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Sex is pleasurable - no doubt about that; but why is it that there are people, said to be sex addicts frequenting the hospital to seek help? In Singapore, an average of 10 sex addicts reportedly seek treatment at Raffles Hospital each month. A consultant psychiatrist there, Dr Munidasa Winslow, said some people came to her because they could not stop masturbating. Not unless they ended up having extramarital affair like self-confessed sex addict, Michael Douglas -the star of Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction (inset) - being addicted to sex doesn't sound so bad at all. Sex is supposed to be pleasurable, remember and what's so bad about doing something pleasurable all the time? If it is the third of the Buddhist Fifth Precept you are talking about - Kāmesu micchācāra veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi or I undertake the training rule to abstain from sexual misconduct- if you are merely engaging in pleasurable act with your legal partner or inflicting pleasure on yourself, there seems no visible sign of this precept being broken. But then again, the pleasure from sex isn't the pleasure one should be seeking, is it? It enchains one to suffering; magnifies it even. Didn't Buddha say that pleasure from sex is not the highest form of pleasure?
Sex is pleasurable - no doubt about that; but why is it that there are people, said to be sex addicts frequenting the hospital to seek help? In Singapore, an average of 10 sex addicts reportedly seek treatment at Raffles Hospital each month. A consultant psychiatrist there, Dr Munidasa Winslow, said some people came to her because they could not stop masturbating. Not unless they ended up having extramarital affair like self-confessed sex addict, Michael Douglas -the star of Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction (inset) - being addicted to sex doesn't sound so bad at all. Sex is supposed to be pleasurable, remember and what's so bad about doing something pleasurable all the time? If it is the third of the Buddhist Fifth Precept you are talking about - Kāmesu micchācāra veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi or I undertake the training rule to abstain from sexual misconduct- if you are merely engaging in pleasurable act with your legal partner or inflicting pleasure on yourself, there seems no visible sign of this precept being broken. But then again, the pleasure from sex isn't the pleasure one should be seeking, is it? It enchains one to suffering; magnifies it even. Didn't Buddha say that pleasure from sex is not the highest form of pleasure?
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