Celebrity crushes

[Gordon_Sims]

In the thread about Jennifer Lawrence and the leaked nude photos of various celebrities, a couple people mentioned celebrity crushes. This is a big thing among some of my family and friends, to the point that some of them actually still maintain a list of ten celebrities their spouse should allow them to sleep with if they ever get a chance. My question, though, is, Isn’t this adultery? By saying you have a crush on someone other than your spouse, aren’t you admitting to lusting after them, even if, as some people have said to me, it’s just a little bit or it’s all in fun?

 

[pianistclare]

LOL. Where do you get these people?

Coveting covers a lot of ground.
But, frankly, I don’t see many of the people you describe as being all that concerned about their souls…

I’d think I’d make a lost of the top 10 people I don’t care to associate with.
:twocents:

 

[Vim71]

My question, though, is, Isn’t this adultery?

Sounds like it to me, and by the sounds of the way people talk about these Celebrity crushes, it sounds like idolatry too.

 

[Allegra]

Sounds like a bad joke.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Overall, I’ll have to pass the buck and say talk to your priest.

But I think consenting to fantasies about sleeping with someone is a sin and a grave matter, unless maybe it has some role in sexual intercourse in a valid marriage.

But I’d talk to a priest is this is bothering one’s conscience.

 

[madtom]

I think the responses here take this to an unnecessary level. It is completely natural for someone to see someone of the opposite sex and be attracted to them. We can be atttracted to someone and even have a “crush” on someone (crushes need not even be due to physical attraction) without having any desire to actually be with that person. to covet means to desire, to wish for. and lust means an uncontrolled sexual desire and craving. neither of these definitions are needed to simply find someone attractive or admirable. We don’t stop being human and having normal human feelings just because we get married. It’s how we manage and act on our feelings that matter.

I think it’s plainly clear, however, that making an actual list as you described takes it to coveting level.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

LOL. Where do you get these people?

Coveting covers a lot of ground.
But, frankly, I don’t see many of the people you describe as being all that concerned about their souls…

I’d think I’d make a lost of the top 10 people I don’t care to associate with.
:twocents:

A fair amount of people I know behave this way, but this thread was sparked by celebrity crushes being mentioned in the other thread. As far as the list goes, I had to look it up to be sure. The idea of the “freebie list” came from the TV show Friends. It’s a list of celebrities you can sleep with and your significant other can’t get mad. It was a frequent topic of conversation among a few groups of people we hung out with back in the late 90s and into the early 00s. I have a couple friends who were really obsessed with the show who still bring up their freebie list on occasion. Others just fawn over their celebrity crushes. The vast majority of the ones I know who do this are women, although a couple guy friends do as well. The bulk of the people I know don’t see an issue with this and tend to get upset with me or anyone else who questions the practice. The point I’ve made, though, is that if you’re claiming a desire to have sex with these people, or even that you get aroused by them, then you’re admitting to lusting over someone who’s not your spouse and, therefore, committing adultery, even if you don’t want to view it as that.

The biggest tussle I’ve had over this was at a party several years ago. A group of us were playing a game where everyone had to complete a list of tasks or answer a series of questions. One of them was to tell everyone who was on your freebies list. When my wife and I said we didn’t have a list, the host got upset and said everyone has a list and that we had to come up with one for the sake of the game. I told them why I thought it was wrong and they told me it was just in fun. My wife refused but I decided to go along to avoid ruining what had been a good time up until then. I came up with a list of dead celebrities mainly to show how silly it was, but also to try to upset my wife less. Everyone playing the game said it didn’t count because it had to be people you could feasibly meet and have a shot at at some point. I asked if it could be anyone at all and they said yes. I then came up with a list consisting of their spouses (including one at the party), much younger sisters and ex-girlfriends. That got everyone upset. I told them I didn’t see what the problem was and said it was all in fun. When they told me that what I had done was different and crossed a line, I said I couldn’t see why. If it was perfectly okay for Brad to say in front of his wife that he wanted to sleep with Gwyneth Paltrow and would do so given the chance, it should be okay for me to say that I wanted to sleep with Brad’s wife. Needless to say, that dampened the mood pretty quickly and we haven’t seen much of that group since. Thankfully, once I explained myself to my wife on the way home, she got my point. She even started talking to me again a couple days later.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

Overall, I’ll have to pass the buck and say talk to your priest.

