Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) on Friday joined a group of public figures many may label sex addicts actor David Duchovny and golf champion Tiger Woods , among others, have sought treatment for sex addiction. Weiners transgression involved sexting with a minor, a 15-year-old girl, and for that he will likely serve jail time .

I have a sickness but I do not have an excuse, Weiner said as he sobbed and pleaded guilty to a federal obscenity charge. He also accepted his status as a sex offender and agreed to give up his cell phone. Last October, the estranged husband of top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin checked himself into a Tennessee sex addiction rehabilitation center after the sexting story broke.

But people who study the nature of addiction dont support the idea that sexual addiction is a diagnosable disorder.

The American Psychiatric Association in late 2012 removed mention of sex addiction from the DSM-V, considered the definitive resource on mental disorders, including for insurance companies when determining reimbursements. Even a milder version labeled hypersexuality was dismissed from consideration, with the association citing a lack of empirical evidence to warrant its inclusion.

The American Association for Family and Marriage Therapy, which previously reported that as many as 12 million Americans had an addiction to sex, has removed that information from its website because they no longer support that number, a spokeswoman for the group told HuffPost.

As Joye Swan, chair of psychology at Californias Woodbury University, wrote last September in Psychology Today , Anthony Weiner is not a sex addict; neither is anyone else.