Today's Stories

April 17-20, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Thin Ice From Here to the Horizon

April 16, 2009

Mike Whitney
A Bulletin From the Captain of the Titantic

Russell Mokhiber
The Top 10 Enemies of Single-Payer

Ronald Teska
From Iraq to Appalachia

Gareth Porter
Predator Blowback

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Thinking Like an Afghan

Benjamin Dangl
Latin America Changes

Kevin Pina
Haiti: Obama's First Foreign Policy Disaster?

Robert Bryce
Another Ethanol Producer Goes Bust

George Wuerthner
See the Forest: the Value of Dead Trees

Paul Garon, David Roediger and Kate Khatib The Surreal Life of Franklin Rosemont

Website of the Day
Socialism and the Facebook Generation

April 15, 2009

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Solving Palestine While Israel Destroys It

Ray McGovern
W, the Torture Decider

Robert Sandels
Is There a Latin American Policy?

Heather Williams /
Paul Baker
Carbon Cap and Trade: How Wall Street will Game the Regs and Trash the Planet

Jack Willoughby
The Lessons of the S & L Crisis

David Swanson
Habeas at Bagram?

Paul Craig Roberts
94 Years of Serfdom

Sara Mann
Norman Rockwell and the Perils of Nostalgia

Kenneth Couesbouc
John Maynard's Martingale: How Keynes Got Rich

Binoy Kampmark
Tax Haven Hypocrisies

Kekuni Blaisdell, Lynette Hi'llani Cruz, George Kahumoku Flores, et al.: An Urgent Letter to Obama on the Rights of Native Hawaiians

Website of the Day
Taxa: the Paintings of Isabella Kirkland

April 14, 2009

Conn Hallinan
The Afghan Rubik's Cube

Mike Whitney
Why is Goldman Sachs So Scared of Mike Morgan?

Peter Morici
Taxing Grandma to Subsidize Goldman Sachs

Greg Moses
Economic Curveballs: the Laffer Posse

Fidel Castro
Obama's Cuba Policy: Not a Word About the Blockade

Robert Weissman
No Blank Check for the IMF

Rebecca Macaux /
Philip Primeau
Somali Piracy and American Foreign Policy

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
The Dubious Revoution: Biofuels, the Next Generation

Dave Lindorff
Snatch-and-Jail Justice: the Ugly War on Immigrants

Walter Brasch
The Resurrection of Intolerance

Benjamin Day
Why Has the Press Failed Us in Reporting on Health Care Reform?

Website of the Day
The Appraisal Bubble

April 13, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Militia Fear Reprisals After US Exit

Uri Avnery
Our Dissonance

Jeremy Scahill
A Test Case for Habeas Corpus: Will Obama Prosecute the Somali Pirate in a US Court?

Martha Rosenberg
Suicide Syndrome: Are VA Protocols Behind Iraq Vet Suicides?

Karl Grossman
A Radioactive Extension for Aging Nuclear Plants

Nadia Hijab
Still Waiting: Obama and American Muslims

Sam Smith
America's Cultural Bear Market

James McEnteer
Peru's Shining Example

Sean McMahon
Globalizing Politicide: Israel's Strikes on Sudan

Namihei Odaira
Makota's "Campaign Against Poverty"

John V. Walsh
Bossnapping

Website of the Day
Declining IRS Audits for Big Financial Houses

April 10 / 12, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Resurrection and Revenge

Chris Floyd
Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos

Mike Whitney
"Liquidate the Banks; Fire the Executives!" Warren's Devastating Report to Congress

Saul Landau
How the Media Bought the Surge

M. Reza Pirbhai
Obama's Afghanistan Plan and India-Pakistan Relations

Franklin Spinney
The Art of the Scam: Wall Street and the Pentagon

Rannie Amiri
Iran's Elections: Why Arab Leaders Want Ahmadinejad to Win

William Blum
The Ideology of Barack Obama

Matt Vidal
Why Card Check Would Help the Economy

Jeff Howison
Death of the Square Deal

Jeff Leys
Resisting the Af-Pak War: the Creech Air Base Arrests

Dave Lindorff
America's Imperial Wars: Why We Need to See the Horrors

Ramzy Baroud
Israel Investigated: But Will It Repent?

