Tiger Woods, Sex Addict?

(Dec. 10) -- As the Tiger Woods scandal(s) head for a third week, the perhaps inevitable question is being asked: Is he a sex addict? Thursday morning, following the lead of CBS, ABC's "Good Morning America" and NBC's "Today" devoted segments to the topic, completing its evolution from tabloid speculation to mainstream conversation starter. And not surprisingly, a myriad of experts have availed themselves to the media to offer up their professional judgments, including executive director of L.A.'s Sexual Recovery Institute Robert Weiss and sports psychologist Richard Lustberg.

But if these counselors and psychologists have never had a one-on-one (and here we mean a therapy session) with the golfer, what are they basing their diagnoses on? If you've been following the saga, you'll recognize some of the purported evidence:


He led a double life.
A week after details of Woods' extramarital affairs began to emerge, the Woods mistress count includes two porn stars, a lingerie model and a host of waitresses. Weiss told CBS' "The Early Show" that living very different public and private lives -- keeping covered a "hot bubble of secrets" -- is classic sex addict behavior.

He did it again -- and again.
So far, 13 women have been named, or named themselves, as alleged flings. Manhattan author and therapist Bonnie Eaker Weil said of Woods' situation that repetitive cheating is an addiction. "What begins with a desire to relieve stress or mute depression easily progresses to a preoccupation with where their next 'fix' will come from," she wrote in a news release. As Lustberg told ABC News, pro athletes, accustomed to the rush of celebrity, often look to sex for a similar high.

He liked it outside.
Woods reportedly had sex in a church parking lot with 33-year-old diner waitress Mindy Lawton. David Smallwood, addictions manager at London's Priory clinic, told Britain's News of the World that publicly chancy behavior signals an uncontrollable craving. "Outdoor sex is a way of creating excitement," he said. "The more sex he has, the more he will want, and the more outlandish he will try to make it.

He eschewed protection.
Us Weekly reported that during cocktail waitress Jaimie Grubbs' 31-month affair with the golfer, Woods never wanted to use protection. Lawton's sister, Lynn, concurred. "It's self-destructive behavior," psychotherapist Rhonda Findling, author of "Don't Call That Man!" told the magazine. "Sometimes it's just momentary stupidity, but this seems like sexual addiction."

He left documentation.
In a series of now-public text messages with Grubbs, Woods alluded to sex and asked for naked photos. Dr. Drew Pinsky, host of VH1's "Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew," told CBS News that addiction "has people doing things that don't make sense." Grubbs claims to have more than 300 text messages from Woods saved on her phone and has released a voicemail she says is from Woods, asking her to change the name on her caller ID, saying that "my wife may be calling you."

He seemed to almost want to get busted.
Along with his many far-flung rendezvous, Woods reportedly took at least one woman home with him. Lawton has said she slept with Woods at the Florida home he shares (shared?) with wife Elin Nordegren and their two young children. As Pinsky told CNN, "most of these guys want to get caught."


All the same, though, a sex addiction diagnosis might prove to be Woods' get-out-of-jail card; it's a defense that's allowed celebs like David Duchovny and Michael Douglas to maintain both their careers and their famous wives. "Once you medicalize it ... then the guy has an excuse," Columbia University psychologist Judy Kuriansky told ABC. At the very least, claiming sex addiction might work better than arguing that his indiscretions were just Tiger being Tiger, as Psychology Today writer Stanton Peele seems to have argued. "The same single-mindedness, skill set and gift for robotic calculation that make Tiger Woods the world's greatest golfer," Peele wrote, "make him an avatar of the bedroom." Meow!