Talk:Sexual Compulsives Anonymous

Notability

There are reliable sources discussing Sexual Compulsives Anonymous. See [1], [2]. As such, I'm removing the notability template. — Craigtalbert 09:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Hypersexuality who identify as ____

It may be true that in Treatment Resources for the Paraphilic and Hypersexual Disorders, it lists SCA as an organization that treats hypersexuality, but it's not true that the organization identifies itself that way, and it is definitely misleading to say that it's only for people who Identify as sexual compulsives (The only requirement for SCA membership is a desire to stop having compulsive sex). I think it may be okay to list treatment resources in the Hypersexuality article, but stating that SCA is an organization "for people with hypersexuality" is incorrect according to SCA's traditions. -- Scarpy (talk) 22:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Ah, we edit conflicted.

It doesn't matter how the organization identifies itself, it matters how the RS's identify the organization. That is, how the organization identifies itself merits mention, but it cannot be said (as WP:NPOV puts it) "in Wikipedia's voice," which is what the original text did. I'm sure mine is not the only possible solution. What do you suggest instead?

— James Cantor (talk) 23:31, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Even if that's true, and it's not, then you'd have to show that it's predominately identified as a organization for treating hypersexuality in reliable sources. From your edits here and your edits to other articles on topics related to sex addiction, it looks like you have significant POV in pushing that term. -- Scarpy (talk) 01:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Even if what's true? The WP:NPOV policy? I think that's pretty much beyond debate. The exact words of the WP:NPOV policy are "Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice." It's perfectly fine to describe SCA's opinion that their members' problem is a sexual compulsion, but NPOV (one of our golden rules on Wikipedia) requires us to describe that belief, not to assert it as if it were fact.

The NPOV policy also says "Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts." Whether sexual compulsivity is actually sexual compulsivity or an addiction (or even exists at all) is indeed seriously contested. Below are just some of many RS's that show the debated status of the condition. So, again, we are required not to write as if sexual compulsivity is a fact. (But SCA's belief in it is a fact.)

• Bancroft, J., & Vukadinovic, Z. (2004). Sexual addiction, sexual compulsivity, sexual impulsivity or what? Toward a theoretical model. Journal of Sex Research, 41, 225–234.
• Coleman, E. (1986, July). Sexual compulsion vs. sexual addiction: The debate continues. SIECUS Report, pp. 7–11.
• Levine, M. P, & Troiden, R. R. (1988). The myth of sexual compulsivity. Journal of Sex Research, 25, 347–363.
• Stein, D. J. (2008). Classifying hypersexual disorders: Compulsive, impulsive, and addictive models. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 31, 587–592.

Regarding WP:SPS, you are correct that a self-published source is fine for referring to itself. But, that's not what the problematic sentence said. A book by SCA is perfectly legitimate for describing what the beliefs of SCA are or uncontroversial facts about its own history, for example. But it is not a legitimate source for asserting that it's beliefs are true. For example, the book Dianetics is fine for saying what Christian Scientists believe, but not for saying that their beliefs about the origins of the Earth (for example) are true.

As for my POV, my only POV is that WP reflect what the RS's say, and the only term that the RS's call theory-neutral is "hypersexuality". I already gave a complete quote from notable authors in a reliable source saying that "hypersexuality" is neutral. Another is Dr. Martin Kafka (of McLean Hospital and Harvard) who wrote:

"'Hyper-' is the prefix consistent with the notion of 'increased' or 'excessive' behavior associated with discrete pathologies or dysfunctional behavioral outcomes...In a diverse literature that describes these conditions from varying putative pathophysiological perspectives, establishing a neutral, broad, and inclusive scientific and medically based nosology and diagnostic classification is particularly salient" (p. 378-379).

There are people who assert that the condition is an addiction, and there are others who assert that the condition is an impulsivitiy disorder, and so on. None of these many sources claim to be at all theory-neutral; they are all arguing explictly for why their theory/term is the right one. (And it's perfectly fine that they do--that's how science progresses.) But an encyclopedia that describes those theories has to describe them all neutrally, and the only term that is repeatedly described as neutral (theory-free) is the term "hypersexuality." If you can find some RS's that describe some other term as being neutral, then let's talk about that term. Until then, the only neutral term we have is "hypersexuality."