Missy Beattie
The Grateful Dead, Wounded and Displaced

Fred Gardner
Fakes Left, Goes Right: Obama's Crossover Dribble on Marijuana Policy

Harvey Wasserman Another $50 Billion for Rust Bucket Nukes?

Suzan Mazur
A Revolution in Biology: an Interview with Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse

Bernard Umbrecht
German Capitalists Take Fire

David Macaray
A Word Clooney, Hanks and Baldwin Should Learn: Solidarity

Janet Kauffman
How to Starve (or Feed) a River

Ron Jacobs
Daring to Struggle, Failing to Win

Norman Solomon
Getting a Death Grip on Memory

Michael Winship
Let the Railsplitter Awake!

Richard Rhames
Empire, Ennui and Extra Cheese

Wanda Fucha
Brother, Can You Spare a Million Bucks?

David Yearsley
My Journey to the Heart of Rahman

Lorenzo Wolff
Getting Beyond the Black-and-White: Jason Isbell's Challenging New Album

Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini's Louis XIV: "Neither the Sun Nor Death Can be Gazed Upon Fixedly"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Poets' Basement
Corseri and Corzett

Website of the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help!

April 9, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Decade of Darkness

Patrick Cockburn
What It Would Take to Mend Fences with Islam

Stephen Soldz
Caught on Tape: Diagnostic Abuse of Veterans

P. Sainath
The Rise of the Shoe-cide Bomber

Ellen Cantarow
Israel's Master Plan for Transfer

Gareth Porter /
Jim Lobe
Obama and Israel's Threat to Strike Iran

Jeremy Scahill
How Many Democrats Will Stand Up Against Obama's Bloated Military Budget?

Jerry Kroth
Saving GM From Bankruptcy--With the Stroke of a Pen

Binoy Kampmark
Fujimori Convicted: A Measure of Justice in Latin America

Fidel Castro
My Meeting with the Black Caucus

Website of the Day
Bird Song Radio

April 8, 2009

John Prados
The Af-Pak Paradox

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Changing the Rules of the Blame Game

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Tooth Fairy and the Defense Budget

Russell Mokhiber
PBS Lashes Back

Kathy Sanborn
Depression Fury

Rev. William E. Alberts
If the Shoe Fits: Bush and Al-Zaidi

James McEnteer Rashomon and the Binghamton Shooter: the Rush to Interpret Jiverly Wong's "Statement"

Nadia Hijab
Olmert's Nightmare

Adam Turl
Card Check on the Ropes

Kevin Zeese
Escaping the Drug War Quagmire

Website of the Day
Walk Score Your Neighborhood

April 7, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency's Free Ride

Uri Avnery
Who's the Boss?

Chris Floyd
Talking Peace in Prague, Dropping Bombs in Pakistan

Winslow T. Wheeler Defense Cuts: Gates and the System

Marjorie Cohn
Prosecuting the Bush Torture Team: Spain Leads the Way

Dean Baker
Hands Off Social Security

Diana Johnstone
NATO, Strasbourg and the Black Block

Dave Lindorff
Politicizing Accounting

Martha Rosenberg
Life on HBO's Factory Hog Farm

Evelyn Pringle
Motherhood and the Psycho-Pharmaceutical Complex

Website of the Day
Gaza: Closed Zone

April 6, 2009

Michael Hudson
The IMF Rules the World

Andy Worthington Bagram: Guantánamo's Dark Mirror

Ray McGovern
Profiles in Cowardice: Eric Holder and Colin Powell

Deepak Tripathi
The Pakistan Enigma

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Financial Rescue Plan: a Glide-Path to Destitution

Norman Solomon
Meet the New Escalators: the Democrats and the Afghan War

Jonathan Cook
Israel Railways Accused of Racism in Firing of Arab Workers

Judith Bello
Justice for the Developmentally Disabled

Deena Metzger Blackwater in Liberia

Dr. M. Kamiar
"There's No 'Eye' in Iran:" Obama's Pronunciation Problem

Website of the Day
Prison Talk

April 3-5, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
From Twin Towers to Twin Camelots

Kathy Kelly /
Brian Terrall
Getting a Closer Look at the Killer Drones

Sue Sturgis
Fooling with Disaster? Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety

Peter Morici
Girding for a Depression

Kathy Sanborn
Homeless in Tent City, USA

Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo: Fact or Fiction?

