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Crimes Against Nature
Some state laws still refer to some
sexual crimes as "Crimes Against Nature". That anachronistic bit of
language provides an interesting clue for understanding compulsive
and addicted sexual behavior if you think of the "crime" as an act
against the best interest of your own human nature. Put differently,
acting out sexually is a crime against your own human nature. It is
at cross-purposes with your own basic needs. That is never a
victimless crime.
So what are your basic needs? A few years back a psychologist named Seymour
Epstein published a wonderful article in which he detailed the ideas
psychologists through the years have had about the basic needs of people. He
found four. They are the need to...
- Maximize pleasure and minimize pain
- Maintain a relatively stable, coherent conceptual system
- Be in relatedness to others
- Overcome feelings of inferiority and enhance self-esteem.
- Think for a moment about the time you were active in your addiction. In the
light of that, let's consider each item on Epstein's list in turn.
- Maximize pleasure and minimize pain: Certainly the immediate effect of
sexually addictive behavior is pleasurable. But that is followed by pain. The
very fact that you are in recovery speaks to your recognition that, on balance,
your addiction brought you more pain than pleasure. Acting out is, in this
sense, a crime against your human nature.
- Maintain a relatively stable, coherent conceptual system: People want to see
themselves as likable, productive, moral, and valuable. But addictive behavior
violates all of those. Addicts hurt or reject others, squander their resources,
violate their morals and values, and engage in empty pleasure-driven behavior.
Thus, they put themselves into conflict. The healthy, authentic self is brutally
contrasted with actual behavior. Acting out is, in this sense, a crime against
your human nature.
- Be in relatedness to others: People need meaningful and intimate contact with
others. But sexual acting out objectifies the addict and the object of the
addict's obsession. You cannot have a human relationship as an object or with an
object. Thus, the need to be connected and related to others is blocked by
sexual acting out. Acting out is, in this sense, a crime against your human
nature.
- Overcome feelings of inferiority and enhance self-esteem: Shame is the common
core of all addiction including sexual addiction. Feelings of inferiority and
worthlessness are the personality consequences of shame. When the addict acts
out, there may be a brief and/or phony boost in other esteem or performance
based esteem or euphorically based esteem. But these are thin, fragile, and poor
substitutes for bone fide self-liking and self-love. As you know, in the long
run, sexual acting our increases feelings of inferiority and damages
self-esteem. Acting out is, in this sense, a crime against your human nature.
- When you take this sort of inventory of the relation between your addictive
behavior and your human needs, you can clearly see how you commit crimes against
your human nature each time you act out. It also guides you toward meeting your
basic human needs.
- I suggest that you commit Epstein's list to memory as a part of your
continuing and growing commitment to yourself. That commitment to yourself is
the essential commitment of recovery. From time to time, compare your thoughts
and actions to these four needs. You will see again and again that, when you
stay on the path of recovery, you act to meet your basic needs. When you slip in
your thinking and actions, you act against your needs.
Epstein, S. (1994). Integration of the cognitive and the psychodynamic
unconscious. American Psychologist, 49, 709-724.
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