Cruise Control : Understanding Sex Addiction in Gay Men

Book Review

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Weiss addresses gay men’s increasingly widespread use of methamphetamine—“crystal meth,” or “Tina”— and how the highly addictive substance can accelerate or even provoke sexually compulsive behavior. This is a crucial part of his book for me, since I witness crystal meth’s negative effects every day in my practice. Gay men come to me after having risked HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, ruining their lives, losing their partners, their jobs, often their families and even themselves.

Weiss argues that while individual psychological issues and a neurological predisposition to addiction contribute to sexual compulsivity, there are also cultural risks contributing to the gay sex addict’s continuous acting out. He states it is not homosexuality itself, or how we behave sexually as gay men. Instead he writes "with a cultural background of dramatically greater sexual freedoms than those usually enjoyed by his heterosexual peers... the urban gay man is in some ways a prisoner of his own freedoms."

I recommend this book to every gay man who wants to rule out the possibility that he—or a potential partner--might be sexually compulsive. I also recommend it for partners of sexual addicts to learn about their own recovery process, knowing that they, themselves, have issues as well. Cruise Control should be on the bookshelf of every gay man as well as any therapist who works with gay men.

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