Rob Larson
Subprime Supreme Court: The Roberts Court Has Become a Powerful New Tool for Business

Saul Landau
Biden and Nixon: a Tale of Two Latin American Experiences

Steve Early
An Evening with Andy Stern

John Goekler
Was Gaza Israel's Waterloo?

Rannie Amiri
Arab League Reconciliation Summit a Bust

Dave Lindorff
Hooray for Juries! A Courtroom Victory for Ward Churchill and Academic Free Speech

Lee Ballinger
Sound Garden: Tom Morello at the Grammy Museum

Ron Jacobs
Artifacts for Survival

David Macaray
AIG Plays the Sympathy Card

John Wight
G20: Capital's New World Symphony

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race in the Obama Era

Mychal Bell
Surviving Jena Six

Missy Beattie
Hoop Hopes, War and Peace

Reza Fiyouzat
The Iran/US Rapproachment Dance

Michael Boldin
The War on Drugs is a War on You

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Batting 50-50

Charles R. Larson
Too Much Stuff

Susie Day
Bernie Breakout Shocker!!

Stephen Martin
Gordon Brown's Chicken Run at the G20

Kim Nicolini
"Last House on the Left:" Vigilantes of the Bourgeoisie

David Yearsley
Homage to Moog and Mallards

Phyllis Pollack
An Interview with Legendary Rock Producer Chris Kimsey on Working with the Stones, Ronnie Wood, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Saint Jude

Poets' Basement
Foley, Valentine and Kozak

Website of the Day
The Corner Store

April 2, 2009

Robert Weissman
What If Obama Had Treated Detroit Like Wall Street?

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
A G20 Meeting for Naught

George Bisharat
Israel's Impunity Must End

Russell Mokhiber
Something is Rotten at PBS

Franklin Lamb
Has Washington Lost Lebanon?

Gareth Porter
Settling Scores in Iraq: Maliki Draws US Troops into Crackdown on Sunni Rivals

David Macaray
Obama and the Ruling Class: "Only the Little People Pay Taxes"

Chris Genovali
B.C.'s Bloody Grizzly Hunt

Sam Smith
The Politics of Adulation

Suzan Mazur
Is Neo-Darwinism Dead?

Website of the Day
Fighting for Change in St. Louis

April 1, 2009

Chris Floyd
Surging Further Into the Afghan Abyss

Stanley Heller
Israeli War Crimes: Thank God, It Was Only Rumors

Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy

Jonathan Cook
The Slow Demise of Ehud Olmert

Eric Walberg
EU in Tatters: Only the Protesters Have Any Vision

Richard Morse
Why Haiti Can't Forget Its Past

Don Fitz
Guess Who Came to Dinner with a Match? Green Mayoral Candidate's Van Firebombed in St. Louis

Laray Polk
Texas and Evolution

Belén Fernández
12 Años de Soledad?

Harvey Wasserman
Cracking the Media Silence on Three Mile Island

Website of the Day
Pentagon Fraud Investigations Fell, While Contracts Soared

March 31, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Deception Tango

Peter Lee
Ghosts in the Machine: the World's Hottest Cyberwar Battlefield

Nicholas Dearden
A New Global Debt Crisis

Dave Lindorff
The Obama Betrayal

Joanne Mariner
"We'll Make You See Death"

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pakistan Gambit

Wiliam S. Lind
Another Lost War

David Michael Green
Who Says the GOP Doesn't Have a Plan?

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Elections in the Americas

Johnny Barber
Meditation in Orange

Dedrick Muhammad
Economic Inequality: the Foundation of the Racial Divide

Website of the Day
How the Obama Dems Took Over the Peace Movement

March 30, 2009

Michael Hudson
Financing the Empire: Do US Face G20 Mutiny?

Patrick Cockburn
What Next in Afghanistan?

