FOR some aspiring actors, pop stars and comedians, confessing to the label "sex addict" only adds cachet with a young audience.
But when the tag is suddenly applied to Scotland's fourth-richest man, a 64-year-old married lord who is a significant
donor to the Conservative Party, the publicity is far less welcome.
Yesterday, a tabloid newspaper dramatically revealed that Lord Irvine Laidlaw regularly splashes out on kinky, drug-fuelled orgies with £3,000-a-night prostitutes behind his wife's back.
Lord Laidlaw, who quickly admitted the story was true and said he was seeking therapy for sex addiction, thus joined the ranks of celebrities such as Russell Brand, Michael Douglas and Ulrika Jonsson who have admitted to the condition.
But is sex addiction a genuine condition or just a convenient label for those who cannot remain faithful within a relationship?
Those who work with sex addicts say it is not only real, but the number of cases in Scotland is on the rise as a result of the internet.
Easy-access pornography and online chat-rooms have made the addiction increasingly present at Scottish psychotherapy practices and meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous.
And what might start as seemingly normal behaviour for a single man soon consumes eight or nine hours online a day, or physically or sexually dangerous behaviour with strangers. That's all while the addict should be holding down a job and caring for a partner or family. Like any addiction, it destroys lives, say experts.
Pauline Brown, a sexual and relationship psychotherapist in Glasgow, said the condition is recognised as an addiction to sexual activity that becomes compulsive and takes over lives. She said there was a rise in referrals to her practice last year of on average five or six new male patients each month.
She said: "The internet has made this more common. There's an accessibility that has opened up a massive opportunity on so many levels. I see patients that start out with access to porn, then chat rooms, then meeting people from chat rooms, then moving on to using sex workers.
"This is a serious condition that can cause a lot of pain. For Michael Douglas or Russell Brand it's almost seen as a kudos. It's usually high-achieving, bright, intelligent men, so for some it begins as a relief for stress, and then becomes a prison because it takes over. Most of the people I meet are in relationships."
Sex addiction as a concept is still relatively recent, having become more widely recognised as a diagnosis in the past decade. At a conference in California in 2000 psychologists warned that the internet was "revolutionising sexuality".
Now there are regular meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous, complete with a 12-step programme, in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, with more than a dozen therapists in Scotland who deal with sex and relationships. But like any addiction, Ms Brown says sex addiction doesn't go away, even after an average of six to eight months of treatment.
She added: "You have to stop the behaviour before you can begin to look at what starts it, often based in attachment issues."
Lord Laidlaw, who has been married to Christine, his second wife, for 11 years, admitted he is now checking into a six-week residential clinic for sex addiction, a condition he has fought his "whole adult life". The News of the World yesterday reported that the life peer spent £27,000 to hire four female prostitutes and a male gigolo to join him in Monte Carlo's Hermitage Hotel, in the £6,000-a-night presidential suite.
In a letter to the paper, Lord Laidlaw admitted the allegations and said he "should have been stronger resisting temptations". He wrote: "I have been fighting sexual addiction for my whole adult life. But having an addiction is no excuse for my behaviour. I have been in therapy a number of times. I apologise from the bottom of my heart. With Christine's support and encouragement, I am seeking long-term expert help, not to cure me, but to prevent any relapse into unacceptable behaviours. I am also planning to make a £1 million donation to a UK addiction charity to help others in similar circumstances fight their addiction."
Yet Lord Laidlaw – worth £730 million according to yesterday's Rich List – is hardly the first man to be revealed as being a sex addict.
The actor Michael Douglas was perhaps the most famous sex addict, given the label in the early 1990s by his ex-wife. He had treatment at a Los Angeles clinic.
The actor Halle Berry's marriage to R&B singer Eric Benét ended because of sex addiction. Unable to cope with her success, Benét turned to other women for consolation, eventually checking into a sex addiction clinic.
