Tiger Woods during a news conference in, Friday, Feb. 19, 2010, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP)

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Sex addiction has been all over the headlines lately. Tiger Woods put it there this time. And before him, David Duchovny and Michael Douglas and Susan Cheever, and plenty more.

But what is sex addiction, and how is it different from just a lot of sex, or from plain old philandering? And is it for real? Or just a convenient tag that lets Hollywood cads pose as victims themselves?

Tiger’s millions helped turbo-charge his sex life, but what about ordinary people and compulsion? Where’s the line?

This hour, On Point: we’re bringing in the experts to assess sex addiction.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Kenneth Adams, clinical psychologist and certified sexual addiction therapist who has treated patients for over 25 years.  He’s clinical director for the Program for Sexual Health and Addiction, an outpatient program that treats sexual compulsion and addiction.  He’s co-editor, with Patrick Carnes, of “Clinical Management of Sex Addiction.”

Pepper Schwartz, professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she teaches one of the school’s most popular courses on the sociology of sexuality.   She’s author of dozens of papers and academic papers on sexuality, and a consultant to the Lluminari Women’s Health Network.

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In 1972, the sexual revolution was young, the birds and bees were still a semi-taboo topic, and “The Joy of Sex” was a publishing sensation.

It was modeled on a cookbook — “The Joy of Cooking” — but the illustrations were a little different. A kind of everyman’s Kama Sutra. Looking back, maybe too much man, and not enough woman, in the huge bestseller’s perspective.

And that’s not all that’s changed in the decades since. A big, brand-new edition of “The Joy of Sex” revisits the whole subject, top to bottom.

This hour, On Point: The Joy of Sex, take two.

You can join the conversation. Do you remember the first edition, and what it stood for? Celebrated? How do you see our relationship with sex having changed since 1972?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Susan Quilliam, relationship psychologist, sexologist, and advice columnist. She’s the first woman to revise Alex Comfort’s 1972 original work, “The Joy of Sex.” Her new version, out this month, is “The Joy of Sex: The Timeless Guide to Lovemaking.” 

Read an excerpt from Quilliam’s new edition.

And from Burbank, California, is Pepper Schwartz, sociologist and sexologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.  She’s written advice columns for Glamour Magazine, Perfectmatch.com, and Medhelp.org.  Her most recent book is “Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love, and the Sensual Years.”

 More links:

Read The New Yorker’s recent review-essay on “The Joy of Sex” and the story behind it.

Birds do it. Bees do it. Humans do it, and when it’s “on the side” they call it infidelity. But infidelity is understood, practiced and paid for in many different ways around the world. In some countries it’s astonishingly common. In many others it’s not.

In the United States it is, perhaps, to most taboo. Former Wall Street Journal reporter Pamela Druckerman has found the statistics and followed the trail of infidelity around the world, from the USA to Paris and Moscow, Tokyo and Togo.

This hour On Point: Pamela Druckerman talks about her new book “Lust in Translation: The Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee.”

-Tom Ashbrook

“I got the idea because I was a foreign correspondent and realized that you can learn a lot about foreign cultures by looking at people’s private lives.” Pamela Druckerman

“Men in poor countries cheat a lot and men in wealthier countries cheat a lot less.” Pamela Druckerman

“Women in wealthier countries cheat more than women in poor countries.” Pamela Druckerman

“America, the Philippines and Ireland are the most disapproving of infidelity.” Pamela Druckerman

“In America, the contemporary wisdom on infidelity is that it’s not the cheating, it’s the lying.” Pamela Druckerman

“When affairs happen, Americans are profoundly shocked.” Pamela Druckerman

Guest:

Pamela Druckerman, author of “Lust in Translation: The Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee”

Sometimes a novel’s plot is unlikely. Sometimes it’s ripped straight from life — or life we can easily imagine. Novelist Tom Perrotta’s latest book, “The Abstinence Teacher,” is the second type.

Ruth is a broad-minded sex-ed teacher at the local high school — in a suburb where evangelical Christians are taking charge of the local culture. She makes a casual remark about the joy of sex, and the roof comes off.

Sex-ed becomes abstinence ed. A “virginity consultant” is sent in. And all-American cultural mayhem ensues. This is our life and times.

Up next, On Point: Tom Perrotta and “The Abstinence Teacher.”

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Tom Perrotta, novelist and screenwriter, his new novel is “The Abstinence Teacher.”