Henry A. Giroux
Hard Lessons

Mike Whitney
Where's Eliot Spitzer Now That We Need Him?

Ralph Nader
Where's All the Money Coming From?

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's War on the (Upper) Middle Class

Jeremy Scahill
The Logistical Nightmare in Iraq

Robert Bryce
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion

Jonathan Cook
Remembering Land Day in Palestine

Ray McGovern
Obama Bombs

Website of the Day
Hersh: Syria Calling

Weekend Edition
April 17-20, 2009

The Deadliest Sin?

On Sex Addiction

By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK

Addictions. Gotta love 'em. Gotta hate 'em too, sometimes. But first, we gotta love 'em, or we wouldn't have 'em in the first place. Addictions are the spices of our lives. Of course, too much spice spoils the enchilada. But remember, without a little salsa, it's all just beans and dead meat.

Granted, addiction can certainly be a destructive force, wreaking havoc on your world, but it can also be the source of tremendous creative energy in human life.  Sometimes, the only way to truly master something is to become passionately, obsessively addicted to it.  Without the driving vigor of our addictions, we surrender to mediocrity, bureaucracy, and (shudder) mere functionality. The world's greatest artists, many of our greatest statesmen, certainly our greatest lovers, and even some of our greatest scientists have been notoriously addictive personalities, all living and dying in overheated pursuits of pleasure, power, knowledge and love.

Our addictions give us a taste of paradise. It may be a temporary paradise, and it may be an artificial paradise, a dangerous, even doomed paradise, but the pursuit of paradise, ecstasy, bliss, nirvana, heaven-on-earth - also known as “the pursuit of happiness,” as written into the U.S. Declaration of Independence - is one of the great natural drives of humanity, maybe even of all so-called intelligent life on earth.

The Seven Deadly Addictions

Everybody's addicted to something, even if it's the philosophy of not getting addicted to anything. Some of us channel our addictive drives into stuff that society deems safe or constructive. For instance, work is a socially acceptable addiction, even though the heroes of our culture, the work-driven businessmen and traders, are more likely to die young of a heart attack (or jump out the window when the stocks crash) than the pot-smoking slackers among us. Shopping is another socially sanctioned narcotic, until all your credit cards are maxed out, and suddenly your favorite shopping outlets stop loving you back. Then there are prescription drugs, an all-American addiction with soothing celebrity-studded ads to make those mysterious little pills easier to swallow, and you don't even have to worry about your credit cards if you've got the right insurance.

Other addictions are not generally treated with such compassion.  Some are vilified and punished severely.  The fact that you can be locked up and tortured for decades within the humongous U.S. prison system (a growth industry which thrives on addiction), over simply indulging your addiction to an “illegal substance” is bad enough.  But it goes beyond questions of legality. Indeed, the very idea of addiction has assumed that mortifying place in our hearts and minds that a sense of sin used to occupy. To be a "sinner" is now cool, like sporting tattoos or playing in a band. Nobody's ashamed to be a sinner anymore. But an addict? To be an addict is to be what a sinner used to be: weak, despised, disgraced and diseased. The concept of Original Sin is almost meaningless to the modern mind. But the Addictive Personality? We can all relate to that.

So, the Seven Deadly Sins have given way to the Seven Deadly Addictions: Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, Food Obsessions, Workaholism and Gambling Mania are the first five. I'd put Exercise Junkies into the category of Workaholism. After all, an obsession with working out is just a variation on overworking. I'd place Stock Trading and my own personal addiction to playing the CPCs on Google Adwords under Gambling Mania.

Love Junkies

Then there’s #6: Love Addiction. This one's a mass attacker. Excepting the occasional sociopathic loner, everybody gets it. What normal, people-oriented person has not suffered from the deep, sweet agony and ecstasy of codependent love addiction? Since being identified as a disease, "codependency" has spread like the flu, because who can't relate to the symptoms, who hasn't yearned to hold and be held, to care and be cared for, to depend on someone who depends on you? Isn’t that what sharing your life is all about? Not according to many self-proclaimed gurus with troubled pasts who tell us we must--at any cost--break our addictions and squash our dependencies on the people who mean the most to us.

