sexting

[moschus]

I let it slip to a male friend that I thought Andrew Weiner is maybe a sex addict.

“Why?”   He immediately seemed on the defensive.  “Just because he was sexting?  Or because he sent a picture of his - nether regions - to this woman?”

Oh my god, I thought, looking at my friend with bemusement.  You have so totally done that.

“Not that

Comments

Re: slight disagreement - although other facts might present themselves

[moschus]

I meant stranger as in "person he didn't know very well". And yes, he sent it through Twitter, and it ended up on his public feed (which is how it got discovered). Clearly it was between consenting adults -- that's not the point.

I don't meant to imply that he's a sex addict *just because* he did this. Not the act itself, but the *recklessness* of the act that ended up costing him his freaking *career* and made him a national joke. When a sex addict is acting out, he/she often feels invincible, and ends up taking greater + greater risks.

(Keep in mind sex addiction isn't about being 'perverted' or 'creepy'. Addiction is a sickness, it is not a lack of willpower.) Addiction is characterized by the fact that you want and try to stop but you can't, despite the negative impact it has on your relationships, career, etc. And it's progressive (as in: it gets worse over time).

You're not a sex addict because you sext a woman or visit a porn site. You're a sex addict when you're on the Internet 5 hours *a day* -- despite the impact this has on the rest of your life and you feel ashamed about it and want to stop -- visiting porn sites and trolling for sexual encounters of one kind or another.

And I'm not saying he is for sure -- I was just saying, again, that for a smart man he made an incredibly foolish decision that put his career at risk (even if the messages had remained private, this woman could have blackmailed him, sold her story to a tabloid, etc.). It's the sheer lack of judgment, the pointless risk-taking, that makes me suspect him + that I'm concerned with -- that I think most people are concerned with -- the rest is just details (no matter how sordid).