Well, that’s it. According to the “expert” in (and inventor of the concept of) sex addiction, Patrick Carnes, most Penn Students are sex addicts. (You can take the test here to find out if your own thoughts and habits qualify you.) After all, just looking at boredatpenn.net shows that many Penn students “find themselves preoccupied with sexual thoughts,” “feel controlled by their sexual desires,” and definitely “have used the internet to make romantic or erotic connections with people online.”
And anyone trying to get in good with a rising Whartonite has “traded sex for money or gifts.”
Apparently, even dating around is a bad thing — the survey asks if the taker has ever “maintained multiple romantic or sexual partnerships at the same time”. But according to an MSNCB column this week, it’s pretty easy to score as a sex addict using the test, and it might not mean much.
Interestingly enough, if you substitute “classes” or “studying” or something in the same vein for “sexual thoughts/desires/partnerships” in most of those, you get a pretty good summary of a lot of Penn students’ lives. Who is Carnes to determine the difference between a ‘healthy’ obsession and an unhealthy one? And where’s the line between ‘obsession’ and ‘classroom daydream’?
One question asks, “Have important parts of your life (such as job, family, friends, leisure activities) been neglected because you were spending too much time on sex?” The answer to this, unless one’s behavior is completely and totally out of control, should not be important. As an adult human being, sexuality is an important part of your life, and sometimes the work/school/friends/sex juggling act gets thrown out of balance for a while.
Neglecting “leisure activities” for sex sounds like a pretty good option to all the Penn students I know.
Tags: sex addiction
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