Just after reading an advertisement for a conference on dealing with “virtual sexual harassment” at work and then one more paper on the ramifications of new Americans with Disabilities Act, sometimes called the ADAAA, I ran across yet another article about Tiger Woods, this one in the New York Times. All of this reading brought to mind a subject addressed occasionally on this blog, The Man Gene.
It appears that Tiger’s predicament has brought light to sexual disorders and how to treat them. Tiger’s in treatment for some kind of sexual disorder, though some are content to label his problem as simple promiscuity. Psychiatrists are beginning to label it “hypersexual disorder,” though admittedly it’s difficult to draw a line between a healthy sexual appetite and addiction, but surely no more difficult than drawing a line between the blues and depression.
I wonder how many acts of sexual harassment, virtual or otherwise, will occur in workplaces across America today. I wonder how many of these acts will be committed by men with a sexual disorder. Or were these acts of men with a healthy sexual appetite gone awry?
While it’s been demonstrated that genes cause all kinds of human maladies, we seem to deal haltingly with anything caused by The Man Gene. Given the breadth of the new ADAAA, we may soon run headlong into a collision between Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (dealing with sexual harassment) and the ADAAA (dealing with disabilities). If alcoholism is a disability, then why wouldn’t sex addiction (the work of The Man Gene) be a disability?
The law confuses. The mind boggles.