Is it possible to get "hooked" on sexual pleasure, just the way people get addicted to alcohol or drugs?

In recent years, the question has become one of the hottest debates in psychology. On the one hand, many responsible sex experts claim there are a huge number of people whose craving for the "high" of sex - usually promiscuous, anonymous sex - can legitimately be considered a true addiction. In extreme cases, these addicts hunt so obsessively for illicit sexual stimulation that it wrecks their marriages, careers and physical health. Says Minneapolis family therapist, Ph.D.: "What we're talking about is a loss of control and a willingness to risk any kind of consequence for a pleasure that gets you so hooked you cannot stop." But this "pleasure," he adds, "is not about sex - it's about dissociation from pain."

On the other hand, other authorities complain that "sex addiction" is a fad diagnosis for something that cannot legitimately be considered a true addiction at all. Some believe, if anything, it's a problem more closely related to compulsions like anorexia than addictions like alcoholism. Others note that ifthis problem is an addiction, it's the only one whose "cure" doesn't require complete abstinence. (After all, you can live without alcohol or drugs, but it would be both unhealthy and unrealistic to ~sk people to live without sex.)