Attraction and lust

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Hi. I have a hard time knowing if some of the feelings I get are the result of natural attraction or the result of lust. For example, sometimes when I talk to a beautiful girl, it feels like my heart is pumping fast and I’ll start to get a tingly feeling down in “that area”, but I’m not trying to “get off” or fantasize bout having sex with the girl or anything. Is that lust what I just experienced?
 
Imagine it’s lunchtime and you’re passing by McDonalds. You catch a whiff of burgers and fries and your stomach begins to growl. Now, you know McDonalds food isn’t healthy, so you try to move your thoughts in another direction.

Or…same scenario, and you begin to ponder how much you’re REALLY craving those fries, and maybe a milkshake, and pretty soon your thoughts are consumed by this desire to turn aound and hit the drive thru.

This is the difference between attraction and lust. Your mind and body will respond to a particular stimulus…Whether that be french fries or a beautiful girl. It is what your MIND does once you acknowledge that initial attraction, that determines whether or not you allow that attraction to become the sin of lust.

Hope that helps.
 
Hi. I have a hard time knowing if some of the feelings I get are the result of natural attraction or the result of lust. For example, sometimes when I talk to a beautiful girl, it feels like my heart is pumping fast and I’ll start to get a tingly feeling down in “that area”, but I’m not trying to “get off” or fantasize bout having sex with the girl or anything. Is that lust what I just experienced?
Attraction and even a reasonable appreciation of beauty is different than lust…

Lust is "thinking lustful thoughts…looking lustfully…making her into an means to sexual arousal etc…trying to arouse yourself…consenting if one gets aroused …imagining things…etc

Of course your heart starts going …and I would not scruple about “little feelings” as you describe…(these are involuntary little feelings…not lust…)

…of course do not consent to any sexual arousal or any thoughts if any should happen
and know oneself…(and the reality of concupscience) know when to change things…use reasonable custody of the eyes …use prudence…avoid actual near occasions of sin etc…but again…do not scruple 🙂
 
Hi. I have a hard time knowing if some of the feelings I get are the result of natural attraction or the result of lust. For example, sometimes when I talk to a beautiful girl, it feels like my heart is pumping fast and I’ll start to get a tingly feeling down in “that area”, but I’m not trying to “get off” or fantasize bout having sex with the girl or anything. Is that lust what I just experienced?
The sin of lust is an illicit seeking of sexual pleasure. This could be in thoughts or actions. This sin (like all sins) is intentional. If something isn’t willed at all, it cannot be a sin.

CCC 2351 says:

“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.”

It should be noted that the word “desire” above means an active desire, or cupidity, rather than a passive attraction. The Latin text, which eventually became the official text of the CCC, uses the word “cupiditas”, which, from what I remember of my college Latin classes, denotes something that is willed.

Passively experiencing reactions from talking talking to a beautiful girl isn’t a sin, but if you are talking to her in order to “get a tingly feeling down in ‘that area’”, than that is evil.
 
Hi. I have a hard time knowing if some of the feelings I get are the result of natural attraction or the result of lust. For example, sometimes when I talk to a beautiful girl, it feels like my heart is pumping fast and I’ll start to get a tingly feeling down in “that area”, but I’m not trying to “get off” or fantasize bout having sex with the girl or anything. Is that lust what I just experienced?
Calm down and quit worrying about it, you’re obviously young and only human; just try and focus on the conversation at hand: what she’s saying to you, and what you’re replying to her. Look at her face, not her torso.
 
Calm down and quit worrying about it, you’re obviously young and only human; just try and focus on the conversation at hand: what she’s saying to you, and what you’re replying to her. Look at her face, not her torso.
Good advice. After all, God gave us the ability to experience those feelings, to appreciate the attractiveness of the opposite sex. Why look for evil in everything?
 
INteresting stuff here, especially concerning lust.

I wonder, though, if there’s not some chemistry involved. Hormones. I cannot recall having this kind of response when I was 16 or 17 and most sexually excitable. Maybe there’s a chemical basis for this.
 
OP, borrow your thread for a question.

Sometimes when I was watching a youtube video of a girl webcaming herself, I find myself deliberately looking at their chest or cleavage out of curiosity of “how it looked like” over there. Did I sin here? Is it a grave matter?
 
OP, borrow your thread for a question.

Sometimes when I was watching a youtube video of a girl webcaming herself, I find myself deliberately looking at their chest or cleavage out of curiosity of “how it looked like” over there. Did I sin here? Is it a grave matter?
Welcome to my world.

Please help me! I need a clear definition of lust or I will go insane! :bigyikes:
 
Catechism of the Catholic Church:

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.

Fr. Hardon’s Dictionary:

catholicreference.net/index.cfm?id=34672
And I don’t know if I were looking at them for pleasure, sexual pleasure, or purely out of curiosity. This is very to hard to tell, because nowadays so many people treat breasts / cleavage as sexual objects. It’s not the same as looking at her hair/nose/eyes/arms. 🤷
 
Hi. I have a hard time knowing if some of the feelings I get are the result of natural attraction or the result of lust. For example, sometimes when I talk to a beautiful girl, it feels like my heart is pumping fast and I’ll start to get a tingly feeling down in “that area”, but I’m not trying to “get off” or fantasize bout having sex with the girl or anything. Is that lust what I just experienced?
Yes.

