About
The clinician behind this work
Elizabeth Joy Dubois, MSW, RSW
Registered social worker and psychotherapist · Ontario
Why someone who works on coercive control writes about this
It’s a fair question, and the answer is most of the reason this material exists.
Twenty years of it taught me the damage usually isn’t done by force. It’s done by entitlement — who gets to decide what happened — and by the justification that arrives a half-second later.
Your partner says something was off at dinner. You know nothing happened, because you’d already settled that before she said a word. It didn’t count. Nothing happened. Everyone does it. So when you tell her she’s imagining it, you’re not lying to her. You ruled on it and closed the file.
That’s the same machinery I’ve spent two decades on in matters with police reports attached. Stopping the porn doesn’t reach it. The deciding keeps running — it just has less to decide about.
Where it starts
You were eleven, twelve, somewhere in there. A phone got passed around. A boy in the change room rated the girls in your class out loud and everyone laughed, you included, and not laughing would have cost you something.
Nobody sat you down afterward. Nobody said: here’s what that does to her, and here’s what it will do to you. So you learned the ranking. You learned that the ranking is what men do. And you learned to settle it with yourself the moment anyone questioned it.
By thirty it isn’t a decision anymore. It runs while you’re holding her hand, and most of the time you don’t see it happening at all. Not seeing it doesn’t make it harmless. She feels every bit of it.
Here’s the part worth holding on to: none of that is your personality. It was handed to you before you could weigh it, and it’s still doing real harm to someone you love. Both are true at once. What you’re dealing with is a structure, not a character — and structures come apart.
What it’s called
People call it sex addiction. Clinicians are more likely to say compulsive sexual behaviour — CSBD — and there’s a live argument about whether “addiction” is the right word at all. You’ll find both sides on the reading list below.
What this site describes is one subtype of it, sometimes called fantasy appraisal: the one that runs on looking, ranking and fantasising rather than on doing — and that can survive years of not doing.
The name matters less than recognising it. But you should know what it’s called, or you can’t go and read anything about it.
My practice
Twenty years in clinical practice in Ontario. Registered social worker and psychotherapist, registered with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (#811905).
I also prepare expert reports filed in Ontario family and criminal proceedings and give evidence in court, and I am retained and instructed by counsel on matters involving coercive control.
That focus has shaped how I listen, and it hasn’t given me a template — the longer I do this the more particular each piece of work turns out to be. What’s here is education: a way of describing something, offered so you can hold it against your own experience and decide for yourself what fits.
Three sites, one body of work
sexaddictionhelp.ca — this site. For the man who stopped and found it didn’t fix it. Therapists working with this pattern start at /therapists.
betrayaltrauma.ca — the same pattern from her side.
coercivecontrolcanada.com — my practice. Expert reports, evidence, training.
What’s shaped this work
Books and papers that shaped how I think about this, including some I disagree with.
They aren’t sources for what’s on this site. The five layers and the Beneath the Behaviour approach are mine. If they’re any good they stand on their own.
Compulsive sexual behaviour — both sides of the argument
Patrick Carnes, Out of the Shadows (1983)
Douglas Braun-Harvey and Michael Vigorito, Treating Out of Control Sexual Behavior (2016)
Joshua Grubbs and colleagues, on moral incongruence and self-reported porn addiction
Omar Minwalla — white papers
The Secret Sexual Basement (2021)
Deceptive Sexuality and Trauma: A Clinical Model (2022)
“Sexual Sobriety” Leaves Victims Untreated (2015)
Partners of Sex Addicts Need Treatment for Trauma (2012)
DSTT Clarification Statement (2023)
Sexual Compulsivity or Sexual Entitlement? (2024)
Cheating is a Dishonesty Problem, Not Just a Sex Problem (2024)
Dishonesty is Abuse? (2024)
Male Socialization as a System of Psychological Violence (2024)
Gaslighting and Deceptive Sexuality (2024)
The Blueprint for Deceptive Sexuality: Ten Steps to Building a Secret Sexual Basement (2024)
Coercive control and gendered violence
Evan Stark, Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life (2007)
Jess Hill, See What You Made Me Do (2019)
Michael P. Johnson, A Typology of Domestic Violence (2008)
Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? (2002)
Entitlement, and whose account gets believed
Kate Manne, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (2017)
Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice (2007)
Kate Abramson, “Turning Up the Lights on Gaslighting” (2014)
Betrayal, porn and objectification
Jennifer Freyd and Pamela Birrell, Blind to Betrayal (2013)
Barbara Steffens and Marsha Means, Your Sexually Addicted Spouse (2009)
Gail Dines, Pornland (2010)
Barbara Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Roberts, “Objectification Theory” (1997)
What this is, and what it isn’t.
This is educational material, not therapy, and not an assessment of you. Nothing here is a diagnosis — I’m a social worker and psychotherapist, and diagnosis isn’t mine to give. What follows is a way of understanding a pattern I’ve seen often in twenty years of practice, offered so you can think about your own situation with better language than most of us are handed. If you’re working with a therapist, bring this to them. If you’re not, this may help you decide what kind of support you’re looking for.
A note on language.
Throughout, the person with the pattern is “he” and the partner is “she.” That reflects where this shows up most often, and it isn’t the only way it happens. If your situation is arranged differently, everything here still applies — read it with that adjustment.
If you’re struggling right now, you don’t have to sit with it alone. In Canada, the 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline is available 24/7 — call or text 9-8-8.