Sex Addiction – Actual Addiction or B.S. Excuse – You Decide

Straight from the DSM Psychiatric Handbook - The American
Psychiatric Association publishes and periodically updates the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a
widely recognized compendium of acknowledged mental disorders and
their diagnostic criteria. The version published in 1987
(DSM-III-R), referred to "distress about a pattern of repeated
sexual conquests or other forms of nonparaphilic sexual addiction,
involving a succession of people who exist only as things to be
used."[20] The reference to sexual addiction was subsequently
removed.[21] The current version, published in 2000 (DSM-IV-TR), no
longer mentions sexual addiction as a mental disorder.[22] The
DSM-IV-TR still includes a miscellaneous diagnosis called Sexual
Disorders Not Otherwise Specified, which now includes: "distress
about a pattern of repeated sexual relationships involving a
succession of lovers who are experienced by the individual only as
things to be used." (Other examples include: compulsive fixation on
an unattainable partner, compulsive masturbation, compulsive love
relationships, and compulsive sexuality in a relationship.)[22]
Even this still-present diagnostic definition does not mention
sexual addiction, but focuses on the patient's distress as to their
sexual behavior (contrary to the pattern of denial in addiction as
mentioned below), not on the sexual behavior itself.
Hypersexuality, by itself, can also be a symptom of hypomania and
mania in bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder, as defined
in the DSM-IV-R.