Definition of Lust?

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WindyFire12

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When is lust considered adultery? Say a married person has an attraction to someone they are not married to and they find themselves periodically thinking of this person. Feelings of missing that person, wondering what they are doing, wanting to be with that person, etc. Is that lust? I’ve always understood lust as involving wanting to have sex with someone you’re not married to. However, I heard lust recently described as not having to be “physically” wanting someone else but also yearning for or wanting an “emotional” connection. Is this true? Can lust be extended in meaning to encompass also having wants and dreams of someone your’re not married to?
 


  1. *]Intense or unrestrained sexual craving.

    1. *] An overwhelming desire or craving: a lust for power.
      *]Intense eagerness or enthusiasm: a lust for life.

      *]Obsolete. Pleasure; relish.

      NewAdvent

      The inordinate craving for, or indulgence of, the carnal pleasure which is experienced in the human organs of generation.

      The wrongfulness of lust is reducible to this: that venereal satisfaction is sought for either outside wedlock or, at any rate, in a manner which is contrary to the laws that govern marital intercourse. Every such criminal indulgence is a mortal sin, provided of course, it be voluntary in itself and fully deliberate. This is the testimony of St. Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians, v. 19:

      Here’s the part you want:

      This teaching applies to external and internal sins alike: “Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). However the case may stand as to the extent of the obligation under which one lies to refrain in certain circumstances from actions whose net result is to excite the passions, moralists are at one as to the counsel they give.

      Hope this helps. I would just say avoid what you are describing if you can. Pray it away, it really helps to completely flood your mind with prayers for purity if you find yourself thinking unclean thoughts. Just force them out of your head and be done with it. Then you don’t have to worry.

      Eamon
 
Here is what my Catholic Dictionary says:

Lust: An inordinate desire for or enjoyment of sexual pleasure. The desires or acts are inordinate when they do not conform to the divinely ordained purpose of sexual pleasure, which is to foster the mutual love of husband and wife, and according to the dispositions of providence, to procreate and educate their children.

What you are talking about may or may not be wrong, I dont think we have enough information to determine, but it doesn’t sound like lust according to this definition.
 
When is lust considered adultery? Say a married person has an attraction to someone they are not married to and they find themselves periodically thinking of this person.
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Attraction is morally neutral. Therefore, recognising the truth about the fact that you are attracted to someone has to be morally neutral as well - either this or it’s hipocrysy. However, welcoming that attraction, embracing and fostering it is a completely different thing.

There’s an analogy with homosexuality: having an inclination towards your own gender is not a sin, recognising a member of the same sex as attractive is not a sin, but engaging in fantasies or going for the physical thing is a sin.
Feelings of missing that person, wondering what they are doing, wanting to be with that person, etc. Is that lust?
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If we stick to the literal meaning of what you wrote, without reading between the verses, it’s not lust and not necessarily sinful. It’s normal to wonder what your relatives or friends are doing and to want to be with them, to some extent, given a strong affection. The nature of this affection is a problem.

Feelings on their own are morally neutral. But if someone welcomes them, invites them, enjoys them or acts on them, things become different.

There is often trouble discerning a friendly fascination from an infatuation, but asking your conscience tends to help.
I’ve always understood lust as involving wanting to have sex with someone you’re not married to.
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Depends what you understand by wanting to have sex with someone. Example:
  1. Marriage includes marital acts, i.e. sex.
  2. People marry and some of them even want to. 😉
  3. Those who want to marry want to have sex with someone to whom they are not marry - even though after they are married to the person. However, they want already. They want to have sex, but not just yet.
Also, we need to remember that attraction is a process quite sexual in nature. What drives people towards each other and makes them want to marry is at least in part sexual. What point marrying if the person isn’t sexually attractive to you, anyway.

To sum up, I would stick to the Douay translation, “who looks on a woman to lust after her.” This is neither simply looking on a woman, nor even lusting for her, let alone a simple attraction. This is more of a deliberate indulgence in sexual fantasies about someone.

When it moves on a more physical ground, lust would be seeking venereal (sexual, genital) pleasure. This is primarily meant to refer to intercourse, although it doesn’t take one. Not every kind of physical pleasure is sexual. Even the fact that it looks gross for someone doesn’t mean it has to be sexual for someone else and what’s sexual for one person, doesn’t have to be sexual for everyone, either.