As for what some call ‘plain attraction’, when have a problem with lust, you have to step further back than it too. It’s a gateway, if it is in fact just that and not something fundamentally flawed or mixed, which until you are free-er you won’t see clearly.
 
Yes.

As for what some call ‘plain attraction’, when have a problem with lust, you have to step further back than it too. It’s a gateway, if it is in fact just that and not something fundamentally flawed or mixed, which until you are free-er you won’t see clearly.
I think you misread his post…

No it is not “Lust”.

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.

Now if he started seeking or consenting to sexual pleasure, deliberately arousing himself etc… or imagining lustful things yes that would be lust…but not what he described…

…heart pounding and “little feelings” involuntarily happening like he mentions … is per se not lust.

(of course one can lust and get your heart pounding etc…but this is not what he is talking about…he is just talking with an attractive girl…of course one may need to use a reasonable custody of the eyes etc…)
 
Incorrect, it’s disordered because it is outside the context of marriage.

“isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.”

So it’s not something that just can be let lie or ignored. Of course the will is required for sin, or culpable omission regarding it.
 
This is what you need to be like:

‘“It is not,” says St. Francis de Sales, “the seeing of objects so much as the fixing of our eyes upon them that proves most pernicious.” “If,” says St. Augustine, “our eyes should by chance fall upon others, let us take care never to fix them upon any one.” Father Manareo, when taking leave of St. Ignatius for a distant place, looked steadfastly in his face: for this look he was corrected by the saint. . . I do not see how looks at young persons of a different sex can be excused from the guilt of a venial fault, or even from mortal sin, when there is proximate danger of criminal consent. “It is not lawful,” says St. Gregory, “to behold what it is not lawful to covet.” The evil thought that proceeds from looks, though it should be rejected, never fails to leave a stain upon the soul. Brother Roger, a Franciscan of singular purity, being once asked why he was so reserved in his intercourse with women, replied, that when men avoid the occasions of sin, God preserves them; but when they expose themselves to danger, they are justly abandoned by the Lord, and easily fall into some grievous transgressions.’

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
You must consider all such occasions and attractions poison, to compensate and correct for concupiscence and the habits that have been built up due to it. You need to build up habitual antipathy and opposite reaction.*

‘A person sins by complacency, when he does not desire to commit the sinful act, but delights in it as if he had committed it. This complacency is called morose delectation. It is called morose, not because the complacency in the thought of the unchaste acts lasts for a considerable time, but because the will dwells with delight on the thought. Hence the sin of complacency may, as St. Thomas teaches, be committed in a moment. “It is called morose,” says the holy Doctor, “not be cause one fakes pleasure for some time in the impure act, but because the will is resolved to dwell on the thought which it should reject at once.” he says “libenter” (" with pleasure") to remove scruples from persons of timorous conscience, who suffer against their will certain carnal motions and delights, although they do all in their power to banish them. Though the inferior part should feel a certain delight, as long as the will does not consent, there is no sin, at least no mortal sin.’

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

‘To abstain from sinful actions is not sufficient for the fulfillment of God’s law. The very desire of what is forbidden is evil.’

St. John Baptist de la Salle
 
This is what you need to be like:

‘“It is not,” says St. Francis de Sales, “the seeing of objects so much as the fixing of our eyes upon them that proves most pernicious.” “If,” says St. Augustine, “our eyes should by chance fall upon others, let us take care never to fix them upon any one.” Father Manareo, when taking leave of St. Ignatius for a distant place, looked steadfastly in his face: for this look he was corrected by the saint. . . I do not see how looks at young persons of a different sex can be excused from the guilt of a venial fault, or even from mortal sin, when there is proximate danger of criminal consent. “It is not lawful,” says St. Gregory, “to behold what it is not lawful to covet.” The evil thought that proceeds from looks, though it should be rejected, never fails to leave a stain upon the soul. Brother Roger, a Franciscan of singular purity, being once asked why he was so reserved in his intercourse with women, replied, that when men avoid the occasions of sin, God preserves them; but when they expose themselves to danger, they are justly abandoned by the Lord, and easily fall into some grievous transgressions.’

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
You must consider all such occasions and attractions poison, to compensate and correct for concupiscence and the habits that have been built up due to it. You need to build up habitual antipathy and opposite reaction.*

‘A person sins by complacency, when he does not desire to commit the sinful act, but delights in it as if he had committed it. This complacency is called morose delectation. It is called morose, not because the complacency in the thought of the unchaste acts lasts for a considerable time, but because the will dwells with delight on the thought. Hence the sin of complacency may, as St. Thomas teaches, be committed in a moment. “It is called morose,” says the holy Doctor, “not be cause one fakes pleasure for some time in the impure act, but because the will is resolved to dwell on the thought which it should reject at once.” he says “libenter” (" with pleasure") to remove scruples from persons of timorous conscience, who suffer against their will certain carnal motions and delights, although they do all in their power to banish them. Though the inferior part should feel a certain delight, as long as the will does not consent, there is no sin, at least no mortal sin.’

