Please explain: Lust

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I’m unclear on what exactly the sin of lust is. I understand what the typical sexual sins are, such as fornicacion, adultery and masterbation etc. But I don’t understand what lust really is. Can someone explain?

What is Lust? An instinct? A feeling? A want? Is being aroused the same as lusting? Is it a sin to be aroused outside of marriage?

Is it lust if you’re aroused but are not having impure thoughts per se (like not actually using your imagination)?

I’m going to get married next year, and there’s a part of me that can’t wait until I can make love and make babies with my partner. I’m excited (in the way a child is excited to go to Disney World) about it because I’ve always wanted a family, but usually that excitement manifests itself in a more physical way too (like arousal). Is entertaining the idea of making love to my future spouse sinful? (In a futuristic sense - kinda like looking forward to it.) I often daydream about our honeymoon and hope that we will be able to conceive our first child at that point. I could see how someone might say it is sinful to think about it and get any sort of excitement out of it, but usually it seems that when you “fantasize” about something like that the sin is in the fact that you’re objectifying the person…but in my mind I just can’t wait to be married to him and make babies with him! (No I’m not crazy I just love kids).

Thanks in advance.
 
Congratulations on your engagement! 😃

From Wikipedia: Lust (or lechery) is an inordinate craving for sexual intercourse often to the point of assuming a self-indulgent, and sometimes violent character.

I’ve always taken it to mean seeking only selfish personal pleasure through sexual faculties, rather than seeking to express genuine love through them. The sexual faculties, of course, are really designed to allow us to give of ourselves. If self-giving isn’t the intention for their use, then it is only for pleasure and is therefore lustful.
Is it lust if you’re aroused but are not having impure thoughts per se (like not actually using your imagination)?
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I wouldn’t think so.

**As for the second half of your post, i think you should see this: **chastity.com/chastity/index.php?id=7&entryid=273

Sure, Catholic-Answers affiliated chastity.com was designed for younger people, but it still has some good advice. It says: "it is both healthy and natural for an engaged couple to look forward to the relations that come within marriage.

But, if you’re playing out sexual acts in your mind, then this is not pure. It’s just teasing you, because the mind is not content with thinking about sex. The more you think of impurities, the more you will want to fulfill those thoughts. On the other hand, the more you purify your thoughts, the purer your actions will become."
 
Lust

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:

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, . . . Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.”

Moreover, if it be true the gravity of the offences may be measured by the harm they work to the individual or the community, there can be no doubt that lust has in this respect a gravity all its own. Transgressions against the virtues other than purity frequently admit of a minor degree of malice, and are accounted venial. Impurity has the evil distinction that, whenever there is a direct conscious surrender to any of its phases the guilt incurred is always grievous. This judgment, however, needs modifying when there is question of some impure gratification for which a person is responsible, not immediately, but because he had posited its cause, and to which he has not deliberately consented. The act may then be only venially sinful. For the determination of the amount of its wickedness much will depend upon the apprehended proximate danger of giving way on the part of the agent, as well as upon the known capacity of the thing done to bring about venereal pleasure. 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. They all emphasize the perils of the situation, and point out the practical dangers of a failure to refrain. It matters not that there is not, as we suppose, an initial sinful intent. The sheerest prudence and most rudimentary self-knowledge alike demand abstinence, where possible, from things which, though not grievously bad in themselves, yet easily fan into flame the unholy fire which may be smouldering, but it is not extinct.

Lust is said to be a capital sin. The reason is obvious. The pleasure which this vice has as its object is at once so attractive and con-natural to human nature as to whet keenly a man’s desire, and so lead him into the commission of many other disorders in the pursuit of it. Theologians ordinarily distinguish various forms of lust in so far as it is a consummated external sin, e.g., fornication, adultery, incest, criminal assault, abduction, and sodomy. Each of these has its own specific malice–a fact to borne in mind for purposes of safeguarding the integrity of sacramental confession.
 
But how can you NOT think about ‘it’ when engaged in the act? :eek:
 
Being excited about having sex with your future wife and being aroused by it are two different things. Of course you should be excited about it, however, dwelling on explicit thoughts that lead to arousal would qualify as lust.
 
Lust is desire out of control.

Lust can scope to many objects of desire. Objects of desire are not simply restricted to sexual objects. Anything that can be perceived by the five senses can be an object of desire, thus an object of lust. Some people lust after very strange things. Sometimes other words are used for this, (infatuation, etc.) but it is lust, just the same.

Desire arouses expectations. When these expectation (which are related to the senses) are not fulfilled, disappointment turns into anger. Anger gives rise to mental aberrations. Mental aberrations cause loss of memory, (loss of the sense of what is right and what is wrong) and so, with the loss of memory, intellect gets destroyed.

When the intellect is destroyed, everything is lost.

So you may consider that lust is the root cause of all ruin, infamy and sorrow.

So it is essential to control desires and lead a life of self restraint. You don’t let your libido make your decisions for you.
 
saieditor said:
Lust is desire out of control.