However, things which lead you to orgasm or ejaculation or to fantasising about sex with the person, tend to be sexual because of your attitude. Personally, I doubt “accidents” put one in hell, but lack of proper prudence creates a great danger for the soul. One had better know his or her limits and not play with fire.

I suppose the main concerns are:
  • creating occasion for sin (mental or physical)
  • the potential for hurting relationships between other people
  • reducing a person to a mere object, a tool in obtaining sexual gratification (a breathing and talking rubber doll)
If anyone thinks I’m wrong, feel free to correct me. 😉
 
Great posts by everyone else. I just wanted to point out that if its in a dream (while you are sleeping, not a day dream!) then you are not responsible for it because you did not consciously consent to it.
 
Thanks for all the explanations. Some of the posts seemed to imply that I was the one with this attraction to someone else and I just wanted to wanted to clarify that I am not in a situation like this but know someone who is and would like to help them.

So if a person says they day dream and fantasize about being with someone else yet they are married what do you say to them? I wanted to tell them they are bordering on adultery because they are being emotionally unfaithful to their spouse. It seems like that is really not the case based on the posts here. This person seems to say it’s alright to think this way because they are not going to act on it and it’s merely just “feelings”. Sure, it’s just feelings but I am sure their spouse would be hurt if they knew about these feelings and how they were being “acted” on in their spouses head. What advice would you give someone that thinks like this?
 
Is the person Protestant, by chance? It seems to be a standard belief on the opposite side of the Reformation. :rolleyes:

This is going to be hard (been there, done that), but try to explain that choosing to pursue a thought is already an act. Acts can happen in someone’s mind, too. If a person starts imagining sexual intercourse with a person to whom he or she isn’t married for the thrill of it, it’s a sexual kind of pleasure that one seeks and receives in his own mind without taking it outside. However, that state of mind is what Jesus said about looking on a woman to lust after her.

Therefore, a sexual sin. It’s also adultery to have sex with the spouse and “closing your eyes” to make it feel as if it were someone different. It’s also adultery (or very close to it) to become stimulated by someone else and then engage in sexual activities with the lawful spouse.

Also, marital vows include not leaving the person till death parts the couple, as well as conjugal love, fidelity and honesty. Leaving the spouse in the spirit while remaining with him or her in the flesh is hardly the kind of fidelity intended in the vow and it isn’t quite honest, either.

What your person is trying to do is not to address the problem in his or her conscience but to accommodate his or her tiny little pleasures within the Christian morals - and that is not possible. Someone whose intention is to play with the fire without burning his fingers is bound to burn his fingers sooner or later. Christianity is not about avoiding sin but about developing virtue. If your person isn’t a Christian, the same can be said about any healthy morality.

If he or she can’t live with his or her spouse, perhaps a declaration of nullity could be obtained if the marriage hadn’t been valid at the moment of contracting. Given the person’s approach to marriage, it’s quite possible.
 
I think what WindyFire12 is asking is whether or not lust can be present without the ‘sexual’ part. I was listening to a talk by, I believe Christopher West, in which he said the lust that Jesus talks about doesn’t simply mean a ‘sexual’ unfaithness but also an emotional unfaithfulness. In otherwords, if a married person has an attraction, attachment, or whatever you want to call it to another person with whom they are not married to it doesn’t necessarily have to involve a physical desire to become adultery. He explained it pretty well. However, before I try to explain what he said and his reasoning I’ll have to go back and dig up the CD and listen to his talk on this subject again. I might have it in my car and if I do I’ll listen to it on the drive home and post what he said here.
 
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WindyFire12:
Thanks for all the explanations. Some of the posts seemed to imply that I was the one with this attraction to someone else and I just wanted to wanted to clarify that I am not in a situation like this but know someone who is and would like to help them.

So if a person says they day dream and fantasize about being with someone else yet they are married what do you say to them? I wanted to tell them they are bordering on adultery because they are being emotionally unfaithful to their spouse. It seems like that is really not the case based on the posts here. This person seems to say it’s alright to think this way because they are not going to act on it and it’s merely just “feelings”. Sure, it’s just feelings but I am sure their spouse would be hurt if they knew about these feelings and how they were being “acted” on in their spouses head. What advice would you give someone that thinks like this?
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Myself, if I was going to advise a friend in a situation like this, I think I would not perhaps focus on whether or not this is lust. I read your paragraph, above, and the first thing I thought about was that scene in Silence of the Lambs… “How do we begin to covet, Clarissssssss.” (Or something about like that.)

