy of “sex addiction.” I am 27, and for most of my adult life, I have suffered from complete sexual dysfunction with partners. I was ashamed and thought I was too sexually screwed up to be with a partner because I’m kinky. (I have a fetish for tights and pantyhose.) I was also afraid to seek help out of fear of being labeled “abnormal” or “addicted to porn.” I managed to get a little better thanks to an encouraging, kinky, porn-loving, sex-positive female partner. In spite of feeling better, I am still having problems with partners. What are some good resources for finding a sex-positive therapist like Dr. Klein? I have been referred by several people to someone listed as a “certified sex addiction therapist,” and I worry this is exactly the kind of unhelpful, sex-negative therapist that Dr. Klein mentioned on your podcast. —NON-Addict Despite Dumb Intolerant Counselors’ Theories
To hear Dr. Klein talk with me about pornography and the “sex addiction” racket, go to thestranger.com/lovecast and listen to Episode 326. To read Dr. Klein’s brilliant takedown of the sex addiction industry (“You’re Addicted to What? Challenging the Myth of Sex Addiction,” the Humanist, July/August 2012), go to tinyurl.com/addictedtowhat. To find out more about Dr. Klein and his work, go to martyklein.com.
QI ended a two-and-a-half-year relationship six months ago. By “ended” I mean my then boyfriend packed up everything I owned and put it on the lawn—just like in the movies! The reason for this was that he hacked into my e-mail and read some very graphic letters about an affair I’d had in Mexico just weeks prior. My CPOS justifications: (1) We were on a break, and I had been living with friends to escape his anger problems and emotional abuse. I was still seeing him periodically and slept with him a couple times. (2) He wouldn’t go down on me. (3) When I tried to break up with him in the past, he threatened suicide. (4) He had many kinks and a history of cheating, and he threatened that if I didn’t participate in gang bangs, he would find someone who would.