All that said, I am not wed to the sentences I wrote. I am open to other NPOV alternatives you might suggest. If you think I am misapplying any of the above rules, we need some more input from another editor. WP:RS/N would be appropriate for questions about [[WP:SPS}}, and WT:SEX would be appropriate for this topic in general. I am happy to post at either to ask for input, but if you would be more comfortable with their input if you posed the question to them yourself, I am fine with that too. Which would you prefer?

— James Cantor (talk) 02:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

To clarify what I said earlier, one source identifying an organization as treating hypersexuality (and this is only done tacitly in the source you've provided) does not mean that that organization only accepts "hypersexuals" or that it's predominately identified as treating hypersexuality in scholarly literature (SCA and SAA are not predominately identified this way in scholarly literature, I've read it). At any rate, this is irrelevant to the topic we're discussing.

This article, and the SAA article, are not about classification of sexual behavior in a clinical sense. SCA, SAA, and similar groups are not affiliated with the APA or any organization that determines clinical diagnoses of sexual behavior. Sexual compulsion and sexual addiction exist in these organizations exist in the sense they are defined in their literature, not in a clinical sense. This is true in most, and possibly all, twelve-step organizations. For example, the "definition" of addiction used in Narcotics Anonymous is not based on a clinical definition of addiction, but rather of the experience of people in that fellowship.

I agree that clarifying this point without using WP:ALLEGED-like language would be appropriate. But this is not the article for pushing hypersexuality as the preferred clinical term for describing behavior that might otherwise be characterized clinically as sexual addiction or sexual compulsion--if there is a place at all for doing that.

If you want to put in a WP:3O, that's fine. Or if you want to post it on WP:RS/N or WT:SEX, that's fine too. But this really isn't about reliable sources, or sex for that matter. The fact of the matter is the introductory sentences in the SCA and SAA articles are misleading and do not neutrally or accurately describe either of the organizations. -- Scarpy (talk) 11:03, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I've posted it at WT:SEX, and it occurred to me that WT:MED might also have editors with relevant input.— James Cantor (talk) 14:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Or maybe the WikiProjects for Organizations or Cooperatives as they might have insight on groups of people trying to achieve a shared goal that become handicapped by academics trying to draw them in to an irrelevant semantic controversy. -- Scarpy (talk) 16:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Issues with lede sentence, Scarpy?

user:Scarpy appears to dislike the lede sentence, so some discussion is in order. (Incidentally, double-tagging if the same sentence strikes me as unnecessarily aggressive, especially after a revert made without talkpage comment, but there's no reason why a consensus on a suitable lede sentence cannot be found.) To start: The sentence I thought needing improving was this:

Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is a twelve-step program for recovery from sexual compulsion.[1]

and the citation was the book written and published by SCA itself. The term "sexual compulsive," however, is still hotly debated among researchers and does not appear in any official diagnostic manual. So, the problem with the old lede was that it states an opinion as a fact. The word "hypersexuality," however, is considered theory-neutral by several notable sexologists: For example, Drs. Meg Kaplan (Columbia University) and Richard Krueger (NYS Psychiatric Institute) wrote, "Presently, there is no one clear accepted terminology. In this article, we use the term hypersexuality...as it appears to be the most atheoretical and neutral term" (Journal of Sex Research, vol. 47, p. 181; italics appear in the original). So, I changed it to that with an RS listing resources for people with hypersexuality (written by Krueger & Kaplan and published in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice).

I appreciate that the members of SCA themselves probably believe that "sexual compulsivity" is the correct term, so I also included their self-identity label in the lede. So, to me, the new lede should be rather uncontroversial.

@Scarby: What's double-dubious about it to you, and what do you suggest as alternate text that fixes the NPOV problem?
— James Cantor (talk) 23:24, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

My username is not Scarby. -- Scarpy (talk) 11:03, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

How about a formulation that frames the statement as coming from that organisation rather than Wikipedia. Such as, "Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is an organisation that describes itself as providing a twelve-step program for recovery from what it terms as sexual compulsion". The phrasing is a little horrible but you get the idea. There should be a way of allowing their self description to stand, at least in the lede, but framing it in such a way that it does not carry the authority of an impartial statement about SCA or the status of "sexual compulsion". I think the issue of the status of "sexual compulsion" can certainly be raised in the article and the use of the theory neutral term like hypersexuality would be useful but not in the very first line of the article. FiachraByrne (talk) 14:36, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I would agree with that. -- Scarpy (talk) 16:28, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Great, I'll put it in. Thanks!— James Cantor (talk) 16:59, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Issues with lede after we had a consensus on it?

