People struggling with compulsive behavior around love and sex have long been the brunt of sleazy jokes and lurid misrepresentation. TV shows and movies use sad, so-called sex addicts sitting on folding chairs in support groups as punchlines. But cultural stigmas around sex and love 12-step programs are being challenged by a rising generation of young women active in recovery — and on social media.
"I'm a sex and love addict. I might as well start my SLAA journey," a young woman who calls herself Brittany McGee announced in a TikTok video. It's among dozens of posts in which young women explain how their participation in groups such as Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous help them manage behavior that feels unhealthy, even harmful.
"One time, I was on Tinder numbing my feelings away and I told this dude that I matched with, 'Hey, I shouldn't be on here. I am a love and seggs addict," said another Tiktoker with the handle Stephanie Rey, using internet slang for sex.
"He said, 'You know, there's help for you. There's love and seggs addiction anonymous. And I was like oh, maybe I should look into that. And he told me some great advice, which is true. The biggest mistake that an addict can make is trying to do it all yourself. Find community, learn from each other, get all sorts of help. This is why we're here on this planet, to learn and grow."
Gen Z has 'a vocabulary of recovery'
Sex and love addiction has not been officially recognized in the DSM-5, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders used by professionals. The Mayo Clinic notes that it's sometimes diagnosed as part of other mental health conditions, including behavioral addiction.
Talking about sex and love in the context of addiction remains controversial, even at a moment when seeking help for substance abuse is not as shameful as it once was. Celebrities talk about rehab for drugs. Books about recovery from alcohol are best sellers. But sex and love still wigs people out.
"Oh my gosh, I'm gonna tell my parents I'm in a sex and love addicts anonymous group?" asked Courtney Davila, in mock horror. The 25-year-old, who uses they/them pronouns, did exactly that. Their parents dealt with it. Their Gen Z friends were utterly unfazed.
"They're like, you're doing something good for yourself and taking accountability," Davila said.
Gen Z and millennials bring a refreshingly enlightened perspective to sex and love 12-step groups, which are based on the Alcoholics Anonymous model, said Ethlie Ann Vare, author of the 2011 memoir Love Addict: Sex, Romance and Other Dangerous Drugs.
"They have a vocabulary of recovery and a vocabulary of mental health that my generation just didn't have," said Vare, who is a Baby Boomer. She started attending sex and love 12-step groups in the late 1990s. It was, she added dryly, a very different cultural moment.
"Oh, it was like walking into AA in 1937," she said, referring to Alcoholics Anonymous' first decade. "It was deeply shameful."
Easier — but not easy
It still isn't easy to start showing up at sex and love addiction meetings, Vare said.
"Nobody wants to talk about being in the fetal position on the bathroom floor because someone didn't call you," she said. "And people whose sexual behavior is inappropriate at best – they don't want to talk about that either."
While 12-step groups do not work for everyone, Vare said there are quite a lot to choose from, including Sexual Compulsives Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous and many others.
SLAA is probably the best known, with more than 1,200 meetings in more than 50 countries, according to its website. SLAA did not respond to NPR's requests for comment, and does not track the demographics of its membership. (After all, it is anonymous.) Vare says many younger people may be drawn to these groups because of the avalanche of apps that enable addictive behavior.
"They literally designed Tinder to mimic slot machines," she said. "That's the interface."
The year 2019 is also the last time Pornhub publicly released its visitor numbers, then 115 million daily. (In 2020, the New York Times published a damning expose about the site's failure to ban videos featuring underage and exploited people, violent scenarios, revenge porn and nonconsensual sexual material.) The site remains the world's largest purveyor of free pornography and is one of the most viewed platforms in the world. Its most recent data says the majority of its visitors are under the age of 35.
"Ninety-four percent of kids will see online porn before age 14," Vare said. "It's just access to excess, as they used to say about Saturday Night Live and cocaine, right?
Sharing a common problem
There's a joke — or a stereotype — that men attend these recovery groups because of sex and women because of love. But it's critical to remember, said Vare, that everyone in these rooms shares a common problem.
"We're propelled by the fact that we don't feel safe and we don't feel like we're enough and that doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman or anywhere on the gender spectrum," she said.
Some young people who spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity because they preferred to be private about their mental health, said they found their way to these support groups through other 12-step programs, such as for alcohol or drugs. Others echoed a sentiment shared by Courtney Davila – that their reasons for attending were not necessarily about dating or porn apps. Davila said they attend SLAA meetings to work on having responsible and healthy sexual and romantic relationships, and to counter what they call the cultural "fairy tale" of getting rescued through them.
"In my community, in the queer community, there's so much codependence that's normalized," Davila said. "By taking the step to join SLAA, it was really an act of like, 'Yeah, I do have attachment issues and I think most of us do and that's okay.'"
Davila said the young women they know in SLAA are sex positive. They believe in talking about sex and love, what does not work, and about being avoidant, asexual or afraid. Right now, Davila added, the world is defined by vast and horrific problems. Their generation just wants, in every way, to make it better.
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