I Want to Believe

I have to get it out of the way: if anyone knows any sex addicts who look like David Duchovny, please feel free to introduce me.

The “X-Files” actor checked himself into a rehab center for sex addiction yesterday and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who thinks that a straight man who looks like that and can’t get enough sex is the best support for the existence of God than anything any church folk have come up with in thousands of years of trying. And dammit…I want to believe.

Shallow? Yes, I admit it. And I understand how some people, and by extension their loved ones, can be very adversely affected by something like this. I do wonder, though, how easy sexual addiction is to define, especially when our definitions of sex and intimacy seem to be changing. For an excellent look at some of these issues, check out Rachel Kramer Bussell’s 2007 essay in The Huffington Post
Am I a Sex Addict? Are you? ).

Joking aside, I at Alice the Goon spent many happy hours watching of the X-Files (I really was more interested in the chupacabra and the ghosts than I was in Mulder’s face) and hope Mr. Duchovny finds whatever he’s looking for in rehab.

And I get how anyone could wonder if they’re addicted to sex. My own preoccupation with it has made me wonder whether I belong at a meeting as well, especially in 2003 when I was writing about Eric Benet’s (Halle Berry’s ex) sex addiction for In Touch Weekly and thought what a great place a sex addict meeting would be to meet men.

Certainly I’ve been unhealthily hooked on some people over the years – I think most of us have had human habits we found painful to break. But as for sex itself, I’ve decided I’m not an addict – I just dig it. Our attractions, our interests, our changes of heart are endlessly interesting and I just keep writing about it, like a Trekkie who knows he’ll never command the Enterprise but eventually does quit his job at Office Max and open a comics shop. Letting your passion shape you without controlling you – maybe it’s the difference between an addiction and a job.

(This image came from the David Duchovny Picture Gallery on geocities.com)