The Literature Speaks
The problem is sexual acting out disorders are not just sexual behaviors (Minwalla, O., 2012), but are also abusive conduct patterns and complex pathologic systems, which often include elaborate deceptive compartmentalized sexual-relational realities and systems of abusive covert management (Jason, S., 2008; Minwalla, O., 2011; Minwalla, O., 2012). These are patterns of methodical planning over time, careful construction of manipulation of others and cognitive schemas well maintained in order to keep a compartmentalized reality protected from discovery (Jason, S., 2008). It takes pre-planning to sexually-act out in many instances, sometimes requiring days of strategizing against the integrity of vital relational stability and family infrastructure required for health. In fact, maintaining a compartmentalized sexual or relational reality within a family system and relational intimate life takes profound energy to orchestrate and maintain, requiring careful and skilled methodology. This is not simply impulsive or compulsive sexual behavior.
A disorder of chronic lying in a family system is pathology and requires treatment, regardless of sexual acting out or not. Chronic patterns of establishing and maintaining a deceptive, compartmentalized sexual-relational system in an intimate relationship or family system, is pathology and harmful, which is more accurate in description then simply “compulsive pornography use”. The process of gaslighting an intimate partner (Jason, S., 2008), the process of intentional psychological manipulation of victim’s reality (Jason, S., 2008) or any human being over time is a form of emotional and psychological abuse and torture, eroding and damaging the victim’s survival instincts and intuition (Minwalla, O., 2011), regardless of sexual behaviors (Jason, S., 2008). Clearly, there exist many symptoms of pathology, beyond the single symptom of “lack of control of specific sexual behaviors” or “compulsivity”.