Difference between admiring beauty and lusting

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Are they the same thing? Or is the difference is looking onto a women to lust? From my opinion admiring beauty is simply looking at a women (or in a women’s case a man) in the face and not letting your eyes wonder and give you a kind of sick mental pleasure of it all. Any ideas or such is fine…
 
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Different thing…unless you’re thinking of weird things while staring at her face? The definition of lust, loosely paraphrased, would be seeking sexual pleasure in contexts where it’s not needed (basically out of marriage).

But putting that when discussion aside, many girls would feel uncomfortable at a stranger ‘admiring their beauty’ from afar. So maybe no staring lol
 
When I confessed this, my confessor suggested that when confronted with such a situation, to thank God for His beautiful creation. Nice way to turn the mind from a lustful track. I know it doesn’t answer your question, OP, but thought it might be helpful for anyone who finds him/herself in this situation.
 
I think it’s a subtlety and if we engage in it we are drawn to sin 🙂
Moral theologians have always promoted “custody of the eyes”. Don’t worry about the difference, just don’t look. It takes training. And if you cannot avoid looking, don’t indulge. Nothing special to see, just another fellow human being. It takes time.

Also a man can find beauty in a man, and a woman in a woman, without this meaning they are homosexual. That’s a poor prejudice to possess. Beauty is a subjective quality “in the eye of the beholder” - at least, external beauty is.
 
Scene: Your walking down the road and you see this 10/10 hottie coming toward you

Lust: Oh what I would do for a rhomba session with her

Admiring beauty: Oh look a hot chick.

Learn the difference. It could be your salvation.
 
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They are different. God is the source of all beauty.
Lust is desirous instead of admiring.

That said, they can lead to the other, and if you are not very good in this area, better to ignore it all together.

Perhaps pray in the back of your mind or contemplate the suffering of Christ if ever you are in a situation.
We cannot avoid looking once. But we can avoid continuing to look back!
This is more difficult with videos and stuff, since scenes change and all, but in life it’s easier.
 
If you wanted to be inaccurate. A dudes brain is 10x more vulger than my post. I’m censoring it as far as I can.
 
Oh :(,well that’s kind of dissapointing…I guess I’ve got a lot to learn
 
This is probably going to depend a lot on the person. Some men can admire an attractive woman and not have their mind wander into bad things. Other men cannot. Most men will struggle with this. If it is a near occasion of sin for them, they cannot trust their mind will stay clean and should not attempt it. Deliberately putting themselves in a near occasion of mortal sin would be a mortal sin of its own.

Just like men, some women can admire an attractive man and not have problems with lust while others will have problems. Since most women are driven more by feelings than looks, they can usually get away with it more. Even if they don’t have problems with lust though, they can still get into a bad habit of focusing on looks more than loving the person as God intends. Think of a circle of friends talking about some male celebrity hunk. They are not lusting after him, but it’s not all that useful to be thinking about either.
 
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It’s the truth. Everytime a guy passes a girl. Their either

A:thinking about her butt

Or

B:not thinking about her at all
 
That’s pretty sad.How can a women ever feel her hearts safe then
 
Their not. The only thing that keeps dudes with a women is loyalty, love, and a generally good conscience. If you do find a guy, chances are he will lose interest in other girls. Unless your choice is crappy. Then tough luck.
 
Totally false, my friend.

First, you can’t speak for every guy, pretty sure. You can’t speak for me, anyways.

I appreciate beautiful women as much as any other guy, but what you just described is a very worldly way that a guy might consider a woman.

I saw a beautiful college age woman just 15 minutes ago. She’s devout, sweet, and has a pretty face. (95% sure she’s too young for me, though.)

I did not look at or think about her chest or back end but she is fairly trim and I always appreciate that in a woman. A good Christian man needs to see all women more in the way that God sees them.

I was also just thinking about Kateri Tekawitha at adoration this afternoon and how holy she was, pleasing to God, she had terrible pock marks / scars on her face from small pox as a child and so that really disfigured her. But how special she was to God. What a beautiful soul.
 
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Exceptions exist in all forms and sizes and if you were mildly offended please keep in mind it was never my intention. I’m speaking as an average dude. My advice for women is to find a mature guy.
Because and I speak was first hand experience the average most important thing on a young guys mind is getting laid.
 
Reactions must be a result of how one was brought up by their parents,temperament ,exposure to media etc during their life time,their genetic make up maybe-and how they’ve been able to put in order their thoughts with all that influence in how they regard women.
I can apreciate how that can be a battle for some .
I also have six brothers who are a great example to me
 
Intentionally look at their butt or imaging things about them would be the sinful thing, because that entails will.

Just seeing without looking is not a culpable act.

It is your actions, not your passive experiences that count.
 
Julius said:
Admiring beauty: Oh look a hot chick.
Click to expand...
That is not “admiring beauty”. It is very offensive and many find both the adjective “hot” and the term “chick” to be vulgar. You may want to double-check your understanding of custody of the eyes.
 
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