And last November, TV presenter Brand promoted his autobiography, in which he admitted checking into an American sex addiction clinic. In an interview he said he felt a different person before and after orgasm. He said: "Preceding it, all that matters is orgasm. I need it. I must have it. It's all that matters. After orgasm, it's, 'Oh my God, what have I done?' Literally, a different chemical constitution. It's just trying to fill a void with activity. You try to use the external world to treat the internal."
Even Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks had a recent storyline about sex addiction, treated very much as a "lite" part of the programme contrasted to characters taking heroin.
But not everyone agrees that sex addiction is in fact a medical condition. Phillip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, said people don't always fit into a "neat diagnosis".
He said Maigret author Georges Simenon, who claimed to have bedded four women a day and about 20,000 in life, was proof of an obsession, not addiction.
Mr Hodson said: "If we say people are addicted, we do a disservice to people who have problems with alcohol and tobacco and class-A drugs. I'm more likely to talk about depression and obsession. We ought to reserve the word addiction for introducing foreign substances to the body."
Shrewd businessman who is also Britain's leading political donorIRVINE Alan Stewart Laidlaw was born in 1943 in Keith, Banffshire.
Having had his early schooling at Merchiston Castle School, Laidlaw went on to Leeds University and Columbia Business School in New York.
In 1973 he turned a US publishing company into the Institute for International Research, the world's biggest conference organiser. In 2005 he is believed to have sold it for £768 million.
He was made a life peer in 2005 as Baron Laidlaw, of Rothiemay in Banffshire. Lord Laidlaw is the top political donor in Britain, having paid £3,481,582 to the Conservatives in 2007, according to the Electoral Commission.
This year he also made a donation of £25,000 to London mayoral candidate Boris Johnson.
Lord Laidlaw is not a UK taxpayer, despite being in the House of Lords, having slipped in before new rules came into force allowing the Lords Appointments Commission to block non-UK residents becoming Lords.
He divides his time between an apartment in Monaco and a home near Cape Town, reportedly South Africa's most expensive house.
Aside from having several cars, yachts and a jet, Laidlaw said in 2004 he would donate most of his fortune to helping disadvantaged Scots in the coming years.
His Laidlaw Youth Project supports a range of programmes, but he has also given £2 million to The Prince's Trust, and money to a parent's campaign to keep open some schools in the Moray Council area. He also put £40,000 to Keith Grammar School to fund a scheme to help senior pupils prepare for the world of work.
Controversially, last year, it emerged the then Scottish Executive had given funds to pay for the CEO of Laidlaw Youth Project – Maureen McGinn, the wife of Scotland's most senior civil servant, Sir John Elvidge.
The Conservative Party last night declined to comment on calls by the Labour Party to return any funds donated.
Secrets that spell dangerWHAT are the signs you might suffer from sex addiction? (from
www.saascotland.org.uk)
1. Do you keep secrets about sexual or romantic activities? Do you lead a double life?
2. Do you need to have sex in places or with people you would not normally choose?
3. Do you find yourself looking for sexually arousing articles or scenes in newspapers, magazines or other media?
4. Do you find romantic or sexual fantasies interfere with relationships or prevent you from facing problems?
5. Do you frequently want to get away from a sex partner after having sex? Do you frequently feel remorse, shame or guilt after an encounter?
6. Do you feel shame about your body or your sexuality? Do you fear that you have no sexual feelings?
7. Does each new relationship continue to have the same destructive patterns which prompted you to leave the previous relationship?
8. Do you need more sexual and romantic activities to bring the same levels of excitement and relief?
9. Have you been arrested or are you in danger of being arrested because of your practices or voyeurism, exhibitionism, prostitution, phone calls etc?
10. Does your pursuit of sex or romantic relationships interfere with your spiritual beliefs or development?
11. Do your sexual activities include the risk, threat or reality of disease, pregnancy, coercion or violence?
12. Has your sexual or romantic behaviour ever left you feeling hopeless, alienated from others or suicidal?
