Duncan Roy is a director, producer and writer whom I had never heard of, and I didn’t watch his exploits as a patient/reality show performer on VH1’s “Celebrity Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew .” The reason for the latter was a mixture of ethics and taste: feeding the fame addiction of celebrities while supposedly treating their other addictions seemed wrong to me, and inducing sex-addicted female porn stars, beauty queens and models to go into therapy with similarly attractive and sexually obsessive men is ridiculous, like setting “The Biggest Loser” at a 24 hour, all-you-can-eat smorgasbord.

Roy came out of the show with some benefits, however. He felt the therapy actually helped him, which for any addict is the most important result. He also learned a lot about reality shows, and passes along his observations in a blog entry at The Daily Beast. It is fascinating, and reinforces my belief that these monstrous television hybrids of  game shows, soap operas and documentaries are too ethically complex to dismiss, too rich with life lessons to ignore, too revealing of 21st Century culture to take lightly, and too dishonest and cynical to take seriously.

Among Roy’s revelations:

• Dr. Drew Pinsky, the therapy front man for the show, is out of his depth with sex addiction.
• He also is an atheist, which in Roy’s opinion should disqualify him from overseeing “12 Step” addiction programs. This is a controversial ethics topic for another day.
• All the women on the show were represented by the same agent, who was very involved in creating their show personas.
• One participant had a product endorsement contract that had him prominently wearing and displaying brand name articles of clothing.
• The legitimate therapy that went on off-camera and the presentation of the therapy on-camera were completely different.
• Becoming recognizable from the show has made his recovery after the show more difficult, as exactly the kind of sex partners he was addicted to now actively approach him.

Yet at the end of it all, his reality show experience worked for Roy.  He is recovering, and the show helped. As with the “Biggest Loser,” which recently had its emotional finale, ethically questionable methods and deceptive practices still accomplished multiple, beneficial objectives: lives  changed for the better; careers launched;  observers inspired; millions entertained; products sold; money made. If you are an unequivocal  fan of  “the ends justify the means.” TV reality shows are your meat.

As for me, after watching many of these shows for hundreds of hours and reading about many others I couldn’t bring myself to see, I’m still on the fence. Reality show ethics are more complicated than I once thought.