But I think consenting to fantasies about sleeping with someone is a sin and a grave matter, unless maybe it has some role in sexual intercourse in a valid marriage.

But I’d talk to a priest is this is bothering one’s conscience.

I didn’t say I did this, or that it’s bothering my conscience. It does bother me to hear and see others do it, though, especially when taken to a more extreme level. I have a cousin who is nuts about Michael Jordan. Anytime she sees a picture of him or a commercial with him in it, she talks about how he’s her man and that she’d leave her husband in a heartbeat if Michael would ask. She says this in front of her husband, her kids and anyone else in earshot. My point is that I think the whole idea of a celebrity crush is wrong. As much as some people tend to disagree with this, if she was saying the same thing about her next door neighbor or her husband’s best friend, everyone would see it as a problem.

 

[Tiffany10]

If I had a Crush on one of my high school teachers, would that be me causing Adultry ?
No, That would be silly, If a teacher had a crush on a student , and kept it to themselves
And never made it known in any way , would that be a sin ?
Not sure, but isn’t it really the same thing ?
Wouldn’t it be simply just an admiration of someone ?
It is I think a sin maybe , if one person started doing advances verbally or physicaly
To another,

 

[Holly3278]

Yes, that would definitely be adultery. Whenever a married person has sex with someone other than their spouse, it is adultery.

That said, when I was in high school I had a crush on Leonardo DiCaprio. I’ve since outgrown that. lol

 

[Cat]

I think celebrity crushes are fun!

All my life, I’ve had celebrity crushes. For the last ten years, I have crushed on actor Robert Patrick, who is currently starring on CBS’s “Scorpion.” (He was the Terminator, and also played Doggett on X files, etc.).

While my daughters were growing up, my refrigerator was covered with pictures of all the celebs that I had a crush on. One of their friends told them, “Your mom is the only mom I know who does this.” They thought it was cool.

I did the same thing while I was a teenager. I still have the four scrapbooks that I filled with pictures of the Dark Shadows cast, mainly actor Jonathan Frid (R.I.P.). (Back then, we didn’t have computers to store our pictures in.)

My mother was the same say. Her crush on Gregory Peck was so big that she named my brother after him!

My dad was the same way. Even in the last few years of his life, he had a crush on Dr. Nancy Sniderman on NBC.

My younger daughter crushes on Clark Gable and Bob Barker (yes, the former host of The Price Is Right). When she was younger, she loved Ben Affleck!

My husband has crushes on any red-headed actress or celebrity! His office is covered with pictures and memorabilia of Ariel, the Little Mermaid.

This is all in fun! But not just fun. Back when I first got interested in Robert Patrick, I prayed for him regularly. Back then, he professed atheism. But after he did the movie Ladder 49, he started professing an interest in Catholicism. For the last several years, he has been a member of an Anglican Episcopalian church in LA, and his twitter feed lists “Episcopalian” and “Faith Conquers Fear.” So my prayers worked! Yay!

I think it’s good for Christians to pray for their crushes.

I agree that fantasizing about sleeping with our crushes is sinful. But I think most of us don’t do this. We just have fun with it. And frankly, I see nothing sinful about admiring an actor or some other celebrity who is talented (and often attractive).

Gordon Sims, I agree with many others on CAF who say that you and your family manage to find the weirdest friends, neighbors, fellow parishioners, and acquaintances! If I were you, I would seek to move to a more normal section of the U.S.!

And I would have left the party where the people insisted that you and your wife make “the list,” and I would have stopped associating with such trashy people. Celebrities are real people with lives and loves of their own. In recent years, we’ve seen more incidents of “celebrity stalking,” and I think it would be very scary for a celeb to be the object of someone’s sexual lust. It isn’t a crush anymore when it gets to that point, it’s exploitation, and it’s demeaning to the celeb. We should admire their talent and dream of meeting them in person someday, but not reduce them to a set of genitalia.

 

[Sarcelle]

I think celebrity crushes are fun!

All my life, I’ve had celebrity crushes. For the last ten years, I have crushed on actor Robert Patrick, who is currently starring on CBS’s “Scorpion.” (He was the Terminator, and also played Doggett on X files, etc.).

While my daughters were growing up, my refrigerator was covered with pictures of all the celebs that I had a crush on. One of their friends told them, “Your mom is the only mom I know who does this.” They thought it was cool.

