okay, my sense is that, on the more inclusive use of the term, an ‘X whore’ is a person whose unhealthy dependence on X makes him or her willing to sacrifice dignity for it in ways that a typical, reasonable, or well-adjusted person would not.

thus, i've been called a ‘tea whore’ on the evidence that i'm willing to drink embarrassingly low-quality tea when it's the only way to get my fix, and i've been called an ‘attention whore’ on the evidence that (less now than in the past) i've occasionally been known to go out of my way to make a public spectacle of myself.

i can't recall ever trading sex for either of those things, though, so i'm pretty sure that's not what people were talking about.