In November 2016, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) published a position statement on sex addiction. The organization wrote that it “does not find sufficient empirical evidence to support the classification of sex addiction or porn addiction as a mental health disorder”. As a card-carrying member of AASECT, I can honestly say that this organization does good work in promoting sexual health through its sex education, public advocacy, and individual treatment efforts. I'd like to examine their take.

In the intervening eight years, a significant body of research has been conducted to support the concept of sex compulsion, or addiction. Most significantly, the World Health Organization (WHO; 2022) recognized Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder (CSBD) as a bona fide psychiatric illness, which was codified in that organization’s most recent edition of the mental health profession’s diagnostic standard, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).

Reviewing the ICD-11’s diagnostic criteria, CSBD shares many features with known addictive disorders (for example, gambling disorder). Two noted researchers of CSBD, Lew-Starowicz and Coleman (2022), concluded: "While ongoing considerations on compulsive sexual behavior as addiction or impulse control disorders might be seen as a step backwards, more attention should be given to further explore the neurocognitive, affective (dysregulation of emotion), interpersonal (attachment issues, sexual trauma), and the role of religiosity and moral incongruence aspects of this clinical phenomenon" (p. 228).

Fortunately, recent evidence has been published exploring just these aspects of CSBD. Just last year, Görts and his colleagues (2023) found that "CSBD is associated with structural brain differences" (p. 1). Specifically, CSBD patients had significantly lower cortical surface area in the right posterior cingulate cortex than a sample of healthy controls. The authors also found negative........

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