Scarpy, that is again rather aggressive editing. All three of us, including you, said we were happy with user:FiachraByrne's suggestion. So, I put in, verbatim. But then you changed it from away from what you had agreed to only moments before. You can change your mind, of course, but the appropriate thing to do is suggest new text here first, so that we can discuss it and come to a new consensus.— James Cantor (talk) 18:53, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

In general I am happy with the suggestion, a formulation that frames the statement as coming from SCA/SAA rather than Wikipedia, which is exactly what the specific and accurate text I added did with out the WP:ALLEGED language.

I'd also like to ask you to WP:AGF when it comes to editing. This is the second time you've described my editing as "aggressive." What would you have me do? Knowingly leave inaccurate information in Wikipedia? No tag it appropriately? This is what WP:BOLD is all about. I don't have to ask for your permission to make changes to the article, and you certainly haven't asked for mine when you've reverted completely reasonable edits. -- Scarpy (talk) 19:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm confused, you had discussed and agreed upon the change as worded above, no? IRWolfie- (talk) 19:20, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I agreed with the idea, not with the specific statement that even the author admitted was phrased "a little horrible." I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear, I actually would not like the article to be phrased horribly, if that was what you thought I meant. -- Scarpy (talk) 19:44, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

The agreed version in the above topic looks ok; I would have thought it would have been a good idea to mention Hypersexuality in the lede too since "from what it terms as sexual compulsion" suggests that other terms exist. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:02, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

When you read "sexual compulsion" here I'm guessing you're reading it as associated with a particular theory or view on the topic of sexual behavior, which it's not. This is how SCA "defines" compulsive sex it in their Q&A:

Q: What is compulsive sex?

A: Compulsive sex takes many forms. It is sexual behavior which we feel is out of control. Part of the problem is our delusion that we do have power over such behavior. It might be that we just can't stay out of the parks, restrooms, or bookstores, no matter how hard we try. Perhaps we can't stop calling phone sex lines even though we clearly can't afford to continue. We may spend rent and food money on prostitutes, pornography and sex toys. Maybe we can't keep our eyes and our attention off certain body parts of others. Excessive, repeated and/or painful masturbation may be a problem for us. We may end up in bed (or any variety of public places) having sex with just about any partner, no matter how dangerous, unattractive, abusive, or unhealthy, just because we feel we have to have sex. We feel we can't stop ourselves. Sexual compulsion could be an inability to stop saying things that have a sexual connotation, making suggestions and innuendos to others or even persistently using sexual humor inappropriately. It may take a variety of other forms as well. It may even be an obsession with avoiding anything sexual. The variations are endless.

I can see why you'd be confused and think that when SCA says "compulsive sex" that it is in some sense synonymous with the clinical definition of hypersexuality or that it's a subset of it, or that they intended it to represent a clinical definition, but I can tell you that's not the case. They coined the term in 1973 in the era of DSM-II. This is a specific term that could be understood colloquially and give the general public some idea of what the organization is about, it's not a statement of belief about a particular theory. You're comparing apples and oranges here.

-- Scarpy (talk)

This is not about confusion; this is about how to write an encyclopedic article that will be understood by a broad audience, and that cannot happen when we use ambiguous or contested language. This issue is covered pretty directly by in the WP:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles):

The phrase "psychologically addictive" has so many conflicting definitions that it is essentially meaningless. Replace the term with something specific. If you want to convey that a drug does not cause tolerance, or that its withdrawal syndrome is not life-threatening, then state that.

There is no problem at all in noting what language SCA uses. We simply have to do it in a way that makes it clear that it is SCA's language, not Wikipeidia's (or the experts').

— James Cantor (talk) 20:02, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that you are interested in writing an encyclopedic article, your previous inclusion of statement with phrasing that was "a little horrible" and a revision of an attempt to improve it had me worried that you didn't care about the quality of this article as much as you cared about your crusade for publicize the term hypersexuality. Glad I was wrong about that one, and good to have you as a collaborator.