Of course, that’s not much help (unless you can do that creepy accent) but maybe this is:

Commandment #6 is “You shall not commit adultery.” From what you’re saying, it sounds like your friend has not done this yet.

However, Commandmemt #9 is “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.” It sounds like your friend is doing that already. (If your friend is female and is coveting your neighbor’s husband, then I have no useful advice for you. 😃 Kidding! I’m Kidding!)

I know that we live in an age in which television commercials for floor wax can stir feelings of lust, but nevertheless I would – if it was me – advise my friend to do several things:

#1. Make the decision to stop having these unhealthy thoughts. They cannot possibly lead to a good end. Work diligently to not focus on thoughts like these.

#2. Enter prayerfully into a conversation with the Lord and ask for help and grace to overcome these temptations.

#3. Go to confession. Confess having broken the ninth Commandment. Promise to earnestly try not to do it again. (Follow through with that.) 😉

#4 Repeat numbers 1, 2 and 3 as often as needed until these lustful thoughts are gotten under control.

Breaking Commandment #9 can lead to breaking Commandment #6, but they are both Commandments and breaking either is, therefore, to be avoided.

So, that’s what I would do. I think your friend is wrong and needs someone to whom that person is close to patiently and calmly explain why what your friend is doing is unhealthy.
 
That is exactly what I was thinking while driving back from my lunch break, CatholicPoet, that the point might not be whether or not it’s lust and thus adultery. What WindyFire12’s friend is doing is wrong and it already covered by the 9th Commandment as you point out. If this person is a Catholic he/she is already in mortal sin and thus loosing the graces needed to ensure a happy marriage. They should take the steps you outlined in your post.

BTW, I found the talk by Christopher West I mentioned in my previous email…unfortunately, they were on tapes and not CD like I thought so it was a bit time consuming scanning through the tape to find the particular subject I am looking for…I’ll try again on my drive home.

CatholicPoet, I see this was your first post. Welcome to the boards!
 
Isn’t Lust…
  1. One of the seven deadly sins
  2. The pining for the pleasures of the body
  3. The uncontroling of the passions
  4. The lack of restraint in any sexual means
OR AM I CRAZY? It seems that I could be crazy b/c my small group for Confirmation seem to think things like masturbation and fantasies like that are fine and healthy… they don’t realize lust
Thanks!
 
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Fashina86:
Isn’t Lust…
  1. One of the seven deadly sins
  2. The pining for the pleasures of the body
  3. The uncontroling of the passions
  4. The lack of restraint in any sexual means
OR AM I CRAZY? It seems that I could be crazy b/c my small group for Confirmation seem to think things like masturbation and fantasies like that are fine and healthy… they don’t realize lust
Thanks!
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You’re not crazy! If they think what you mentioned are fine and healthy they probably are not ready to be confirmed and/or they need better spiritual direction. Maybe you can direct them to talks/books concerning JPII’s “Theology of the Body”.
 
oh great we now have people implying that even the desire to just be with your marreid partner is a sin. This is ‘lust’ apparently. How more repressed can some people get.
 
I’m sorry, but I’m not going to use my real name on these forums. Thank you.

Peace.
 
This seems to imply no thoughts that would be anything even slightly impure. This implies friendship to me:

WindyFire12 said:
Say a married person has an attraction to someone they are not married to and they find themselves periodically thinking of this person. Feelings of missing that person, wondering what they are doing, wanting to be with that person, etc. Is that lust?
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This seems to imply that there are thoughts that go further than friendship:
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WindyFire12:
So if a person says they day dream and fantasize about being with someone else yet they are married what do you say to them? I wanted to tell them they are bordering on adultery because they are being emotionally unfaithful to their spouse. It seems like that is really not the case based on the posts here. This person seems to say it’s alright to think this way because they are not going to act on it and it’s merely just “feelings”. Sure, it’s just feelings but I am sure their spouse would be hurt if they knew about these feelings and how they were being “acted” on in their spouses head. What advice would you give someone that thinks like this?
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I would say two things: 1, if their spouse would be hurt by knowing, then they are betraying their spouse. Marriage should be about honesty, to me. 2. Would they be capable of having these exact same thoughts about someone of the same sex? If so, then it seems like it would be lust. Changing the degree of lust doesn’t change that it is lust.

On it’s own, having thoughts about someone, missing them, wondering what is going on with them can be just fine. I feel that way about many of my friends, both guys and girls.
 
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