Let’s talk about sex. 

Are you having it? Do you wish you had more? Do you think about it too often? 

If you answered yes to any of these questions or are a male human, you may be suffering from the dreadful ailment that is sexual addiction.

This addiction could potentially take control of your very mind, dooming you to a life of alternate shame and repression. 

If given the opportunity, under the influence of the catalysts of wealth and fame, you could be left with no capacity to fight off your urges. 

A well-known victim of this terrible disorder is Tiger Woods. 

Luckily, Tiger has been brave enough to admit his addiction and turn to the only logical solution: rehab. 

In sexual rehabilitation, the addict can pay an expert for expensive sessions in a room full of other deviants. 

The child porn connoisseurs can console the chronic masturbators who can cry on the nymphomaniac’s compassionate shoulders. The recovering addict can also get help from prescribed anti-depressants which lower one’s libido, or “randiness.” 

According to experts, sexual addiction is a very serious and very real disease. The compulsive, often damaging behavior it inspires can appear to be voluntary, but it is actually tragically uncontrollable. 

The more we understand about this piteous condition, the closer we will get to finding a cure.

Some insensitive critics of this diagnosis would seek to deride sexual addicts by using loaded words like “morality” and “responsibility” in describing how a person should act, but we have made enough medical progress to realize that these antiquated solutions just won’t cut it. 

Laying blame on the persons afflicted with this disorder just doesn’t make sense. 

An act of sexual misconduct, such as an extra-marital affair, is just a symptom of the ill. 

Clearly, people cannot be held accountable for the things they do when they are possessed by such a powerful craving. 

Hurtful accusations of a lack of self-control or a dubious moral character are unfair, as they treat people like sentient beings capable of change and restraint and not like the instinctive dopamine junkies we really are.

Hopefully, with enough medical expenditures and second chances from their patient wives, men like Tiger Woods can hope to end their untoward habits, or at least cut back. 

At least they know that the public will understand their plight. Thank you, science.

So we can finally accept sexual deviance as the addiction it is. It is what is known as a “process addiction” as opposed to a “substance addiction,” the difference being that the latter actually involves substances and physical effects such as withdrawals. 

A process addiction is subject to much more liberal interpretation. 

It can include any habit that someone learns to crave or depend on. Thus, lust equals sexual addiction. 

In this same progressive spirit, I propose a few other activities which deserve to be recognized as the debilitating addictions they are:

Obsessive Churchgoing: When a person gets a “good feeling” from going to a religious service and starts repeating this action to achieve that same feeling. This disorder can take up hours each week.

The Giggles: The wretched state of an individual who attempts to get a kind of “high” using laughter as his or her drug of choice. This habit can negatively affect the addicted party when close friends and relatives are annoyed into repulsion. 

Addictive Popularity Syndrome: An alarming concern for what others think. In rare cases, this can develop into full-blown cheerleading or political ambition.  

Opinion Writing: A miserable condition where an individual repeatedly records his/her opinions and attempts to share them with strangers through print. 

We still do not fully understand what motivates someone to undertake this futile endeavor more than once. Sometimes, the only cure besides being compelled into silence through public backlash is graduation.

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     Joey Bagnasco is a sophomore English major from Waco, Texas. He can be reached at [email protected]