Compulsions are repetitive, rigidly performed behaviors whose purpose is likely relief from psychological pain, not gratification. Compulsions typically cause distress and interfere with functioning. Think of an OCD who isn’t certain he turned the stove off — not a happy person.

By contrast, impulsive behavior is when you can’t resist desires that involve pleasure and gratification. Being driven by pleasure is not the same as being driven to reduce inner pain and depression. Impulsive behavior is what little kids do — no boundaries, no limits, no off-switch.

The test is between sexually compulsive and sexually impulsive behavior is how you feel after you’ve shot your load.

If you feel the monkey is off your back and you’ll never do that again, you’re probably compulsive. Of course, you’ll be back to the same old-same old the second the monkey again climbs aboard. Like drunks promising today is the day they finally get cleaned up. Which lasts until the hangover wears off.

If you feel “wow, that was fun and I can’t wait to do it again,” then you’re probably being impulsive. Clinton may have used bad judgment regarding Monica, but I doubt he felt bad about the fun they had.

I like your writing and your blog, but this movie has a powerful message, and one that shouldn’t be perverted by mapping it onto a power struggle between the sexes– his sister in the movie has similar problems to him.

My issue is with the wholesale pathologizing of the male sexual response as a means to effect social control over men. Imagine for a moment applying the same degree of social shaming about sex we accept as normal for men to women. Make even a slight mention that a woman use more restraint in her sexual habits and you’d be reprimanded for sexual harassment or worse. This is the contrast I’m getting at.

It’s not that I don’t recognize the deleterious physical and psychological effects a ‘dependency’ on porn can mean to men; it’s the new commodification of that dependency that I’m addressing here. It’s the presumption that ALL men are sex addicts, or potential sex addicts. On a social engineering level this is a classic marketeering schema – convince the consumer of their ‘problem’ and sell them the cure you already have available to solve it.