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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 2006)
22 lUStOUt FEBRUARY 3, 2006 A vn e $BX i SSUE----------------- egon Camera Everything Photographic We have a knowledgeable, friendly staff helping you find the right camera, binoculars, or photographic accessories. A ‘family’ owned and operated business since 199'. F 532 SWAA uk Avene Corvallis. 55 37333 (541)753-2(53 V (Raw (Diet q & & & 9 Prémunir i&w Toad ‘Tor Cats cat (kat) n. - a domesticated carnivore Wanting It Bad New book, DVD illustrate how sexual freedom can lead to sexual addiction by Glenn Scofield Williams All free-range poultry and organic ingredients. 503-736-4649 www.RadFood.com F ‘‘feed your felines like the carnivores they are. ' Available in fine markets and pet stores throughout the Portland area. Check our website for new locations. Created locally * for the love of cats. Ki ng 1 W ri c k. coni a::;1 ESTATt& • No county income tax • Lower property tax “While [sexual freedom] is a positive response to living in a shame-based, homophobic culture, [it] can also serve to enable the denial of men who are locked into destructive, addictive sexual patterns." -Robert Weiss to Portland • As a "Thank You", upoiOiWng. r ' will apply $500 toward your closing costs. Patrick King Your Washington Realtor (360) 635-4340 Direct (971) 222-3750 Portland patrickkdjohnlscou.com W estover H eights CLINIC Offering general internal medicine and excelling in sexual health care Serving the community for 22 yearo 2330 NW Flanders Suite 207 503-226-6678 or centuries, the act of love was, for gay “normal” gay sex life from what is addictive and men, illegal—subject not only to impris destructive. Without judgment, while maintaining onment, hut banishment from society, a sex-positive context and with a real inside sense brutality and even death. This mindset of what it’s like to be gay, Cruise Control is a prac still flourishes in a sizable portion of tical guide to identifying sex addiction, treatment American minds, judging from the number of queers options and potential obstacles to healing. The book contains information for finding an appropri still being fired, abused or killed for their proclivities. So when our glorious sexual revolution began ate therapist, a section for partners and spouses of at Stonewall (or thereabouts), the most political sex addicts, a chapter on love addiction and even act a gay man could commit was to have sex. Sex, a quiz to test if you might be a sex addict. and lots of it, was a gay man’s way of saying: “We’re Hooked (Eclectic DVD) is an exquisitely filmed here. We’re queer. Get used to it.” documentary that looks into the world of online Sex rapidly became an important part of the hookups. As with Cruise Control, this film shows gay ethic. “A blow job is the gay man’s handshake,” how a positive experience for many gay men can be we said. A novel wasn’t said to be gay literature come a nightmare for the sex addict. unless there was gay sex in it. Gay Pride parades In the same way that not every gay man who became a place to openly flaunt our sexuality and likes sex (even anonymous or nonmonogamous sex) is an addict, so too not all who enjoy online our uncovered, unashamed bodies. These were all our stiff middle fingers to the uptight, conservative hixiking up is an addict. “Considering that society society that had interfered for centuries with our mostly doesn’t support our relationships,” director private liberties. Todd Ahiberg says, “it’s easy to find ourselves The gay community has become fiercely and resigned to being single, on the prowl and, to some proudly sex-positive, and not even AIDS, Matthew degree, lonely. So for some of us, the quick online Shepard or crystal meth will change that. hookup has become the loneliness antidote of Besides, gay sex is also...well...fun. choice, even if only temporary.” But under all this positive ethic lies rhe poten But there are sex addicts who find the ease and tial for disaster. “While [sexual freedom] is a anonymity of the online cruise an easy way to feed the monster. “Technology is great if we control it,” positive response to living in a shame-based, homo- phobic culture,” says addiction counselor Robert says one of the many men interviewed in the film. Weiss, it “can also serve to enable the denial of “But when it becomes sort of a major player in our men who are locked into destructive, addictive sex lives, I think it’s really, really harmful.” ual patterns.” And therein lies the rub. The documentary came about when Ahiberg, Especially now in the Internet era, sex addic interested in exploring how online technology is tion can easily hide within the layered windows of affecting gay men’s sexual habits, invited chatters online cruising and hooking up. Two new pieces of to talk about it. After hundreds of questionnaires media are out that point to these issues within our and follow-ups, he narrowed the search to 45 community with precision and eloquence: Cruise interviewees. Control: Understanding Sex Addiction in Cay Men, From there he videotaped them in an online a new b<x>k by Weiss, and Hooked, a documentary style chat, then hit the road to interview many of now out on DVD. them face to face. The result is a profoundly per Sex addiction, according to Weiss, is a serious sonal inside look at the way online cruising can problem for up to 10 percent of gay men. In Cruise serve to destroy the sex addict. The film is frank Control (Alyson Publications, 2005; $15.95 soft- and ballsy and deserves every award it has received. cover), he clearly and frankly walks us through the Get rhe Exxik. Watch the movie. Addict or not, you will learn something new' about yourself. ® “is and isn’t” of sex addiction using language that “Considering that society mostly doesn’t support our relationships, it s easy to find ourselves resigned to being single, on the prowl and, to some degree, lonely. So for some of us, the quick online hookup has become the loneliness antidote of choice, even if only temporary." -Todd Ahiberg j i j ' rhe average layman (no pun intended) can under stand. For those of us who enjoy sex, the book is an indispensable guide to demarcate what is a positive, G lenn S cofield W illiams writes prose, poetry, plays, penodica and pom in Portland.
