The Sex Addiction Defense

I’m an addict. That word carries negative connotation, but what it means in its most basic sense is that I form habits easily and quickly, and that when I like something I really like it. The common assumption is that “addict” is shorthand for “drug addict,” but it’s a more broadly encompassing condition. I was addicted to drugs, yes, as well as alcohol, and cigarettes, but also television and videogames, food, sex and masturbation. I’ve traded most of my unhealthy addictions in for healthy ones, like a strict exercise and diet regimen. But, and not to brag, even when my bad addictions were at their worst, I never killed anybody.

The piece of shit cracker who murdered eight people, mostly women of Asian descent, in Atlanta this past week reportedly cited sex addiction as the cause of his murder spree. It was conveyed through police, with the callous insensitivity inherent to racist cracker cops, that the killer “had a bad day” and that he claimed his murders were “not racially motivated.” His reported motivation in the murders was to remove the temptation ostensibly presented by the existence of the women at the spas he targeted.

Every part of that is bullshit.

It’s hard to give any credence to the idea that it wasn’t a racist attack when his targets were primarily Asian or Asian-American women, at three apparently Asian-American-owned spas. He couldn’t find any more diverse targets? No spas, brothels, or strip clubs with non-Asian women in Atlanta? Whether the piece of shit wants to admit to being a racist, with a particular anti-Asian hate, race evidently played a role and it was thus a racist attack. The fetishization of Asian women as sex objects is the product of racism and was obviously a factor in his decision to target them.

While racism was surely a factor and should be fought, this was primarily an act of femicide. It is yet another horrific incident precipitated by a hatred of women. In this despicable cracker’s mind, there was a rationalization that he had a right to kill women because he had an uncontrollable attraction to them. As if relieving his discomfort has greater value than their lives. Women are not to blame for the urges and dissatisfactions of men. Whether or not this particular dipshit was a member of the incel “community,” his hatred of women and violent expression of it is the same as theirs.

Even if there were any justification for what this dickhole did, his reported reasoning is astoundingly stupid. How was killing these women supposed to cure or do anything positive for his sex addiction? It’s like if you wanted to never eat potato chips again, so you went from store to store torching the chip aisles, as if you’d ever be able to get rid of all the chips in the world, or that even doing so would help your addiction.

Addiction is a motherfucker. It can play a role in our doing very stupid and destructive things. But it doesn’t make us do anything. We still have choices, even in the midst of our worst, most painfully obsessive addictive urges. Addiction can hurt, but it doesn’t give us the right to hurt others.

I don’t believe we ever have a right to harm others, unless they give us a really damn good reason. I do believe that we have the right to harm ourselves. Not that I encourage self-harm, but it’s better and more just than the alternative.

Here’s an idea. If you want to remove the temptation, cut your dick off. Castrate yourself. Go full eunuch, and you won’t have to deal with irritating erections and the women you blame for causing them again. If you still feel urges after removing your genitalia, drug yourself into oblivion. Get so loaded on antipsychotics and tranquilizers that your brain can’t sustain a sexual thought. Virtually any action you could take other than murder would be better.

Therapy. Treatment. Suicide.

The crime itself was awful enough, but understandably there’s been a lot of attention given to the statements made and the attitude displayed by police. It’s not just that members of the police handling the case have minimized the crime and that the jackhole sheriff’s chief who made the infamous statements has shared racist anti-Asian memes on social media. It’s not just that the killer was taken alive by police and shown a level of understanding typically denied to non-white suspects. What’s also disgusting is that they empathize with the murderer. From the initial police statements, following the killer’s arrest and interview, it seems they not only understand him, they relate. Implied in the statement “he was fed up, at the end of his rope, and this was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did,” is the sentiment that the sheriff’s chief gets it. Like, he’s been there. Maybe he’s had the urge to kill women when feeling sexually frustrated, too. Who is he to judge this poor shitstain for following through on his relatable impulse?

Maybe that’s reading into this too much. Maybe the high-ranking tax-funded law enforcement professional isn’t a misogynist or a racist himself, but just a fucking moron who can’t be allowed to speak publicly again without implicitly excusing or condoning murder. Whatever the truth is, the fact is that the statement should have been clear: “The suspect claims to have a sex addiction, which is irrelevant to the fact that he is a violent misogynist and a racist who murdered eight innocent people.” He felt he had a right to kill women, and that he was justified in specifically killing Asian women.

This isn’t the story of some poor schmuck who had a bad day and handled it horribly. It’s the story of eight innocent people killed by a murderer, destroying their days and stealing their lives, creating a horrible day for their families and friends and inflicting lifelong trauma upon them.

While it doesn’t bring me joy to know that this piece of shit excuse for a man will soon be in a prison where he’ll be the target of violence from other men, it’s not a bad thing. He decided that women deserved to be murdered, and that the lives of Asian women didn’t matter. I won’t say that he deserves to be raped and beaten to death, but nor does he deserve pity if he is.