Constant avoidance of codependency leads to "addiction to perfection," a phrase coined by Marion Woodman to describe chronic fear of involvement with others, a far more debilitating affliction than lovesickness. Of course, the experience of being in love can have negative consequences, ranging from separation anxiety to murder, if a toxic combination of character and circumstances comes into play. But codependency itself is not "dysfunctional." There's nothing wrong with being Addicted to Love.  Just don't get addicted to loving a jerk.

If you find yourself getting involved with jerk after jerk after jerk, okay, you win the prize label of “Love Junkie,” and would probably benefit from therapy, if for no other reason than the fact that a therapist will give you that full-focused attention you crave.  That longing for attention is the very thing that keeps sending you head first into the arms of jerks in the first place!  But if your paramour is a paragon, or at least a non -jerk, then why not give it all you've got? As the 18th century French playwright P.A.C. de Beaumarchais said long before there were Women Who Love Too Much, "Where love is concerned, too much is not even enough."

And yes, you could make a mistake. You could find yourself deeply involved or addicted to someone or something that's really hurting you. Then you must make the Herculean effort to extricate yourself from your many-pronged addiction as from the jaws of a many-headed hydra. If you defeat the hydra, you'll be a hero. If the hydra defeats you, well…it happens to the best of us.

Why is it so tough to leave a jerk? Because being in love is like being on drugs. Hard drugs. True love, or even deluded love, is a natural high far finer and smoother than anything you could inject, smoke, snort, drink or swallow. Of course, love isn’t something you can pick up at the pharmacy or even on the black market. You can’t really even “find love.” Love finds you.  It strikes you like a mystical gift from God, an arrow from Eros, or a practical joke from tricky, fickle old hot Mama Nature, the Original Drug Dealer.

The first Love Drug Stew that Mama stirs up is a fricassee of powerful chemicals: dopamine, norepinephrine, phenylethylamine (PEA) and other natural cousins of amphetamines, stimulants and painkillers that flow through your bloodstream and permeate your cells, creating a place within you where hormones meet holiness, angels dance, and the city never sleeps. This “hot love” eventually dies down, leading many to wonder: Where has the love gone?  But often, the sizzling heat gives way to “warm love,” when opiate-like endorphins and sweet-feeling oxytocin flow in, sensitizing your nerves, stimulating muscle contraction, enhancing orgasm and making cuddling feel absolutely divine, bringing on that nice, warm sense of well-being you get when you’re really comfortable with someone. The thing about Warm Love is that, unlike Hot Love, it can last forever. In fact, it’s quite habit-forming. This is why breaking up is so hard to do. Even when you know someone is wrong for you, and you should move on, it often feels like you can’t. Why? Because you’re chemically addicted. Oxytocin, when it’s got you hooked on the wrong partner, can be tougher to quit than heroin. Sometimes you need a therapist, a whole support group or just a really good friend to help you kick the habit.

But if you’re with the right person, the cozy codependent compounds that concoct Warm Love create a “good addiction,” helping to keep you happy together long after your Hot Love peaks have petered out. Warm Love chemicals aren’t just a high; they’re a health benefit, naturally strengthening your heart and immune system, as well as your relationship.

Sex Addiction

Last but not at all least, we come to #7 of the newly revised Seven Deadly Sins, the deadliest, most demonized and glamorized sin of the pack: Sex Addiction.

Just about every horny person who calls me for sex therapy these days - male or female – asks me if I think they’re a “sex addict.” Often they come up with the notion they suffer from “sex addiction” while researching their favorite fetish online. All roads lead to Rome, and almost all sexual or fetishistic search words eventually take the seeker to articles deploring an interest in that fetish as a form of sex addiction.  Then again, perhaps someone they know has called them a “sex addict” in a fit of righteous exasperation. Or maybe they identify with certain sexy but star-crossed superstars like David Duchovny, Charlie Sheen, Amy Winehouse or Kanye West, or powerful former Presidents like Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, all of whom have been branded by the media and various “experts” with this most exciting, perverse, shame-riddled and downright sinful of labels.  Then again, they might just be intoxicated by the idea of being utterly out of control, ruled by their libidinous desires, or by a seductress who takes advantage of their vulnerable, addictive sensibilities.  Yes, the modern Scarlet Letter doesn’t stand for simple Adultery anymore, but for Addiction—Sex Addiction.