It's worth noting that there's a great project known as wiktionary, it's an attempt to make a free dictionary that anyone can edit (dictionaries are these references that existed long before the DSM that tell you what words mean), that has definitions for words like "compulsive" and "sex." People could probably search it, or for that matter any other dictionary, and get some idea of what someone might mean if they put the words "compulsive" and "sex" together in the noun phrase "compulsive sex." In this way, a broad audience can understand phrases used in Wikipedia articles that they may not have encountered before. People already familiar with these two words may not even have to look them up.

I understand that there's this problem where people mistake a narrow audience of academics, for which certain noun phrases have a special meaning, as the "broad audience." This might happen if they spend several hours a day editing a highly specialized journal on the topic where that noun phrase comes up and it has all these different connotations to them that it does carry for the vast majority of people in the rest of the world.

It's not worth making the lead paragraph unreadable to satisfy the myopic interests of that audience, whether it's a summary or otherwise, and does not add encyclopedic value to the article, which is after all a non-profit organization trying to help people, and not a pawn in a semantic war.

I'm still of the opinion that citations are a good way to note where information is coming from. Also, that we are working backwards in terms of making this changes. The lead paragraph should be a summary of the rest of the article, which is looking like it will need to have a long complicated section distinguishing sexual compulsion from sexual compulsion. I'm fine with doing that if it will keep you happy, but you need to recognize that this is not the purpose of this article. -- Scarpy (talk) 21:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I think we need only follow the usual rules and guidelines, including (most importantly) talking about changes to disputed text before making them. So, to return to that, I think it might be helpful to get an idea of the support for the various suggestions for the lede that have been made thus far. That will give us an idea of which ones to continue considering or the conclusion that we need an entirely new suggestion. These are the suggestions that have thus far been made:

1. Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is a twelve-step program for recovery from sexual compulsion.

2. Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is a twelve-step program for people with hypersexuality who identify as sexual compulsives.

3. Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is an organization that describes itself as providing a twelve-step program for recovery from what it terms sexual compulsion.

4. Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is a twelve-step program for people who want to stop having compulsive sex.

To me, both #2 and #3 solve the NPOV problem in #1 and #4, and are therefore acceptible. Because #2 is less wordy than #3, I prefer #2 over #3, but, as I say, both are acceptable. Other folks' preferences?

— James Cantor (talk) 23:17, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I'd like one that's in compliance with WP:LEAD, WP:ALLEGED, WP:UNDUE, WP:V and WP:NPOV (are these not usual rules and guidelines?). None of them comply with WP:LEAD. #3 does not comply with WP:ALLEGED, #2 gives undue weight to one source that does not specifically identify SCA as an organization for people with hypersexuality it and at any rate can be demonstrated to be unreliable in this regard, and there is no source that I know of that states SCA is for people who identify as sexual compulsives (in fact SCA's Traditions say something significantly different). #1 does not have any NPOV problem that I'm aware of, although it's somewhat misleading.

Ohh, and we are talking about all of the suggestions made thus far, right? Because you left mine out. :(

4 Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is a twelve-step program for people who want to stop having compulsive sex.

But what I think would be better is something closer to this:

5 Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is a twelve-step program for people who want to stop having compulsive sex. In SCA compulsive sex is defined fundamentally as any sexual behavior which one feels is out of control.

I hope asking you to respect other people's ideas isn't too "aggressive." -- Scarpy (talk) 00:20, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

"Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA) is a twelve-step program for people who want to stop having compulsive sex." The above, which is the edit with which Scarpy replaced my suggested edit which James Cantor implemented, is an unqualified statement of fact. It is not merely a rephrasing to improve readability. The meaning of the sentence has changed considerably from the example that I gave above which was an attempt to allow SCA's self-description to stand but where it would be read as a statement deriving from SCA and not endorsed by wikipedia. I do not think that Scarpy's edit was an improvement of the article nor that it represented the consensus attained above.

Nor is it appropriate to claim that "compulsion" is being used and understood here in a manner that distinguishes it from medical or academic usage. Rather, the article represents SCA as presenting an implicit addiction hypothesis in relation to sexual behaviours in a way that is self-consciously analogous to drug or alcohol addiction. This is clearly seen in the references to a 12 step program, sobriety experts, recovery plans, etc. It is quite plain that a different claim is being made here in the use of the term "sexual compulsion" than in the non-pathological or colloquial use of the term "compulsion". The model that SCA is drawing upon, as with Overeaters Anonymous (although the latter is at least concerned with some disorders" that, rightly or wrongly, have scientific currency), in its presentation of sexual compulsion is clearly a quasi-psychiatric one. Such a strategy invites assessment in terms of existing medical and psychological "knowledge".

