POSA™ Blog

As red hearts and pink cherubic cut-outs dominate shop windows on Valentine's Day, I want to send out some Valentine's thoughts of my own to all POSAs.

My inspiration came from walking up Madison Avenue, passing pricey artisanal chocolate boutiques with customers in line paying for their lover's Valentine's Day chocolates and more than a few men shopping for jewelry along Fifth Avenue.

And not surprisingly, quite the line of men at Victoria's Secret, under the hypnotic glaze of the nearly un-dressed, GIGANTIC displays of models in silky lingerie, seduction-bombing every man on the street.

IT HAS BEEN SO VERY INSPIRING TO WORK WITH THESE POSAS

There have been at least five new POSA Meetings formed in this past year alone! It has been so very inspiring to work with these POSAs who took the initiative to begin hosting meetings in their local areas. Our communications in working together have energized and empowered all of us!

We know how treacherous life can feel in the wake of discovering that your life partner has betrayed you. One of the more extraordinary gifts hidden within this relational devastation is the power of POSAs to find and to support one another. To begin our healing process, we can learn to stop trying to bond back to the person who carelessly ruptured our bonds (at least until they've earned our trust back sufficiently), and to find new, supportive people to trust and to create healing community with.

One of the potential liabilities of doing counseling in this field is the susceptibility to feeling discouraged; consciously one has to work to offset the effects of feeling defeated by the depressing realities of sex addiction's rise. I am well aware that as the hypersexualization of our culture increases, PoSAs (partners of sex addicts) encounter more and more triggers, as do the sexual addicts/compulsives we share our lives with. That, in and of itself, can be incredibly challenging for all of us and asks us to maintain rigorous boundaries around how we live, what shows we watch, etc.

So, when I find news about someone who is making a difference by asking the mainstream public to question their consumption of sex as a commodity, I am incredibly heartened. To be honest, I'm overjoyed. When that person appears from outside the sex addiction recovery community, I'm highly intrigued (not that those inside the recovery community don't add a lot to the discourse happening more frequently). 

One of the challenges of working with a topic for many years is that one can end up burrowing deeper and deeper into more complex aspects of the topic. One of the risks can be possibly losing touch with how a newcomer to the topic may still be struggling with "the basics". So while still engaging my interest in delving into the more complex aspects of progressed behaviors in addiction as well as chronic infidelity, I am devoting some time and webpage space to apprising newcomers of what they might expect as they find themselves in a strange new world of sex addiction or chronic infidelity with all its pain and confusion. Here, then, is Part One of the new series:

Sexual addiction, including pornography addiction, is one of the most harmful in relationships. The shame with this addiction for the addict and the spouse, the betrayal, trauma and stereotypes linked to the addiction are often devastating.

FROM EX MEN'S MAG EDITOR MARTIN DAUBNEY:

PoSARC Note: Presented by DailyMail.co.uk , By MARTIN DAUBNEY but we assure you it works the same everywhere !!!

The moment I knew internet pornography had cast its dark shadow over the lives of millions of ordinary British teenagers will live with me forever.

I was sitting in the smart drama hall of a specialist sports college in the North of England with a fantastic reputation.

Before me were a group of 20 boys and girls, aged 13-14. Largely white, working class children, they were well turned-out, polite, giggly and shy.

As the presenter of a Channel 4 documentary called Porn On The Brain, airing next Monday at 10pm, I'd been invited to sit in on a forward-thinking class led by sex education consultant Jonny Hunt, who is regularly asked into schools to discuss sex and relationships. To establish what these kids knew about sex - including pornography - he had asked the children to write an A-Z list of the sexual terms they knew, no matter how extreme.

On April 17th, 2012 Lili and Terre hosted a Facebook live stream event with our friends from PornHarms on the devastating effects of porn on the partner of the user.

We felt our community may like a replay of this event We hope you are inspired, and will share it
with those you know who may benefit from seeing it, and promote it to your support networks.

Since I tend to bring you news from the real world that isn't always the most uplifting as POSAs are concerned, here's something inspirational to add to the PoSARC mix:

This is a powerful video presentation by Jackson Katz, PhD whom I've been a big fan of since watching him speak in the excellent DVD documentary, Pornography: The Price of Pleasure. Hearing a heterosexual, married-with-kids, man speak out so eloquently and fiercely against pornography and it's egregious effects on society, I was an instant fan of his. So I was particularly thrilled to be able to find this video.

 *Editors Note:

Dr Linda Hatch is a well respected authority in the field of Sex Addiction and Compulsion. In this post she addresses the issues surrounding addiction and infidelity. We at PoSARC feel it is important for Partners of addicts to confront, and understand the issues related to the Addiction / Compulsion, in order to best work towards a healthy and productive recovery for themselves.

In the strictest sense, the answer is no, not all sex addicts cheat. For example there is the addict whose sexually addictive behavior involves pornography and who doesn't have sex with anyone but their partner. And certainly there are many such sex addicts who lead the typical double life of the addict but who do not have sex with another person. There are also sex addicts for whom actual cheating is their preferred or only acting out behavior. They flirt, they hook up with people or they have "serial" affairs with various people outside their primary relationship. I have previously argued that not all cheaters are sex addicts and that sometimes a cheater is just a cheater.

For many addicts cheating is one of several sexually addictive behaviors