But what exactly is sex addiction? Is it even possible to come up with a definition that all the so-called experts can agree on? Probably not. According to some sex addiction specialists, an interest in any type of sex other than married-monogamous-missionary-position-sex-with-the-lights-off could qualify you. So, if you masturbate regularly, enjoy pornography, have an affair, go to swing parties, dance in strip clubs, like phone sex, see a dominatrix, work as a dominatrix, wear panties under your clothes (if you're a guy) or over your clothes (if you're a gal), own more than three pairs of stiletto heels (if you're a guy or a gal) or if you fantasize about anyone or anything other than your beloved, you are at risk of being branded a sex addict.  I guess if you host a show about sex in a bed wearing lingerie surrounded by dildos under a giant photo of a bonobo chimpanzee, you might as well have "Sex Addict" tattooed across your cleavage.

Not that sex addiction is just a joke; it can be a very serious, complicated matter best treated with highly focused therapy.  Sex addiction can take a variety of forms and can involve any sexual practice. It’s not the activity that makes the addict, it’s the attitude.  The true sex addict compulsively engages in unwanted behaviors that make his or her life unmanageable.  The “unmanageable” part is the key, because we all, on occasion, have bad sex or do sexual things we’re not so proud of.  Unmanageability could involve anything from failing college exams because Internet porn overtook studying, to spending the family savings on a blackmailing dominatrix, to engaging in bareback sex in public restrooms while your wife and kids sit at the dinner table watching the roast get cold. A true addict is out of control.  He or she may wish to stop yet repeatedly fails to do so, often ruining relationships and experiencing job loss, financial troubles, sickness, arrest, accidents, guilt, shame, low self-esteem, impotency and despair.

Sounds pretty bleak, but if the sex addict really wants to change, he or she can.  The first step is usually admitting that you have a problem and deciding that you want to make a change.  The next step is reaching out for help, which can take many different forms. You might benefit from talking to a therapist who can help you understand the problem and put you on a program for positive change.  You could join a group that can help you to voice those thoughts and feelings you’ve only been able to express through negative sex-addictive behaviors, and ultimately support your efforts to change for the better.  You might be able to use a friend as a sounding board, though friends tend to have their own agendas in mind for you. Books, art and even snarky self-help advocates (who often quote the great thinkers of history, even if they personally have nothing original to say) can also be helpful when you want to tame the wild beasts of an obsessive-compulsive libido. Churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and other religious institutions can also assist certain types of addicts, though they generally have a very specific religious agenda, and have been known to commit religious sexual abuse upon their congregants.

Though sex addiction is a real problem, much of what is solemnly or sensationally labeled “sex addiction” is just normal erotic angst, sexual experimentation, fetishistic fun and relationship troubles. Ironically, these days, many people seem to grab the term like a designer label on sale, because even though it’s embarrassing and demeaning, calling yourself a “sex addict” is, well, sexy.  Some long to wear a glittering Scarlet Letter “A” for Addict on their breast, and seem disappointed when I say “um, just because you masturbate three times a week does not make you a sex addict.”  More and more people seem to like the idea of being sex addicts with no ability to control their prodigious desires. It’s become something of a fad, or at least a trend.  Normal healthy people with sex problems, frustration, fetishes, questions and fantasies do often benefit from sex therapy and fantasy roleplay.  But they don’t require the intensive treatment the true addict needs.
Treatment for addiction can be as hazardous to humanity as the addiction itself.  Just look at the murders committed on antidepressants, the innocents thrown into prison for nothing more than smoking a joint, the decent people branded as sex addicts, dysfunctional or even criminal just because they pursue unusual, albeit consensual sex practices.  Addiction can be awful.  But far worse than a society that harbors a few crazed addicts is one that reduces our sexuality – or the rest of our lives – to merely being functional.

Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, cable TV personality, author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure and hostess of Dr. Suzy’s Speakeasy. Commit Bloggamy with her at http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog/ Email her at liberties@blockbooks.com

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