What Fresh Hell Is This?

Robert Weiss is one of the most prolific writers about sex addiction, with four books, articles and blogs in a variety of psych and pop culture magazines. He also has treatment programs in a number of facilities, etc. etc. In short, he is a leader in the Sex Addiction Recovery Industrial Complex (SARIC).

Let’s examine the way he approaches the topic of sex addicts dating. I came across The Do’s and Don’ts of Healthy Dating for Recovering Sex Addicts via a link on another of his articles on dating, this one on Psych Central.

Let’s look at a couple of his “Do’s” for SA’s:

“Do date a lot. Let yourself be casual about the process and meet as many potential partners as you can.” I’m curious to know how far along in recovery an SA should be before he can be “casual” about anything. I would think that dating for a recovering sex addict should be a very thoughtful, careful process, with an emphasis on truly connecting with a woman first, before considering a physical relationship. I wonder, also, how far into the dating process Weiss would recommend the SA be before he reveals to a woman that he’s a sex addict–one date? Three dates? Ever? After all, recovery requires “rigorous honesty,” and I’ve always assumed that includes no lies of omission.

The third “Do” is sadly hilarious:

Do try different ways of meeting potential dates. If you have never met someone online or attended a dating club– try it out. Let yourself go into a bar to meet someone, give it a shot. You never know where that someone might be just waiting to find you.

I’d like to meet the SA who has NEVER met someone online. That’s where they live. I find the term “dating club” funny, too, when I think about Craigslist Personals (Isn’t it the ultimate dating club?), sex clubs, and such grand online meet-ups on Yahoo, etc. (Did you know there’s a Yahoo Strap-On Group?) And bars? Someone is always waiting to find an SA in those places, but a normal woman who’s looking for a suitable mate–she ain’t waiting for this.

My advice to a sex addict who is far enough along in recovery (meaning he has no lingering narcissistic behaviors, he actually has the capacity for empathy, he has dealt with FOO issues, and he has been medicated for anything like Bipolar or ADD) to consider dating would be to engage in healthy activities he enjoys, explore who he really is, and give himself the opportunity to meet a woman who shares his interests and values. (I realize that last word is a tough one.) I believe he should also tell anyone he dates that he’s a recovering sex addict–no later than the third date. Give her time to process that information before THINKING about getting physical.

The first “Don’t” for recovering SA dating, according to Weiss is,

Don’t date a someone if they don’t turn you on physically. If he or she isn’t at least a 7 on your scale of 10, throw them back in the pool. No matter how good they look on paper you need feel turned-on by them.

The offensive, sexist, objectifying language: rating prospects on a scale of 1-10, “throw them back in the pool”…is shocking. Besides, is that scale based on the porn stars, pop icons, and “professional girls” they’ve lusted after or hired, or the women who live in the ordinary world? Furthermore, he suggests going to bars to meet people but warns not to go alone, because while you might “get laid, you won’t get loved.”

Worse yet, he recommends, “Let it stay hot between you for a while before bedding down,” after which he says not to discuss monogamy for at least 60 days. It has always been my understanding that the only sex a recovering sex addict should have is intimate, monogamous sex.

Weiss is not modeling for his clients healthy language and thought. Maybe this kind of advice would work for the general population (still offensive, in my book), but sex addicts have a lot of trouble with fantasy, intrigue, rituals, objectification, attachment–well, the list goes on and on–and the Weiss “guide to dating” disregards all of that.

I’m sure it makes him popular with sex addicts, however.