ANOTHER MORALISTIC WRITER WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND ENDORPHINS

I have no idea who Raymond J Lawrence, the man who wrote an article for CounterPunch on 3/6, is nor how he comes to his simplistic conclusions.  Sex is not addictive to most people as alcohol imbibed is not addictive universally.  However, no one can dispute the fact that body chemistry determines one's libido.  One only has to see a bi-polar patient in a hypermanic state to realize the strength of his/her libido has ridden off the charts.

We can talk about medications and how they are useful and I would be the first to state that medication has totally changed the need for patients to have years of incarceration in mental hospitals as in the past.  Many, who would otherwise need medication for depression, can control their lives with stress exercise and kicking in their endorphins (the body's brand of morphine), which is why it is often referred to as 'jogger's high'.

Before this phenomenon was understood, marriages broke up and many people suffered needlessly.  This is in no way a validation that unbalanced chemistry can be used as an excuse for need for sex thus rape, extra-marital affairs, multiple partners or any of the deviant behavior we have all heard about or seen.  However, it does spread the responsibility for those observing the behavior to give some thought to it.  I recall a woman, admitting her husband to a mental hospital, saying, "Thank God,  I've been flat on my back for three days.  I can get some sleep tonight."  Nor can I forget a woman who, after being properly medicated and feeling herself normal, expressed shame that she could not control her sexual desires while manic and had sex with her brother-in-law.

This is the reversal of a man who was depressed, medicated, but had a retroactive, very painful ejaculation while having sex (one of the rare but true side effects of the medication he was prescribed) with his wife in attempting to start a family.  He was able to stabilize his chemistry through stress exercise and when I saw him much later he introduced his infant son with pride.

As a society, we are filled with people who make assumptions on little knowledge, are too quick to moralize rather than understand the dynamics of chemistry imbalance and other forces at work for the deviant behavior.  When I say that others bear some of the responsibility, the manic person sees nothing wrong with his/her thinking which they almost believable rationalize,  However, those around them see that something is wrong and fear or are unable to confront or set limits on that person's behavior.  Just as AA suggests an intervention, so does the unacceptable behavior of the teenager courting death, the bully, the abuser, and the irrational behavior of the manic person who is acting out sexually, or the clinically depressed person trying to manage anxiety and the crippling, energy robbing depression..