Last week, I asked you all to ask me anything (I'm still taking questions; keep them coming!), and I noticed that one question has been on many of your virtual lips: "Is John Edwards a sex addict?" And (on a related note): "Is everyone who has an affair a sex addict?" I'll take the second question first, just to keep you in suspense and all that.Not everyone who is unfaithful is a sex addict, just like not everyone who gets drunk is an alcoholic. People cheat. I cheated in a previous relationship. (That's actually how I wound up with my husband; he was "the other man.") Just like alcoholism is an ongoing pattern of drinking rather than a few drunken nights, sex addiction is an ongoing, escalating pattern of compulsive behavior. Some sex addicts (for example, those addicted to pornography) may never be physically unfaithful, but addicts who are unfaithful won't just have one affair: they will have multiple affairs or one affair as the culmination of years of pornography use or serial emotional entanglements.
So, is John Edwards a sex addict? My rule of thumb for addiction (and this goes for drug use, alcoholism, gambling, etc.) is that if your behavior is egregious enough to endanger your job and get you into the news (and possibly in trouble with the law), you are probably an addict. If you get fired for drug use, lose your license for driving drunk, get caught betting against the team you coach or make headlines for getting caught with a prostitute, chances are very high that you're an addict. It's true, those things could happen to someone who just happened to get caught the one time they stepped over the line, but they're much more likely to happen to people in the grips of an addiction that causes them to step over the line time and again.
So, John Edwards does fit the rule of thumb. He had a career (and presidential/vice presidential hopes) that depended upon the maintenance of a squeaky clean image, and sex scandals are a veritable death knell for the careers of most American politicians. Edwards knew, like the folks who try to beat a workplace drug test rather than staying clean, that an affair gone public would likely lose him the job he wanted, but he did it anyway. This does fit, of course, with the "persistence in a behavior in spite of negative consequences" that is the hallmark of addiction. And my husband maintains that sex addict's affairs are like roaches: if you see one, there are hundreds more hiding in the walls.
However, the fact remains that all we in the greedy, voyeuristic public have evidence of is one affair, and one affair alone does not a sex addict make. Bill Clinton (so, close to my heart because he is so much like my husband) had multiple affairs. Eliot Spitzer had a pattern of much riskier ongoing behavior with multiple prostitutes. Peter Cook (Christie Brinkley's ex-husband) had an affair with a teenager and a $3000 a month porn habit.
So, what to think? While I know it's possible to go with a gut feeling answer to this based on John and Elizabeth Edwards' behavior in other areas (and I've talked to sex addicts and codies who do have various opinions), I think it's important to use this opportunity to help folks who are unfamiliar with sex addiction see where the behavioral lines are drawn.
So, the answer is: it's certainly possible that John Edwards is a sex addict -- and if this shakeup brings more roaches crawling out of the walls, I'll certainly give you a definitive "yes" -- but for now, without evidence of an ongoing pattern of compulsive sexual behavior, it's impossible to fairly say. He may be. He may not be. Whatever the case is, I'd like to give Elizabeth Edwards a big old hug now.
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