“It was all I could think of day and night – I just couldn’t get enough! I’d make love to my wife at least twice before I got out of bed every morning, and again on the kitchen table during breakfast,” Bill Okra is a sex addict. His every waking moment dominated by the question of where he can get his next ‘fix’ to try and satisfy his raging sexual urges. “I’d read at least two pornographic magazines on the bus on my way to work – I had no shame about it. Fellow commuters thought I was a sad pervert. At work I always tried to shag one of the girls at least once in the morning, and another in the afternoon. The alternative was to have a wank under my desk – the waste bin was sticky with jism by five o’clock! At lunchtime I’d go to a prostitute, I’d read two more magazines on the bus home and watch at least two videos when I got home, before bonking my wife at least twice more!” Bill’s wife Maria recounts the terrible toll her husband’s addiction took on their lives. “It was horrible – he was spending all our money on pornographic magazines, videos and prostitutes! We were thousands of pounds in debt, with bailiffs knocking on the door – we had to take out a second mortgage,” she explains, weeping at the terrible memory. “It was ruining my health – not only was I exhausted by his insatiable appetite, but I kept contracting the sexually transmitted diseases he was catching from all those filthy women and whores! Our social life was completely destroyed – we couldn’t go anywhere without him disappearing to the toilets to masturbate every five minutes! In restaurants he’d try to make love to me on the table – if I refused he’s just start propositioning the waitresses. If we went to the cinema, it was only to see films with titles like Hockey Girls’ Holiday or Rear Entry, never anything with Jude Law or Hugh Grant!”

However, thanks to the pioneering work of top sexologist Professor Juan Popazogalou, known to the press as ‘Doctor Sex’, Bill is now in recovery, and has managed to bring his sexual activity down to a manageable level – three orgasms, (one through sexual intercourse, two self manipulated) and one porn magazine a day. “Bill is a typical sex addict – just an ordinary working guy whose libido has run out of control,” explains Popazogalou, who is keen to dispel the myth – perpetrated by the popular press – that sex addiction is merely a convenient excuse for libidinous celebrities to justify their increasingly empty sexual excesses. “It is a genuine disorder, causing real distress and requiring treatment. Sadly, when the rich and famous cannot control their libidos the capitalist world calls it sex addiction, when it is the ordinary worker, they are labelled perverts.”

The Professor believes that it essential sex addiction amongst non-celebrities is properly treated and is currently attempting to persuade the Health Department to allow patients to be treated through the National Health Service. “The potential damage to society is colossal if these individuals do not have access to proper therapy – unlike celebrities, these people do not have the money to indulge their urges in relatively harmless ways. It can get very expensive; once they find that masturbation and regular sex can’t give them the ‘buzz’ they need any more, they move onto the ‘hard stuff’ for a fix – bondage, domination, mechanical contraptions and every other form of bizarre sex. After exhausting their regular financial means, they will inevitably be forced into crime – theft, fraud, burglary, drug-dealing even – in order to support their sex habit,” he claims. “Whereas for the celebrity sex addiction will typically culminate in tabloid headlines celebrating their prowess and a round of chat show appearances, for the average person it is more likely to end in degradation, poverty and probably a criminal record.”

Popazogalou’s approach to treating sex addiction is based upon the premise that sexual disorder follows traditional economic and class lines, noting that incidences of impotence, premature ejaculation and frigidity are far commoner amongst the economically deprived than the well-off. “Sex addiction is a capitalist affliction, virtually unknown in the old communist bloc. Capitalism teaches that life is essentially competitive and that acquisition is the key to happiness. The sex addict merely applies these maxims to fornication,” he asserts. “For them the sexual act has become a mechanical, competitive act, divorced from passion and emotion, where only quantity matters. An orgasm is not an end in itself, a satisfying climax of a mutual act of love – for them it only has meaning if it is ‘better’ or more frequent, than anyone else’s! Only by releasing the patient from their social, economic, political and personal sexual inhibitions via psychotherapy, can the syndrome be treated.”

However, his approach is not supported by all sex-therapists – Dr Tom Reltney, Director of the exclusive “Downshires” sex clinic, firmly believes that sex addiction is a purely physical condition treatable only through a specialist medical and psychological regime. “The key to treating sex addiction is the proper regulation of the body’s naturally produced sexual energy”, explains Reltney, a disciple of pioneering sex researcher Wilhelm Reich, who has treated many top celebrity sex addicts at ‘Downshires’. “Suppressing the orgasm is also essential, as the moment of climax releases chemicals into the brain which can become addictive, forcing the addict to try and achieve more frequent and powerful orgasms. Clearly, due to the higher-quality sex experienced by the rich and famous, they are far more likely to become addicted than the ordinary citizen.” His clinic imposes a strict regime on its patients – no unregulated sexual activity is allowed for the duration of their treatment, not even light masturbation. Their libidos are kept repressed by a variety of means, including traditional cold showers and aversion therapy – sex is associated with undesirable images. “The aim is for them to relieve their erotic tensions in a strictly non-orgasmic manner”, says Reltney. “Usually they are hypnotised and allowed to ejaculate safely. This, combined with a form of acupuncture which helps the energy to flow safely through the body’s key nodal points, allows them to establish a self- regulated form of sexual activity, with orgasms being rationed to one a week.”

In a highly innovative move, Reltney even seeks to recycle the sexual energies released by patients in his clinic. During therapy he collects this energy in “orgone accumulators” (originally devised by Wilhelm Reich), which are subsequently used to help celebrities suffering abnormally low sex-drives, or even impotency. Not surprisingly, Popazagolou is dismissive of Reltney’s “sexual recycling” initiative. “He simply sells this excess sexual energy to other rich and privileged fools”, he says. “Instead, he should be giving it away to the poor and underprivileged, in order to effect a true redistribution of sexual energy – only this will enable all, regardless of class, to fully enjoy the benefits of orgasm!”