I found it a bit surprising that the most interesting idea raised by Regulated Passions was not really introduced until near the end. That is, the idea of gender as a social construction (which Lowe raises), and accompanying that the idea of the diagnosis of a person's condition depending on their social role. In most science, this would be ridiculous. If a person were to have a runny nose, sneeze and cough frequently, and feel somewhat dopey and weak, a doctor would probably tell them they had a cold, no matter what gender they were. Yet, according to the article, it's common practice for behavior that would be labelled normal in a man to be named abnormal in a woman, or visa-versa. Furthermore, these are clearly based on stereotypes of how the genders are expected to behave, and how closely the given person meets those stereotypes. As Foucault might say, these sexual addiction counselors are really serving as normalizing agents rather than, say, healing agents.
And why do they do it? The same reason every American does things, because it's profitable. Wildly profitable, in some cases. Someone once said that the way to get rich quick was to invent something cheap and addictive. Well, this sort of therapy isn't cheap, but another good way to get rich quick is to convince people they have a problem and then sell them the solution to it.
Sex therapy is successful for several sub-reasons of one general idea: it ties more deeply into important cultural beliefs than you might think. First, it is confession. This is Foucault's favorite thing, and what is more like Catholic penance than standing up in front of your Sex-And-Love-Oholics Anonymous members and saying "Hi, my name is Bob, and I'm a Sex-and-love-oholic"? Second, it allows people to talk about sex. In fact, it validates us talking about sex, in the same way that tv news validates us talking about violence. People feel a bit guilty about seeing splattergore on dramas, but seeing it when it's "real news" is fine with them. Under the banner of Advancing Science, people can go on Jenny Jones and confess for all they're worth. Finally, sex therapy is good because it resonates with Puritanism, which has incredibly deep roots in this country's culture. Sex therapy provides a vehicle for criticizing people's sexual behavior. Better yet, it gives us names and impressive-sounding terms for all the terrible things that they're doing. But then, Foucault reminds us, all this does is keep the "perversions" alive. By labelling them, you make them stand out. This forces them to survive, instead of letting them die as people naturally get bored with them.
But I digress from gender. Well, this wasn't really a digression. It was for the purpose of demonstrating why today's sex therapy uses such crappy scientific methodology: it isn't science. It's social conditioning. Before I end this, though, I'd like to throw a small monkey-wrench into my own argument. A completely anti-therapy argument is also incorrect. There are people out there who do have more sex than they like, or who would be happier if they could get over some of their sex-related psychological hang-ups. The problem is that most people are fine the way they are, and shouldn't believe otherwise, or be told to believe otherwise.