I also think that it is unfair to use someone's open status as a researcher in a given field against them. Particularly when the preferred solution of that individual is the use of a term that is theoretically agnostic and in which, therefore, they are unlikely to have any significant professional investment.

Further, I sincerely regret the self-deprecation that led me to state that my suggested phrasing was "a little horrible" particularly as this statement appears to have been used opportunistically to justify the circumvention of consensus decision in relation to the content of the lede.FiachraByrne (talk) 23:34, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

My preference is for wordy number (3). (1) is a statement of fact and therefore unacceptable. (2) Doesn't allow SCA or the people they represent sufficient scope for self-definition. (3) Allows SCA to define themselves but neither rejects nor supports that definition. FiachraByrne (talk)

I'm not sure what any of you mean by "endorsed by Wikipedia." I know of no article that Wikipedia "endorses." I don't see a shred of evidence to support that SCA is trying to make a "quasi-psychiatric" claim, or that any twelve-step organization does (this is actually avoided, see the previous link to Narcotics Anonymous and their description of addiction posted above). If you're saying people who are professional researchers in a field are not likely to have entrenched biases, which is clearly the case here, and because of it tend to be dismissive of people who disagree with them, I don't know what to tell you except to look closely at this conversation. If you go back an re-read what you wrote that got "consensus," you'll see that you weren't suggesting that exact wording, but something similar to it (which I would still support). -- Scarpy (talk) 00:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

What I at least mean by "endorsed by Wikipedia" is where an article in Wikipedia makes a statement of fact. The endorsement, if you like, comes from the consensus position of the editorial collective in allowing such a statement to stand. Encyclopaedias purport to speak with authority. A statement in a wikipedia article, therefore, has a certain claim to authority over the reader.

"Quasi-medical" would have been a better claim on my part. What I mean by this is that quite clearly Alcoholics Anonymous promoted a disease model of addiction and were actually very successful in promoting this model of addiction which gained currency in medical circles, in health policies and in popular consciousness. Generally, to my mind, most of the 12 step programs also adopt a language that borrows heavily from medical terminology in conceiving of addiction in terms of either a physical or psychological compulsion. Overeaters Anonymous provides a clear example of this. Of course, these organisations and their forms of mutual support are distinct from medical therapeutic models and indeed operate in a kind of hybrid realm between the medical and other forms of belief (religion in the case of AA, at least historically).

No-one is immune to bias but I don't see a particular personal or professional bias in James Cantor's contributions on this topic. His concerns seems to be with policing the truth claims of this organisation (i.e. that sexual compulsion is an established entity). He may have a professional interest in the topic but that is different from exhibiting a bias in the sense of distorting or misrepresenting information on a given topic. I agree that positions or social fractions that are in any way marginal are going to have a tough time gaining equal representation through a forum such as this that relies on verifiable sources. Producers of social knowledge such as sociologists, medical researchers, etc, exercise a profound and ethically problematic symbolic power in their ability to categorise sections of the population in a variety of ways or to pronounce on the legitimacy of certain claims to truth. The production of legitimate research can have very unpleasant effects on sections of the population. That is, however, both a structural and political problem related to the unequal distribution of the means of knowledge production in a society. That is not a problem that wikipedia can resolve.

In regard to my suggested wording I'm glad you would support a version of it but I don't think that your edit reflected that position very well. If your objection was merely aesthetic - and not, as it now appears, due to WP:Allege - then surely we can arrive at a satisfactory aesthetic solution?FiachraByrne (talk) 01:28, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I've done about all I can do here. I don't have the gas tank to keep up with all three of you. I'm going to take this and the SAA article off my watchlist and go on with life, you guys can have at it. May you be happy, joyous, and free. xoxoxoxo -- Scarpy (talk) 05:28, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, that said, I'll go ahead an re-insert option 3. There were one or two other sentences with the same kind of NPOV problem. (I was planning on bringing those up after we had a consensus on the lede, but that discussion would now appear moot.) I'll go ahead and edit those as well. Thanks to you both for your input.— James Cantor (talk) 14:06, 17 March 2011 (UTC)