I did the same thing while I was a teenager. I still have the four scrapbooks that I filled with pictures of the Dark Shadows cast, mainly actor Jonathan Frid (R.I.P.). (Back then, we didn’t have computers to store our pictures in.)

My mother was the same say. Her crush on Gregory Peck was so big that she named my brother after him!

My dad was the same way. Even in the last few years of his life, he had a crush on Dr. Nancy Sniderman on NBC.

My younger daughter crushes on Clark Gable and Bob Barker (yes, the former host of The Price Is Right). When she was younger, she loved Ben Affleck!

My husband has crushes on any red-headed actress or celebrity! His office is covered with pictures and memorabilia of Ariel, the Little Mermaid.

This is all in fun! But not just fun. Back when I first got interested in Robert Patrick, I prayed for him regularly. Back then, he professed atheism. But after he did the movie Ladder 49, he started professing an interest in Catholicism. For the last several years, he has been a member of an Anglican Episcopalian church in LA, and his twitter feed lists “Episcopalian” and “Faith Conquers Fear.” So my prayers worked! Yay!

I think it’s good for Christians to pray for their crushes.

I agree that fantasizing about sleeping with our crushes is sinful. But I think most of us don’t do this. We just have fun with it. And frankly, I see nothing sinful about admiring an actor or some other celebrity who is talented (and often attractive).

Gordon Sims, I agree with many others on CAF who say that you and your family manage to find the weirdest friends, neighbors, fellow parishioners, and acquaintances! If I were you, I would seek to move to a more normal section of the U.S.!

And I would have left the party where the people insisted that you and your wife make “the list,” and I would have stopped associating with such trashy people. Celebrities are real people with lives and loves of their own. In recent years, we’ve seen more incidents of “celebrity stalking,” and I think it would be very scary for a celeb to be the object of someone’s sexual lust. It isn’t a crush anymore when it gets to that point, it’s exploitation, and it’s demeaning to the celeb. We should admire their talent and dream of meeting them in person someday, but not reduce them to a set of genitalia.

Great post!

I do not have crushes on celebrities but I have always met people who I deeply admire and respect. Most of them were devout Christians, both Catholic and non-Catholic. They played a part on my journey from atheism to belief.

They were not celebrities but ordinary everyday people who to me were extraordinary in their own way. These people were the people I admire and respect and learn from.

 

[Sarcelle]

I think celebrity crushes are fun!

All my life, I’ve had celebrity crushes. For the last ten years, I have crushed on actor Robert Patrick, who is currently starring on CBS’s “Scorpion.” (He was the Terminator, and also played Doggett on X files, etc.).

While my daughters were growing up, my refrigerator was covered with pictures of all the celebs that I had a crush on. One of their friends told them, “Your mom is the only mom I know who does this.” They thought it was cool.

I did the same thing while I was a teenager. I still have the four scrapbooks that I filled with pictures of the Dark Shadows cast, mainly actor Jonathan Frid (R.I.P.). (Back then, we didn’t have computers to store our pictures in.)

My mother was the same say. Her crush on Gregory Peck was so big that she named my brother after him!

My dad was the same way. Even in the last few years of his life, he had a crush on Dr. Nancy Sniderman on NBC.

My younger daughter crushes on Clark Gable and Bob Barker (yes, the former host of The Price Is Right). When she was younger, she loved Ben Affleck!

My husband has crushes on any red-headed actress or celebrity! His office is covered with pictures and memorabilia of Ariel, the Little Mermaid.

This is all in fun! But not just fun. Back when I first got interested in Robert Patrick, I prayed for him regularly. Back then, he professed atheism. But after he did the movie Ladder 49, he started professing an interest in Catholicism. For the last several years, he has been a member of an Anglican Episcopalian church in LA, and his twitter feed lists “Episcopalian” and “Faith Conquers Fear.” So my prayers worked! Yay!

I think it’s good for Christians to pray for their crushes.

I agree that fantasizing about sleeping with our crushes is sinful. But I think most of us don’t do this. We just have fun with it. And frankly, I see nothing sinful about admiring an actor or some other celebrity who is talented (and often attractive).

Gordon Sims, I agree with many others on CAF who say that you and your family manage to find the weirdest friends, neighbors, fellow parishioners, and acquaintances! If I were you, I would seek to move to a more normal section of the U.S.!

