I know some peole hate the comparison, but again I see remarkable similarities with alcoholism. AA devotees will tell you there is no such thing as a “former alcoholic.” But there ARE people with some level of drinking problem, possibly orderline alcoholism that can recover without having to be teetotalers the rest of their lives. They might be rare, but I’ve met some of them too.
Of possible interest, slightly related perhaps, is that I once read a study by a major alcoholism institute about propensities or vulnerabilities to alcoholism. To their surprise they found that certain ethnicities really were more prone to alcoholism than others, regardless of how they were raised or where.
One really intriguing finding was that people of largely Celtic ancestery are both more prone to alcoholism and also have a “body cooling” device that is different from (more accurately, additional to) that of others. It was thought that that bodily process made one more vulnerable than one without it. More interesting was the fact that the pattern was found not only in the places we typically regard as “Celtic”, but also in those places that are Celtic but not thought to be so. One was in Spain, one in Poland, one in Turkey, among other better known “clusters” of people of Celtic origin. It’s very difficult for such people to overcome alcoholism because the body process stays whether the person drinks alcohol or not, and certain aspects of drinking non-alcoholic beverages can trigger a “want to” reaction regarding alcohol.
A neuropsychologist will tell you that some people are much more prone to drug addiction than are others; having to do with receptors in the brain and the readiness with which they will “develop” to react to drugs. One actually develops drug-specific brain receptors that do not go away even if the person stops using the drug. The greater the propensity to react, the harder it is for the person to ever give up drugs.
One might wonder, then, whether, when it comes to sexual addictions, there really might be inherent vulnerabilities or propensities which, if never triggered, might never be actuated in the person, but which might become activated with the right exposure.
And so, one might also wonder whether whatever psychological or even physical condition might make it extraordinarily difficult for a particular person to overcome such addiction once it is triggered, then reinforced by acting on it repeatedly, is similar.
Therefore, one might wonder whether a sex-drenched environment might be just as hazardous for one with innate vulnerabilities to sexual excess or perversion as a drug-pervasive environment or a heavy drinking culture might be for a person with the physical propensities to become addicted to them.
If so, then drenching our society with messages of sexual excess and perversion might be just as harmful to the young as putting a Celtic kid to work in a tavern might be. And if that’s so, then this society is doing exactly the wrong thing, and is certainly doing the kid no favors.
But that won’t be studied by today’s psychological community because, other than pedophilia and a handful of others, sexual excesses and perversions are considered “normal” by fiat, and therefore “off limits” to respectable study, and certainly to the grant process.
