Aug 11, 2006  |  By: KATHERINE VOLIN  | COMMENTS     

it wasn’t designed for,” Alvear says. “How would George Michael like it if people starting having sex in the middle of one of his concerts and started driving away people who came in for what that stage was designed for, a concert? How would people at the baths feel if IBM conducted a business meeting in the middle of the place? There’s a time and place for everything.”

Weiss declines to give his opinion on public sex, but points out that its illegality means participants must accept personal responsibility if they are caught.

“It’s not up to me whether to say the laws are right or wrong, but they are,” Weiss says. “So to put yourself in the situation of getting arrested and then turn around and say ‘I’m harassed,’ I have trouble with that.”

Weiss, who wrote “Cruise Control: Understanding Gay Men and Sex Addiction,” says cruising turns problematic when it becomes compulsive.

“When recreational behavior can be identified as an addiction is when it’s having serious consequences to the life of the person that’s doing it,” Weiss says.

The consequences can include betrayal of a relationship, loss of career or job, acquisition of disease, violation of personal belief or value or some form of public humiliation, such as an arrest.

“The people I see in my experience are people who have consequences because of their behavior and can’t seem to stop,” says Weiss, who has been treating people with sex addictions for 12 years. “These guys are acting out sexually … because of the arousal that goes on. Not genital arousal, but the endorphins, out of the chase, the possibilities. It’s not so much about the sex or the orgasm.”

Weiss and Kort say they lack statistics on the matter, but suspect that a majority of gay men have experienced sexual addiction. Weiss says that his treatment clinic, the Sexual Recovery Institute in Los Angeles, sees about an average of 150 men and three women per week.

In 1998, Michael was arrested on lewd conduct charges in Los Angeles after allegedly exposing himself to an undercover cop in a public restroom. He subsequently came out as gay and parodied his arrest in a music video. His second incident involving public sex acts leads some experts to question whether he has a sex addiction.

“That really chaps my ass that someone uses their addictive behavior as an expression of freedom,” Alvear says.

Kort claims denial about the pervasiveness of sexual addiction remains.

“We’ve been pathologized our whole lives around our sexuality, but as a culture we’re not going to do it to each<