Lust can scope to many objects of desire. Objects of desire are not simply restricted to sexual objects. Anything that can be perceived by the five senses can be an object of desire, thus an object of lust. Some people lust after very strange things. Sometimes other words are used for this, (infatuation, etc.) but it is lust, just the same.
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Well said Saieditor!

Congratulations on your engagement and your desire for chastity! You might want to pick up and read the book “Three to Get Married” (by Bishop Fulton Sheen) with your husband-to-be.

EWTN has it in text format for free @: ewtn.com/library/MARRIAGE/3GETMARR.TXT

May God bless you!
 
I’m living in a dorm right now and one of the other guys in the summer program wants to hook up with a girl here who has a boyfriend. Her roommate, who thinks this boy likes HER, is “rooster” blocking this boy.

He would commit fornication with this other girl if he could. The desire and intent are there. However, he is not because of inability.

This is certainly lust of the highest degree. Regardless of the fact that he has not committed sin, his desire and intent to commit the sin are just as damaging to his soul as actually committing it.

Likewise, if I see a television in the store that I want but cannot afford, it is all right for me to admire it. It’s all right for me to fantasize briefly about owning it and watching it.

It is not at all right for me to:
  1. Steal it.
  2. Steal my neighbor’s TV.
  3. Buy it with stolen money.
  4. But it when I realy can’t afford it.
  5. Descend into worship of material things by obsessing over it and thinking about it constantly.
We can draw the parallels to sex. Desiring and intending marital sex is healthy. Obsessively fantasizing about it is not. Fantasizing about it leads only to frustration and masturbation. The extended sexual fantasy is lust because its intent is self-gratification. The idle and short fantasy is presence of desire for licit intercourse with the person.

Obviously, me and every other twenty year old male waiting for marriage desire intercourse. The desire is natural and healthy. Obviously, we restrain it. The sin of lust for us, as we do not intend intercourse, is when we mentally fight against the constraints God has placed upon our sexuality. Entertaining our concupiscence for illicit intercourse is the sin of lust.

Everyone wants to have “solid boundaries” that they know they can’t cross. Well, I say this. The first look is not a sin if all you’re doing is looking. It’s not even a sin if it turns you on. If you look at it with the intent of being turned on, you’ve lusted, because your desire for arousal was a desire for self-gratification. Hence, the second look may not even be a sin, but it almost always used for turning on.

This is really a very complex issue, and I can’t wait until I’m married and can at least get SOME release from the carnal sins of manhood.

Unfortunately I think my favorite thing in the world to do would be to say Mass . . .
 
Are we then to experience no pleasure in the sexual act within marriage? God did provide us with that ability, as He attached pleasure to eating and drinking. I have heard certain priests and scholars speak of sexual intercourse as “the marriage debt” which seems like a very grim way of referring to what I have thought is an act of love in which the husband and wife take joy in each other. I too hope to marry, and I am physically attracted to my future husband and looking forward to our union, certainly not thinking that the sex act will be an unpleasant and necessary “debt” that we owe to one another! If I truly believed that, I would never consider marriage.
 
Yeah, honestly, I don’t see how you’re supposed to think of clouds and baseball scores or hymns… . :confused:
 
good morning, sorry about not being to active. i am an over the road truck driver and sometimes i just do not take time to read emails. i am having some family problems and ask that everyone pray for me. thank you
 
I don’t feel like I have much to add on the subject of lust in this thread at this time. However, I wanted to say a couple things to comment on the thread in general.

For one, congratulations on your engagement and your promising looking future.

For two, I’m concerned about your desire to conceive during your honeymoon. I would advise you to be wary of conceiving too early in your pregnancy, as pregnancy and a newborn child may interfere with your ability to lay a foundation in your marriage for the rearing of your family. Marriage will change your relationship with your fiance, and there may be quite a bit of adjusting that needs to be done before that foundation is laid. A pregnancy early on in your marriage may interfere with your ability to bond with your new husband, and when your child gets older, you may find that your relationship with your spouse has suffered.

Just a suggestion from a sister in Christ with some experiential insight on the matter.

God’s peace!
 
ML561 said:
Are we then to experience no pleasure in the sexual act within marriage? God did provide us with that ability, as He attached pleasure to eating and drinking. I have heard certain priests and scholars speak of sexual intercourse as “the marriage debt” which seems like a very grim way of referring to what I have thought is an act of love in which the husband and wife take joy in each other. I too hope to marry, and I am physically attracted to my future husband and looking forward to our union, certainly not thinking that the sex act will be an unpleasant and necessary “debt” that we owe to one another! If I truly believed that, I would never consider marriage.
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It’s a “debt” in the sense that two married persons owe it to each another to renew their own covenant. Receiving pleasure from the act is fine.
 
Is it a moral or venial sin to fantasize about homosexual sex, with no acting out on it, defending it or masturbating as a result of it?
 
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