And I would have left the party where the people insisted that you and your wife make “the list,” and I would have stopped associating with such trashy people. Celebrities are real people with lives and loves of their own. In recent years, we’ve seen more incidents of “celebrity stalking,” and I think it would be very scary for a celeb to be the object of someone’s sexual lust. It isn’t a crush anymore when it gets to that point, it’s exploitation, and it’s demeaning to the celeb. We should admire their talent and dream of meeting them in person someday, but not reduce them to a set of genitalia.

I think celebrities become icons, symbols to the general public not flesh and blood humans. Look in Youtube for celebrities reading deragatory tweets about them.

 

[Cat]

I think celebrities become icons, symbols to the general public not flesh and blood humans. Look in Youtube for celebrities reading deragatory tweets about them.

I think it depends on the celebrity. Robert Patrick works very hard to remain a family man, stating publicly that his greatest “production” is his two children, and stating publicly that he and his wife have a “covenant marriage” (they’ve been married for 25 years). Mrs. Patrick posted tweets this summer about her son who was working at a church camp–she was so proud. And a few months ago, Mr. Patrick posted a marvelous picture of him and his daughter at a shooting range.

Other celebs strive to remain as normal as possible, and accessible to their fans through online media and through personal appearances at various events, charities, etc.

One celeb that comes to mind is Jay Leno, married to the same woman for decades, and just recently returned from a U.S.O. tour. He is so wealthy that he was able to not take a salary for his Tonight Show years, but he still takes the risk of going overseas to entertain the troops in some of the most dangerous locations in the world.

My daughter is in the entertainment industry and she associates with some pretty high-up celebs. She knows them as normal people, not “icons.” They work very hard.

I think that most celebs are like that, although I agree that some celebs do try to project a godlike image. And some are just very immature (e.g., Justin Bieber).

They have a very pressure-filled life, and I don’t envy them.

 

[Maxirad]

I have autism as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder. I’ve had trouble dealing with crushes I’ve had on various female celebrities over the years.

 

[Nelka]

As a child I had a crush on Charlene (Kylie Minogue in Neighbours).

I don’t think I have had one since then but there are none that I would want to sleep with even if my wife didn’t mind and it wasn’t a sin.

There is a John Smith’s advert in England where two couples have a conversation like this and one of the wives says to her husband that he can have anyone. He says Claire from work; she didn’t like that.

 

[Bruised_Reed]

So are you saying that my Pinterest shrine :compcoff: to Adam Levine is wrong? That I should delete all 1,095 pins??? :takethat:

 

[Gordon_Sims]

Cat, I think there’s a big difference between admiring and being a fan of someone and having a crush on them. Having a crush alludes to feelings one should only have for a spouse. I’m not saying that acknowledging that someone is attractive is wrong, but when you take it further than that is when it becomes an issue. When someone gushes over an actor or actress, I can’t help but wonder why they’re not acting in a similar matter about their spouse. I know that if I hung pictures of an actress on our fridge, or made her pictures into my PC’s wallpaper, my wife would throw a fit.

As far as the freebie list goes, I remember lots of people making a big deal out of it back when that Friends episode first aired, not just people I knew directly (a search through some old emails refreshed my memory a bit on this). At least one other show made reference to it, and literally every forum I was on at the time (and it was quite a few) had a thread devoted to it. I asked some friends and coworkers about it today and they all either recalled the episode or at least hearing about the freebie list, and/or talking about it and coming up with their own lists with their friends at the time. That doesn’t make it okay, but it didn’t just make an impression on my little neck of the woods.

 

[Cat]

Cat, I think there’s a big difference between admiring and being a fan of someone and having a crush on them. Having a crush alludes to feelings one should only have for a spouse. I’m not saying that acknowledging that someone is attractive is wrong, but when you take it further than that is when it becomes an issue. When someone gushes over an actor or actress, I can’t help but wonder why they’re not acting in a similar matter about their spouse. I know that if I hung pictures of an actress on our fridge, or made her pictures into my PC’s wallpaper, my wife would throw a fit.

As far as the freebie list goes, I remember lots of people making a big deal out of it back when that Friends episode first aired, not just people I knew directly (a search through some old emails refreshed my memory a bit on this). At least one other show made reference to it, and literally every forum I was on at the time (and it was quite a few) had a thread devoted to it. I asked some friends and coworkers about it today and they all either recalled the episode or at least hearing about the freebie list, and/or talking about it and coming up with their own lists with their friends at the time. That doesn’t make it okay, but it didn’t just make an impression on my little neck of the woods.

