Is admiring a woman lust?

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MarianD

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I’m 17 years old and I struggle with lust…a LOT. It’s probably my #1 sin. But thanks to the grace of God and the help of Mother Mary, I’m getting better with it.

However, I find myself admiring a woman’s beauty from time to time. Without noticing, I look her up and down and then quickly realize what I’ve done and feel guilty. However, thoughts of sex never arise. I just think “She’s beautiful/cute/attractive/hot” and I don’t go any further.

Is this lust, or is this simple admiration of the fairer sex?

And on a completely unrelated note (might as well put it here), can a marriage be annulled and can a person remarry if the marriage was abusive (to either a spouse or the children)? I’ve looked it up and people seem to be silent on the case of abuse.
 
MarianD said:
I’m 17 years old and I struggle with lust…a LOT. It’s probably my #1 sin. But thanks to the grace of God and the help of Mother Mary, I’m getting better with it.

However, I find myself admiring a woman’s beauty from time to time. Without noticing, I look her up and down and then quickly realize what I’ve done and feel guilty. However, thoughts of sex never arise. I just think “She’s beautiful/cute/attractive/hot” and I don’t go any further.

Is this lust, or is this simple admiration of the fairer sex?
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Noticing the beauty of a woman is not “lust”.

Jesus did not say “He who looks at a woman has committed adultery with her in his heart” …but “he who looks in order to lust”.

What is lust?

Catechism:

*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 one still needs a “reasonable custody of the eyes”…and to be cautious even in noticing the beauty of woman. For such can be a way toward lust…or could become immodest etc.

(and of course they can present various degrees of temptation…)

But the fact that one noticed even that a woman has a “well proportioned body” is not per se a sin…

But again one needs to take care…for example if she is particularly immodestly dressed, or is a particular temptation to you, or one looks too long …“looking around too much” etc…and how one looks. Knowing oneself…when to not look, to look away etc. I personally would not say it is a good approach to “look her up and down” but then again I am not you…I can not know per se what you mean.

But I think rather a focus should be on the persons face and ‘general beauty’…and with that reasonable custody of the eyes…and always “bind tightly everything to her as a person” (and I would personally drop the word “hot” and keep the beauty etc)

I would advise against actively seeking to “look around at the girls”…but rather if one sees an attractive girl…thank God and praise him for the beauty…and of course be cautious etc…(as men …well we see women…but we need to be particularly cautious in a reasonable way of course…both due to our concupscience and to the way many dress today…etc)

CCC 2520 Baptism confers on its recipient the grace of purification from all sins. But the baptized must continue to struggle against concupiscence of the flesh and disordered desires. With God’s grace he will prevail …
  • by purity of vision, external and internal; by discipline of feelings and imagination; by refusing all complicity in impure thoughts that incline us to turn aside from the path of God’s commandments: “Appearance arouses yearning in fools”;313 (more there see CCC)
Take a look at the Catechism on Modesty (which protects chastity):

2521 Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity.

2522 Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.

2523 There is a modesty of the feelings as well as of the body. It protests, for example, against the voyeuristic explorations of the human body in certain advertisements, or against the solicitations of certain media that go too far in the exhibition of intimate things. Modesty inspires a way of life which makes it possible to resist the allurements of fashion and the pressures of prevailing ideologies.

2524 The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however, modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born with the awakening consciousness of being a subject. Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person.
 
as to the annulment…an annulment is a declaration of judgment that a marriage was not valid.

No amount of abuse can make a valid marriage --invalid.

But it can perhaps be a sign in some way that the person may not have be able or did enter into a valid marriage…it is something for the Church to investigate.

One presumes a marriage is valid until it is shown by the Church to have not been…
 
MarianD said:
I’m 17 years old and I struggle with lust…a LOT. It’s probably my #1 sin. But thanks to the grace of God and the help of Mother Mary, I’m getting better with it.

However, I find myself admiring a woman’s beauty from time to time. Without noticing, I look her up and down and then quickly realize what I’ve done and feel guilty. However, thoughts of sex never arise. I just think “She’s beautiful/cute/attractive/hot” and I don’t go any further.

Is this lust, or is this simple admiration of the fairer sex?

And on a completely unrelated note (might as well put it here), can a marriage be annulled and can a person remarry if the marriage was abusive (to either a spouse or the children)? I’ve looked it up and people seem to be silent on the case of abuse.
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I believe at your age you have to carefully consider your situation and be aware of it. Particularly vunerable age especially if you don’t constantly seek the right advice as you are.

I believe the biggest mistake young adults make, is to think elders don’t know better and can’t relate to there reality/situation. Very much on the contrary. Question is, are you willing to accept the truth when you are hearing it? Life moves very quickly.
 
Of course…one must also not engage in or consent to any “lustful” or “impure” thoughts…

(But you said that is really the question …)
 
MarianD said:
Is this lust, or is this simple admiration of the fairer sex?
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It may not be lust in a given situation, but because of your admitted struggle with lust your best course of action is to avoid the near occasion of sin completely WHENEVER you come across a girl. You’re going to need to practice this avoidance by averting your eyes from her completely or, if that is not practically possible in the given situation, look only into her eyes or at her face.

Over time, and with Mary’s and your guardian angel’s help, doing this will become easier.
 
try not to be too hard on yourself, MarianD. At 17 years of age you’re going to feel the impulses of the body for a few years yet, and it’s something you have to have patience with. Be as gentle with yourself as Jesus would be. remember two things: the first is that for a young man to feel attracted to a woman is a gift from God, and is part of the ‘go forth and mulitply’ imperative he gave to mankind. Placed within a Christian context and discipline the wee beastie can be tamed 😉

The second thing is that, as many biblical commentators agree, what Jesus was referring to as “lust in the heart” was a direct reference to King David’s desire for Bethsaida, which caused him to conspire to have her husband killed so he, the king, coul;d take her for his own. This is the sin that was “ever before me”, as the psalmist put it. It was the use of power over the weaker person, and an insult to God and Man.

So, unless your feelings are conspiratorial, murderous and indifferent to all others, as david’s was, I guess you’ll make it in the end. Just carry the Cross, Bro, and if you fall then rejoice that Jesus is your Simon. 👍

God bless.
 
philial said:
try not to be too hard on yourself, MarianD. At 17 years of age you’re going to feel the impulses of the body for a few years yet, and it’s something you have to have patience with. Be as gentle with yourself as Jesus would be. remember two things: the first is that for a young man to feel attracted to a woman is a gift from God, and is part of the ‘go forth and mulitply’ imperative he gave to mankind. Placed within a Christian context and discipline the wee beastie can be tamed 😉

The second thing is that, as many biblical commentators agree, what Jesus was referring to as “lust in the heart” was a direct reference to King David’s desire for Bethsaida, which caused him to conspire to have her husband killed so he, the king, coul;d take her for his own. This is the sin that was “ever before me”, as the psalmist put it. It was the use of power over the weaker person, and an insult to God and Man.

So, unless your feelings are conspiratorial, murderous and indifferent to all others, as david’s was, I guess you’ll make it in the end. Just carry the Cross, Bro, and if you fall then rejoice that Jesus is your Simon. 👍

God bless.
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Paul explains this in the letter to the Romans and we call it concuppisence. It would be an addition to study what this is to understand what it is. We all have it.
 
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