C
chevalier
Guest
Okay, there’s that question I can’t answer because my criminal lawyer formation is getting in the way and, admittedly, it’s a bit outside my knowledge. Besides, I’m better at finding one million extenuating or aggravating circumstances than helping achieve a conclusion. 
So, the guy was talking to someone while a somewhat frivolous historical drama was playing on the TV. It looked like a nude scene was coming since a woman was disrobing and it was shot in a frisky way. They were changing and the other, already partially nude woman was not being frisky, so it didn’t pose a problem. The scene actually didn’t take place because she stopped at some skimpy night-gown kind of thing like they swam in and actually went out and talked to people at the lakeside. However, the guy is troubling himself that he had already made the decision to keep watching and only leave if it gets “too hot”, while he normally just leaves the room in such cases. He’s concerned he stayed because he didn’t want to miss the sight and he didn’t want to miss it because of the woman being sexy and frisky, not really because of aesthetic value. There were no real sexual sensations, since it appears unimportant at first glance and he had been laughing at it, just the problem with the morality of the choice to keep looking. He normally looks the other way or leaves in order to eliminate the problem avoid getting scrupulous about it later, but sometimes he has to tackle such situations.
So what can I say in this case? I see five possibilities:
I’d be obliged if you could help me out and maybe come up with an article or a book or something for the guy to read, although I’m not sure Aquinas would be a good idea for a person with scrupulous tendencies and something general about the use of human sexuality wouldn’t be conclusive enough, I fear.
So, the guy was talking to someone while a somewhat frivolous historical drama was playing on the TV. It looked like a nude scene was coming since a woman was disrobing and it was shot in a frisky way. They were changing and the other, already partially nude woman was not being frisky, so it didn’t pose a problem. The scene actually didn’t take place because she stopped at some skimpy night-gown kind of thing like they swam in and actually went out and talked to people at the lakeside. However, the guy is troubling himself that he had already made the decision to keep watching and only leave if it gets “too hot”, while he normally just leaves the room in such cases. He’s concerned he stayed because he didn’t want to miss the sight and he didn’t want to miss it because of the woman being sexy and frisky, not really because of aesthetic value. There were no real sexual sensations, since it appears unimportant at first glance and he had been laughing at it, just the problem with the morality of the choice to keep looking. He normally looks the other way or leaves in order to eliminate the problem avoid getting scrupulous about it later, but sometimes he has to tackle such situations.
So what can I say in this case? I see five possibilities:
- Decision to keep looking because the woman is sexually attractive (blood-stirring rather than heart-gripping, sort of), most likely to feed his eyes (judging about the goal from the motive), so possibly “looking at a woman to lust after her”, and a mortal sin.
- Decision to put himself in danger of mortal sin (lustful looking, by looking at what he didn’t need to look at) because he decided to stop looking if it were to get “too hot”, precluding a direct intent to look to lust after her. Mortal sin anyway.
- Occasion to mortal sin, venial of itself because of the situation.
- Merely a venial sin from not being careful enough.
- No sin at all, the guy’s being scrupulous and exaggerating.
I’d be obliged if you could help me out and maybe come up with an article or a book or something for the guy to read, although I’m not sure Aquinas would be a good idea for a person with scrupulous tendencies and something general about the use of human sexuality wouldn’t be conclusive enough, I fear.