Eli Coleman


Eli Coleman is an American sexologist. He is the director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota, and a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. In 2007, he was appointed the first endowed Chair in Sexual Health at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He has published research on sexual orientation, sexual dysfunction and compulsivity, gender dysphoria, and sex offenders.
Coleman is also on the advisory board to Ro, a service for chronic health conditions.

Membership in scientific societies

Coleman is the founding and current editor of the International Journal of Sexual Health. He was also the founding editor of the International Journal of Transgenderism.
He is one of the past-presidents of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the World Association for Sexual Health, International Academy of Sex Research, and the Society for Sex Therapy and Research.

Views

Regarding sexual addiction, Coleman has said, "I think the term 'addiction' is overused and implies that all behavioral excesses can be explained by some similar mechanism. What we know about alcohol and drug addictions cannot simply be transferred to other behavioral excesses. Sex is a basic appetitive drive that for some people becomes out of balance for a variety of reasons. For some it is a problem of impulse control. For others it is more like an obsession. For others, it is like a compulsion. And for others, it is a part of their personality structure and has nothing to do with impulse control, obsessions, or compulsions."

Publications

Some of his significant papers are: