(Toronto Sun) You’re rich, you’re famous and you’ve got a problem.
Specifically, sex.
You’ve just been outed by a tabloid, caught in bed with a starlet by your wife or accused of being a sexual harassment juggernaut.
Chances are, if you can pony up $57,000 for six weeks, you’re going to be on your way via private jet to an all-male sex addict clinic called Gentle Path at The Meadows in Arizona, near Phoenix.
Tiger Woods, disgraced politician Anthony Weiner, Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein are some of the fallen luminaries who have been patients at the bad boy boot camp.
And as the list of high-falutin’ sex fiends grows, expect numbers at Gentle Path to go up, too.
While The Meadows also treats drug, booze, and gambling addictions–a long with a grab bag of other mental maladies– it’s now in the news for the quick trip A-listers are making to the facility.
Ant not everyone thinks it’s on the up and up.
“It [claiming you’re a sex addict] is often a way for wealth men of privilege to avoid taking responsibility for their sexual misbehaviors,” psychologist David Ley, who wrote The Myth of Sex Addiction, told the Daily Telegraph.
“Sex addiction treatment is a male sexual privilege protection racket. And it is a form of public penance, like when people would wear shame masks.”
But if Hollywood sex fiends think their jolt at the rehab facility is going to be a stay at a five-star resort, they’re mistaken.
It’s first names only, no electronic devices, books, magazines, caffeine or sugar and everyone is treated the same. And no shorts, just in case it triggers sexual tingling in one of the guests.
A former patient told the New York Post that the day begins at 5 a.m. with a workout in the gym. Breakfast is at 7 a.m., usually eggs, yogurt, granola and fruit.
If there is a newspaper kicking around, staff cut out the stories about the shame-soaked celeb.
Then there are meditation and group sessions for the 12-14 patients.
“We gathered in a conference room and acknowledged who we were,” the source told the Post. “You’d give your name and core behaviour — prostitution, porn, cheating, whatever … and come up with something you want to talk about.”
Patients also participate in art therapy where they would have to draw their triggers for hormone-charged hijinks.
Many of the art sessions end in tears, the source added. In addition, there is equine therapy.
Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings take up the evenings.
But for both actor Kevin Spacey and disgraced mega-producer Harvey Weinstein, their efforts at a mea culpa of the grandest order may still end in detectives waiting with handcuffs when their rehab stints ends.
Weinstein reportedly threw in the towel after a week and, true to fashion, was allegedly a difficult patient.
Some of Hollywood’s most powerful women — along with a litany of lesser-knowns from the showbiz world — including Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, claim Weinstein sexually harassed them.
And some experts aren’t sure any amount of therapy could help in Weinstein’s case.
“I think you can control your impulses. He just decided not to do so,” sex therapist Holly Richmond alleged to Digital Journal.
Ley doubles down: “Sex addiction is a concept that has been used to explain selfish, powerful, wealthy men engaging in irresponsible sexual behavior for a very long time.”
By Brad Hunter
