Life inside a sex addiction clinic in the UK

Recovering sex addict Danny James: 'Suicide attempts meant there was always someone in the house'

UK sex addiction clinics are reporting a rise in the number of people seeking help, a fact being linked to golfer Tiger Woods admitting his affairs. BBC Reporter Gavin Lee was given access to one of the few sex addiction clinics in the UK.
The group begins in a similar way to how I'd expect an alcoholics anonymous meeting to start.
The clients sit together in a circle, and the first to speak is 27-year-old Danny James from Liverpool. "Hi, I'm Danny. I'm a sex addict."
Danny used to live in Blackpool and speaks openly about how he destroyed his relationship with his girlfriend and daughter because of his addiction.
"You could liken it to a drug. The hit after sex, I'd start to need that feeling more and more. After a while that feeling wouldn't last as long so you'd do it again and again.
"I started losing work, because I was concentrating on going out finding people to sleep with. Every day, I'd be straight into a pub, on the job and it wasn't that hard to find in Blackpool cause it's what most people come here looking for anyway, with hen nights and so on. It was kind of put on a plate."
Childhood issues
That cycle led to Danny breaking up from his partner and losing contact with his daughter. He lost his business and says he was depressed and disgusted with himself.
"It was only from going to therapy I realised there was something wrong. With me, there was a lot of back issues from my childhood. We went into those issues and rebuilt my life.
"I know it sounds daft but I did things like going to the zoo with somebody and just learn how to be normal again."

It got to the point where one of my parents would stay at home to keep an eye on me because they knew about the suicide attempts Danny, sex addict

Danny attends the Steven Pope Therapy Clinic in Blackpool every week, which costs him £40 an hour.
Paul is another self-confessed sex addict. He is a quiet member of the group and is reluctant to take part in discussions.
He said it started through boredom when he started to search for explicit content on his computer, which led to buying hundreds of DVDs and magazines.
He described his condition as obsessive, which also led him to become deeply depressed.
'Woods effect'
The centre has taken on 52 new clients in the past two months, compared with only a handful each month last year.
This rise appears to be reflected across the small number of sex addiction clinics in the UK. Therapists say the many new clients have cited celebrities such as Tiger Woods as the inspiration for them to seek help.

Golfer Tiger Woods' many affairs have been highly publicised

Steve Pope, who owns the therapy clinic in Blackpool, says the interest from people wanting help has been unprecedented.
"People are now coming forward to talk their issues through. Woods on one side has been to hell and back, as his family has, but he's saved lives and that's the Tiger Woods effect."
The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, a professional body set up to support research into sex addiction, has also recorded a rise in the number British clients seeking help.
Paula Hall, who is in charge of the service said many professionals were now looking for further training in this field.
"They're having more and more clients coming to them looking for services and up until now there's been little or no training for this in the UK."
'Troublesome' behaviour
The treatment in the UK is based on methods used in the US where sexual behaviour therapy is big business.
However, the term is not technically recognised as a medical illness. Professor Glen Wilson, a specialist in sexual behaviour at Gresham College, dismisses the idea that it could be an addiction.
"Whatever the celebs have we all think we ought to have as well, and of course the drug companies will want to get in on the act too. Once a behaviour has been medicalised they will come up with pills for it," he says.

I think to say that sex addiction doesn't exist is a real insult to the many intelligent men and women who suffer from the condition every day Paula Hall, psychotherapist

"There are tremendous pressures on medicalising behaviour which is no more than troublesome. It's not the same as drug addiction because it's not a hijacking of the circuits by a chemical, it is what the circuits were set up for.
"That is rewarding you for sexual behaviour which has reproductive and survival significance."
Many medical experts hold a similar opinion towards the term sex addiction. But Paula Hall, who's a trained psychotherapist, says she vehemently disagrees with their analysis and believes the problem has not been researched properly.
"The people out there still saying this does not exist do not understand the condition.
"It is not about sex, it's about that dependency and that compulsion, and I think to say that sex addiction doesn't exist is a real insult to the many intelligent men and women who suffer from the condition every day."
Despite the lack of recognition for the term sex addict, the clients in Blackpool say for them the addiction is all too real. The feelings are put into some perspective when I ask Danny what he thinks his life would be life without therapy.
"I'd be dead," he says. "There's no two ways about it.
"It got to the point where one of my parents would stay at home to keep an eye on me because they knew about the suicide attempts. I would have gone through with it. I'd be dead."