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

‘To abstain from sinful actions is not sufficient for the fulfillment of God’s law. The very desire of what is forbidden is evil.’

St. John Baptist de la Salle
All these quotes seem to point looking a beautiful people COULD LEAD TO lust, but they don’t say it is lust in itself. And since I’ve never given into lust when looking at beautiful girls, I don’t consider it an occasion of sin and I dismiss a lustful thought as soon as it comes up, just like St. Thomas stated. Most saints live celibate lives anyway, so they don’t have any reason to be looking at beautiful women. Archbishop Fulton sheen acknowledged a beautiful stewardess from a plane ride once during one of him speeches on the 3 kinds of love. He said “celibacy doesn’t blind us you know!. We can look at the menu, just not order anything”. Also Song of Solomon seems to think it’s ok to admire the beauty of women.
 
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Sheen for all that he’s talked a lot of good is not a saint.

And you can’t dance on the edge of the cliff and not fall.

Song of Solomon is meant to be interpreted spiritually, and actually historically is forbidden to be read by the immature, both by Jews and Christians.

I suggest you try to empathize with the quotes a bit more and go a somewhat farther even if you disagree with the idea, see what happens. Put it to the test.
 
Incorrect, it’s disordered because it is outside the context of marriage.

“isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.”

So it’s not something that just can be let lie or ignored. Of course the will is required for sin, or culpable omission regarding it.
Again you are misreading the poster.

He said he is NOT thinking lustful thoughts…etc.

What he is talking about is a natural attraction…“the heart beats fast cause he is talking with a girl”…NOT his heart beats fast cause he is thinking impure thoughts about a girl…or he is looking lustfully at a girl seeking to arouse himself or seeking sexual pleasure…or to have sexual thoughts…or consenting to them if they should arise…

It is NOT disordered to TALK with a girl…with ones eyes open…

It is NOT disordered if some “little involuntary tingling” happens cause you see a beautiful and attractive girl.

If talking with it is required for one to be Married in order to talk with a girl…! Or to see a girl…? (with modesty)

Well in some countries with radical Islamic Law it is perhaps or close to it!

Now of course…it is possible to “Lust” in any circumstance…and yes one needs a reasonable “custody of the senses” etc…but again you misread his post…🙂 I do not think you mean this 🙂
 
This is what you need to be like:

‘“It is not,” says St. Francis de Sales, “the seeing of objects so much as the fixing of our eyes upon them that proves most pernicious.” “If,” says St. Augustine, “our eyes should by chance fall upon others, let us take care never to fix them upon any one.” Father Manareo, when taking leave of St. Ignatius for a distant place, looked steadfastly in his face: for this look he was corrected by the saint. . . I do not see how looks at young persons of a different sex can be excused from the guilt of a venial fault, or even from mortal sin, when there is proximate danger of criminal consent. “It is not lawful,” says St. Gregory, “to behold what it is not lawful to covet.” The evil thought that proceeds from looks, though it should be rejected, never fails to leave a stain upon the soul. Brother Roger, a Franciscan of singular purity, being once asked why he was so reserved in his intercourse with women, replied, that when men avoid the occasions of sin, God preserves them; but when they expose themselves to danger, they are justly abandoned by the Lord, and easily fall into some grievous transgressions.’

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
You must consider all such occasions and attractions poison, to compensate and correct for concupiscence and the habits that have been built up due to it. You need to build up habitual antipathy and opposite reaction.*

‘A person sins by complacency, when he does not desire to commit the sinful act, but delights in it as if he had committed it. This complacency is called morose delectation. It is called morose, not because the complacency in the thought of the unchaste acts lasts for a considerable time, but because the will dwells with delight on the thought. Hence the sin of complacency may, as St. Thomas teaches, be committed in a moment. “It is called morose,” says the holy Doctor, “not be cause one fakes pleasure for some time in the impure act, but because the will is resolved to dwell on the thought which it should reject at once.” he says “libenter” (" with pleasure") to remove scruples from persons of timorous conscience, who suffer against their will certain carnal motions and delights, although they do all in their power to banish them. Though the inferior part should feel a certain delight, as long as the will does not consent, there is no sin, at least no mortal sin.’

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

‘To abstain from sinful actions is not sufficient for the fulfillment of God’s law. The very desire of what is forbidden is evil.’

St. John Baptist de la Salle
One needs “reasonable custody of the eyes” …especially the way women dress in our culture…this is true…I encourage such…But the custody of the eyes which a particular Saint observed…is not required…

As for the other quotes…they do not have to do with the poster. He is not “having morose delectation”…etc…the quotes there are not about what the poster asked. Though the last part of St. Alphonsus is closer to usefulness here…

And the last quote has nothing to do with the poster either…he is not desiring some evil…he is talking with a girl…and the last time I looked marriage is a good…and one should really talk with a girl before one marries them :rolleyes: (I think again you read his post too quickly)
 
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