Women, Sex and Addiction: A Search for Love and Power

An Explosive Combination in Some Circles

Charlotte Davis Kasl, PhD, is a psychologist who has a particular affinity for New Age philosophies and ways of looking at things. Like many New Agers, she believes strongly that there is no one right way to become a spiritual person, and this attitude is reflected in her work, either covertly or bluntly.

In WOMEN, SEX, AND ADDICTION, Dr. Kasl deals forthrightly, yet compassionately, with the subject of compulsive sexual behavior in women. She also deals implicitly with the fact that compulsive sexuality is often confused, in women, with simple sexual enjoyment, as well as the race and class differenes we still experience on a daily basis.

All of this is accomplished with such aplomb, however, that I never felt preached at. Dr. Kasl is that talented a writer; I never once felt as if I were reading merely a list of New Age cliches or psychobabble, nor did I feel she was being strident or insistent that "my way is the only way to think about these issues." I find this to be an occupational hazard of most feminist-oriented written material nowadays; when one learns that Dr. Kasl is an unabashed feminist who understands all too well the difficulties we face in the modern world, given the way many women like her write, the natural tendency (at least on the part of this reviewer) is to think in terms of looking for all the little things that would tip us off to her true radical nature. No such luck - Dr. Kasl genuinely gives us the heart and soul of those she talks about, without resorting to ideological blather.