Two remarkable articles about sex–you know, coitus–have come across my screen in the past couple weeks, both of them refreshingly offbeat. The first comes from Alain De Botton, he of Religion for Atheists fame and the new How to Think More About Sex (not to mention one of the most consistently interesting twitterers out there). It appeared in The Wall Street Journal under the suitably provocative title, “Why Most Men Aren’t Man Enough to Handle Web Porn”. De Botton is interested in exposing, pun intended, the strange double-bind of what passes for discourse about sex in our culture, namely, that…
Mockingbird at the Movies: Silver Linings Playbook
This review (with spoilers, be warned!) comes from a friend of Mockingbird, Joseph Williams. Follow more of Joseph’s terrific work over at The Wise Guise.
In David O. Russell’s newest film, Silver Linings Playbook, the psychiatric issues abound: an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, sex addiction. Behind these, though, lie the more everyday varieties of guilt and self-contempt, delusional thinking and mixed-up love, not to mention some classic rom-com dance competition montages thrown in for good measure.
Silver Linings is the latest star-packed, indie-movie-that-could amongst all the blockbusters of awards season and, after riding a wave of film festival success and…
Grace in (Sexual) Addiction: Honesty and Freedom in a Cyber-Connected World
Undeniably one of the most powerful breakout sessions at our 2012 Spring Conference in NYC–indeed at any of our conferences–was presented by special guest Jay Haug on the subject of Sex Addiction. What follows is Jay’s preview of the session and the recording of the session itself:
Pornography, cyber hook-ups, friends with benefits. What was once a major journey into the inner city has now become mainstream temptation, a small step only a few clicks away. It is a web into which many become entangled, taking years and multiple failed efforts to free themselves. Reliable statistics tell us that within the…
Is Sex Addiction For Real?
NPR ran a fascinating feature yesterday about the new book by neuroscientist David Linden, The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good. With sex addiction all over the news these days, the book is a timely look at the purported difference between pleasure and addiction, namely that “the scientific definition of addiction is actually rooted in the brain’s inability to experience pleasure.” As is often the case with addiction studies, Dr. Linden seems to hedge his bets slightly by downplaying the proportion of addicts in relation to…
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