A pretty serious question from a close friend of mine

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ACatholicVirginian

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Hey y’all!

I have a friend who came to me the other day and asked me a pretty serious question. He is the friend that I have mentioned before in an article where I talked about him looking at muscular and fit women and admiring their muscles and things, and not being lustful. He told me . . . that he has bodily response sometimes, . . . and he does not intend this to happen, nor does he take pleasure in it. he was asking me if it was still considered lust, even though he did not desire for the erection, nor did he take pleasure in it… he is just really concerned about it because he says that he has internal debates with himself all the time about it, and he doesn’t know what the answer is period he doesn’t want to drive himself so far downfield that he, if he were in the wrong, debated himself into thinking that he was not in the wrong, and he kept going to communion without realizing what he was doing. He wants to stay out of mortal sin.

I’m sorry if this has made anybody uncomfortable.
 
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Staring at impure images is wrong. Our sick society deems it ok because it’s “fitness” research, “body building” magazines even men in these workout subscription or vitamins for muscle enhancement all come with these . . . problematic images that I think promote the homosexual lifestyle.
 
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I’m not sure this is a topic you want to continue talking about with your friend.
 
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ACatholicVirginian said:
Hey y’all!

I have a friend who came to me the other day and asked me a pretty serious question. He is the friend that I have mentioned before in an article where I talked about him looking at muscular and fit women and admiring their muscles and things, and not being lustful. He told me that even though he does not intend for it to happen, sometimes his reproductive organ becomes erect, and he does not intend this to happen, nor does he take pleasure in it. he was asking me if it was still considered lust, even though he did not desire for the erection, nor did he take pleasure in it… he is just really concerned about it because he says that he has internal debates with himself all the time about it, and he doesn’t know what the answer is period he doesn’t want to drive himself so far downfield that he, if he were in the wrong, debated himself into thinking that he was not in the wrong, and he kept going to communion without realizing what he was doing. He wants to stay out of mortal sin.

I’m sorry if this has made anybody uncomfortable.
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I am curious as to why your friend does not go to Confession and mention this. The priest would give him a definitive answer.
Why would you think we can give a better answer than his priest?

CCC 2351 Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.
 
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At the risk of being uncharitable, I think your friend is having himself on. Short of some physical dysfunction, if a male has an erection while looking at photos of women he is lusting after them.
 
The safest thing to do is to tell him to take this issue to a priest.

If he is philosophically or theologically-minded, Pope St. John Paul II (if I have a correct reading of it), talks about this kind of thing in Love and Responsibility (written before he was Pope). There is a Google Books preview of it available, here:


The relevant section is found on page 159, and the relevant part is on page 162 (the middle and last paragraph; ignore the Google highlight of “Structure of Sin”, that is a function of my search of it).

Also worth reading are his many speeches on the Theology of the Body, which talk about love, marriage, concupiscence, the necessity of purity of heart in how we see (for instance, the sections 60-63 in terms of art), and more, which can be found here:

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/documents/pope-john-paul-ii-1/theology-of-the-body-34

Pope St. John Paul II had a very philosophical mind, though, so it can be easy to get lost in his works. Like I said, I believe the safest thing for your friend to do is take these questions to a priest. Perhaps have him read some of the above, and then have him talk about what he has read and his own situation to a priest, outside of Confession.
 
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Your friend should be discussing this with a priest, and not having long discussions with his friends about it.

And you also should not be posting about your friend’s intimate issues on the public Internet. Especially since this is the second thread now about your friend’s issues looking at women.

If your friend wants to get the Internet’s take on such a personal matter, let him make his own threads. If you wish to help your friend, encourage him to speak to a priest.
 
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ACatholicVirginian said:
He told me that even though he does not intend for it to happen, sometimes his reproductive organ becomes erect
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You can just say penis…

Anyway, your “friend” seems to have a lot of questions and anxiety surrounding lust. I think instead of relaying questions to the internet your “friend” should just approach a priest.
 
Look, you can walk close to a cliff if you need to, but at some point you need to say it’s reckless, even if you don’t want to jump off, as you could easily slip. In this case, as I indicated in one of the 2-3 threads you have now created on the topic (which is fine, but is ENOUGH now!), no, the will is not necessarily engaging in the sin of lust properly speaking, but it is CLEARLY moving into curiosity annexed to lust, which is also sin, albeit venial sin. Unless your friend is an anatomy major, he needs to find more constructive things to do with his time than making excuses for using some magazine pictures as something approaching soft-core pornography.

-K
 
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The last time I posted something using the actual nouns for the male and female organs, someone posted a “heavens! children read this forum you know” response and then the mod arrived with the red pencil.
You’d think it would be fine and even preferred to use the correct noun for the body part, but maybe on this forum, not so much. 😦

Probably safer to use the terminology the OP did.
 
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Just seeing someone muscular in the gym and having this bodily reaction is one thing and not really controllable. It is quite another thing to intentionally go on the internet and look at muscular women.

Whomever this “friend” is should speak to a priest
 
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