Pope's Easter message ignores child sex abuse scandal

London, April 5 (ANI): Pope Benedict XVI failed to mention the child sex abuse scandal, which rocked the Roman Catholic Church, in his traditional Easter message in Rome.

He instead devoted his message to thousands of people in St Peter's Square by recalling the hardships of earthquake victims in Haiti and Chile and denouncing the violence from drug trafficking in Latin America.

The mass on April 4 began with a ringing tribute to the Pontiff by Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

"Holy Father, the people of God are with you and will not let themselves be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials that sometimes assail the community of believers," the Daily Express quoted him as having said.

The Pope also received support from Archbishop Rino Fisichella who compared the attacks on the Pope over the sex abuse scandal to Jesus' suffering before he was crucified.

"On the sixth stop Christ is crowned with thorns. How can it not be seen that these painful acts from the past are nothing but a strategic attempt to get at Benedict?" Archbishop Fisichella said, referring to the Stations of the Cross.

But elsewhere, Catholic archbishops marked Easter with a series of apologies as they admitted the Church's "guilt" and "shame" over the sex abuse scandal.

Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, who last month admitted to being at a meeting where children abused by a sex offender were forced to take a vow of silence, accepted responsibility for taking part in the culture of cover-up over the scandal.

In his Easter address, he said the desire to avoid scandal had meant proper procedures were not followed and until recent times abusers were not brought before the courts.

"I realise that, however unintentionally, however unknowingly, I too allowed myself to be influenced by that culture in our Church, and our society," he said.

Sunday Mass at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral came to a halt as protesters placed children's shoes on the altar to remember the victims of clerical sex abuse.

In Britain, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said the crisis affected all Christians, and he apologised for remarks he had made about the scandal in the Catholic Church.

Dr Williams, leader of the Anglican Church, had said the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland had lost all credibility because of its mishandling of abuse by priests.

He telephoned Archbishop Diarmud Martin in Dublin to express his regrets.

"I was saying sorry that I had made life more difficult for the Archbishop of Dublin and his colleagues who have been trying to tackle this crisis with great imagination and honesty," he told the BBC.

"I wasn't intending to criticise or condemn but to point out a really tragic situation and a huge challenge that faces the Church in Ireland at the moment," he added.

Dr Williams did not mention the abuse scandal during his Easter sermon at Canterbury Cathedral.

But the head of the Catholic Church in England, Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, spoke to his congregation about the scandal.

"In recent weeks the serious sins committed within the Catholic community have been much talked about," he said.

"For our part, we have been reflecting on them deeply, acknowledging our guilt and our need for forgiveness," he added

Outrage Follows Arrests in Rape of 7-Year-Old New Jersey Girl

It's a brutal crime that has traumatized the city of Trenton, N.J., and made headlines across the country and around the globe. Two men and three boys were charged Saturday with gang-raping a 7-year-old girl.
A New Jersey girl faces charges in the rape of her 7-year-old stepsister.

"I think everyone, not just in Trenton, in New Jersey, but across this nation and the world is shocked, outraged and horrified by the barbaric act of monster, pervert rapists and what happened to an innocent angel," Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer said.

Among those arrested are Gregory Joseph Leary, 20, and Timear Lewis, 19. Three underage boys, the youngest 13, have also been arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault and child endangerment.

Police say the 7-year-old girl was worried about her 15-year-old stepsister's safety, so she tagged along to a party March 28 at the crime-ridden Rowan Towers apartment complex in Trenton. Once at the party, investigators say the 15-year-old sold herself to have sex with the men and boys, then allowed them to pay to touch the younger girl. They say the touching turned to forcible sex, with at least seven men raping the 7-year-old.

Ramu to make a film on Swami’s sex scandal

Ram Gopal Varma loves reality inspired films. He is now planning to make a film on Swami Nityanand’s sex scandal, titled God and Sex.

The filmmaker confirmed the news but stated that it won’t be a biopic on Swami Nityanand. He expresses that the idea occurred to him just a few days ago.

The film will discover, bring under scrutiny and depict everything that takes place in the ashrams of the godmen. He finds it surprising how Swamis are involved in so many scandals. This also brings to the mind various scandals revolving around the ashrams and various "religious" trusts.

When asked whom he would cast in the film, he admits that it is a difficult question at present and that he would like to first complete the script before he sets out with the casting. Well, if we have to trust someone to stir up a storm, who could we bank on more than Ramu