"Atlanta Suspect's Claim of 'Sex Addiction' Not Medically Recognized"

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] Although the suspect in the mass shooting incident in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, suggested that 'sex addiction' was one of the causes of the crime, it has been found that sex addiction is a concept not recognized as a medical disorder.

On the 19th (local time), CNN pointed out that the concept of sex addiction, which has become controversial due to the series of shootings at massage parlors in the Atlanta area, has resurfaced.

Sex addiction came up during the police briefing on the suspect, Robert Aaron Long (21), in the shooting incident. The Atlanta police and city held a press conference stating that Long himself reported having several issues, including the possibility of sex addiction.

CNN noted, "The term 'sex addiction' is socially accepted and killers have claimed it as a motive for their crimes, but it is an unrecognized psychiatric diagnosis."

According to Dr. Jiv Cohen, assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, the gold standard for determining addiction is whether a certain drug, behavior, or activity stimulates specific brain receptors to trigger a response. Dr. Cohen explained that this is the neurobiological evidence of addiction, which is observed in people who gamble or consume drugs and alcohol, but is generally not found in those diagnosed as sex or pornography addicts.

For this reason, attempts to include sex addiction in the American Psychiatric Association (APA)'s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which medical professionals use as an authoritative guideline for diagnosing mental disorders, were rejected.

There is another issue. Dr. Paul Appelbaum, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, said that symptoms of addiction include difficulty controlling behavior, social impairment, continued risky use despite clear physical harm, and in the case of drugs, the development of tolerance and withdrawal symptoms. This is interpreted to mean that sex addiction, which typically does not accompany such symptoms, is difficult to classify as an addiction.

Psychiatrists also hesitate to characterize the level or features of sexual preferences as pathological. For example, Dr. Cohen said that the American psychiatric community has a painful legacy of having classified homosexuality as a mental disorder for many years.

Dr. Cohen also said, "If something called sex addiction exists, there is concern that many people who do not actually have it will begin to think their sex life or sexual urges are unhealthy." He added that it is also difficult to draw a clear line between healthy and unhealthy sexual urges.

However, CNN pointed out, "The fact that sex addiction is not clinically validated does not mean that there are no people experiencing problems related to sex."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.