Renowned Golfer Tiger Woods' admission that he is undergoing therapy after having extra-marital affairs, has turned attention on the issue of sex addiction, a condition that some specialists believe is becoming ordinary.

However, addiction to sex is a contentious notion that is presently not identified as an official diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, believed to be the ultimate word on psychological disorders.

Dr. Ken Zucker of the University of Toronto said that he anticipated "hypersexuality disorder" to be listed on the manual.

Zucker said, "Certainly a lot of clinicians believe there is a clinical phenomenon of people who experience a lot of distress or get into a lot of trouble from having excessive sex".

He said that anything in the sex and gender sphere is contentious. Everyone has a different outlook regarding sex. These topics increase the boundary between what's normal and what isn't, and where do you draw the line.

A number of clinics, including one in Mississippi where Woods has been reported to be taking treatment, have surfaced to cure sex addiction.

People receiving this treatment comprise famous personalities like actor David Duchovny. The U. S. cable TV channel VH1 recently ran a sequence "Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew" centering on celebrities undertaking treatment for sex obsession.

Craig Fabrikant, a Psychologist at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, said, "It's like a lot of patterned behaviors that could be better described as obsessive-compulsive traits".