This isn’t directly related to papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), but I’d like to ask about addiction.

I’m not a professional, so I’ll offer a rough, graffiti-on-the-restroom-wall kind of answer. I believe psychiatry is closely tied to society. Before the Industrial Revolution, other medical specialties dealt with infectious diseases such as cholera and the common cold, illnesses such as cerebral hemorrhages, and unsanitary conditions that caused infant mortality. By contrast, I don’t think the mental illnesses psychiatry addresses in Japanese society today really existed back then. Psychiatry has medical foundations in physiology, pharmacology, and so on, but what it actually deals with are social issues. The fact that someone can go to a psychiatrist because work is too difficult and receive a medical certificate for taking leave after only a brief interview—and that psychiatrists are sometimes mocked for issuing certificates exactly as patients request—is evidence that psychiatry deals with more than simply physical illness. It is said that “what addictions have in common is that, despite problems arising in some form—more arguments with family, disrupted daily routines, declining health, overspending, and so on—the person becomes unable to moderate their behavior or stop.” In other words, when someone reaches a socially problematic state, we classify it as something to be addressed through medicine. That is why we give it the diagnosis of “addiction.” Even if someone absolutely loves oolong tea and drinks it nonstop from morning to night, they probably wouldn’t be diagnosed with an addiction. Likewise, even if someone’s first sexual experience happened to be with someone much older and they came to feel sexual arousal only toward older people, that wouldn’t be called an addiction. It would be described as a sexual preference or inclination. However, if someone takes illegal drugs or can feel sexual arousal only from groping people, it would be treated as an addiction. The things classified as addictions and what ordinary people call being fond of sweets, being addicted to coffee, or liking older partners may, medically speaking, involve the same mechanisms, albeit to different degrees. Dependence on drugs may be different. That said, even dependence on sleeping pills isn’t considered a problem as long as they’re taken exactly as prescribed. With stimulants and similar drugs, people can develop stimulant-induced psychosis and become completely incapacitated, or even commit murder; I suppose they’re classified as “addictions” because their effects are socially harmful.

Mac, lol, could probably support all 100 of them just fine. I really wish those crazy addicts would get themselves to a psychiatric hospital soon. Starting medication early is important. As for sex addiction, maybe they’re just bored. If they didn’t have any money, they’d have bigger things to worry about. I’m unemployed and bored too, but I’ve been becoming impotent, so I have fewer monthly arrangements now.

I think it depends on the type and severity of the addiction. With meth, you’d probably need inpatient treatment as soon as you start using it. But with many other things, the severity often makes you wonder whether they’re really illnesses at all. Gambling, shopping, sex, and probably drinking too—they only become addictions when you go beyond your own limits. In other words, as long as you understand your limits and act accordingly, there’s no particular problem. With gambling and shopping, it depends on whether you’re wealthy; with sex, whether you have a partner; and with drinking, whether your body can handle it… As I was writing this, I realized that if you have plenty of money, you can’t really be addicted to anything. Of course, having someone close to you who doesn’t understand their own limits would be incredibly difficult. Seeing the recent news, I was reminded once again that gambling in the U.S. is on a completely different scale when it comes to money.

These days, it’s good that various conditions are being given medical names and treated properly instead of simply being dismissed as “sloppiness” or “pathetic behavior.” But I’m concerned that some people have started oddly justifying their own kinks by saying things like, “I can’t help it—I’m addicted to ___.” I’d like to see the Diet debate legislating “Then get treatment” as the standard response whenever someone says, “It’s because I’m addicted.” Enough with the slush funds already. I think it’s fairly common for outstanding people to have fatal character flaws. J, who was in the news last year, is another example. It was good to see efforts begin to support the victims, but erasing his achievements entirely also feels excessive. Many people in history who were called geniuses suffered from mental illness or syphilis, and there’s also the argument that, in some cases, those very conditions enabled them to display their genius. Miyaya Otoya’s book Genius is currently out of print, but if everyone had read it once before having that debate, I feel the conclusion might have been the same while the nuance would have been slightly different. Regarding the sex-addiction issue, perhaps the intention is to mock men who date ten women at once through dating clubs. But addiction is defined as being unable to stop using or doing something despite it causing social problems. As long as someone is dating women they met through legitimate dating-club activities, within the limits of their own financial means, I don’t think the number of women involved makes them an addict. So Mac is fine—he’s not addicted. Taro