I disagree with you.

“Having a crush” is a extremely immature type of “love”. Many young girls or teenagers develop “crushes” on a “teen idol” or sometimes on a real-life teacher or coach, and this a normal part of growing up and a way that girls prepare for the more mature love that develops when they meet a man who would be a good husband for them. It’s been going on for decades. Like I said, my mother had a crush on Gregory Peck. And how many of our great-grandmothers “loved” Rudolph Valentino or Errol Flynn?

“Having a crush” is all about feelings, but no action is involved, other than a totally passive involvement with watching or listening to the celebrity on media (TV, radio, stage).

Mature married love is all about actions. Certainly, it’s nice if the feelings are there, but as many of us know, often the feelings aren’t there, but we love anyway by making the dinner, lifting heavy objects (sofas, etc.), spending the paycheck on a new toilet instead of a Blackhawks jersey, wearing the cute outfit instead of the comfy sweat pants, etc.

And what married couples discover is that the FEELINGS follow the action; if we ACT like we’re in love, the feelings come back over and over again.

Married couples who have the immature “crush” type of love don’t understand this. They think that once the feelings are gone or hard to manufacture, that the marriage is over, and they head for a divorce court. So wrong, so wrong. They need to ACT like they’re in love, and they will find that the feelings are still there.

Crushing on a celebrity is a very safe way for a teenager or young girl (or a married man or woman!) to “practice” being in love because in most cases, the two will never, ever meet each other or even see each other or communicate with each other in any way. The teen doesn’t have to be “in love” all the time with her celeb crush (like I do with my husband). And if she dumps him for another celeb crush, he isn’t hurt and neither is she.

Even if the teen (or adult) writes fan letters or goes on Facebook, there is no real communication because chances are good that a wise celebrity will have a publicity agent who manages the Facebook page and other social media. There is never conversation or any kind of shared activity or chores, there is no relationship with the family of the celebrity, there is no pressure, no expenditure of monies on each other, and most importantly, no sexual demands.

All the teen girl has to do is experience that delightful rush of excitement when her crush is present (on TV, on the movie screen, online, and occasionally, if she is really lucky, in a concert or theater venue). Ahhhh!

And it really is delightful, Gordon Sims. There’s nothing evil or sinful about sighing over a handsome face who also is a good actor, singer, dancer, athlete, etc.

But again, this is an extremely immature form of “love,” and not the way a woman should love her husband. A woman who has “crush love” for her husband will have a very rocky marriage. The love should be much more mature.

The love that a wife has for her husband must go wayyyyy beyond the “crush” phase if a marriage is to succeed. A woman must be able to love her husband when he is stinky (before he showers), dirty (from doing some backbreaking chore around the house), crabby (because he is trying to balance the household budget), over-sexed (he just can’t wait any longer), under-sexed (he has a physical problem), exhausted (because he was up all night helping take care of a sick child), foolish (after he spent too much money buying sports memorabilia online), sick (barfing, sniffing, coughing, etc.), angry (because the investment he thought would help the family has gone belly up), grieving (parents-in-law eventually become old, feeble, and sadly, pass away), etc.

Being married to my husband is my vocation and I take it very seriously, and after 35years, I’m still working on developing a totally mature and selfless love for him that is manifested in actions, not just feelings.

 

[Midwest88]

They have a very pressure-filled life, and I don’t envy them.

I can see Leno, and other talk show hosts having pressured filled life, but others? Very?

The only sympathy I have for celebrities are their dealings with the papz and the poisonous atmosphere that young female entertainers face when tempted to resort to plastic surgery to alter their otherwise pretty face/body.

I think celebrities become icons, symbols to the general public not flesh and blood humans*. Look in Youtube for celebrities reading deragatory tweets about them*.

There are a lot of deragotory tweets about many things. Politicians. Short people. White people. Conservatives. Fat people. If anything, the “deragotory” tweets are probably the most “friendly” deragotory tweets, if that makes any sense. What I’m trying to say is that I see the whole reading sessions as a way to make fun of the “the masses”, the “nobodies” – the celebrities are reading them from a safe haven – in front of the camera, their fans watching, and surrounded by people that adore them. The people that lose are the people that write such things. In the end the celebrity walks away winning – as always in these situations.