Sin of lust

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JimR-OCDS said:
Lea101;

It depends on who the men are. Females have double standards when it comes to who they like or dislike looking at them.

Years ago when I worked, there was a co-worker who was considered a hunk by females. At the lunch table in the cafeteria, he could say the most sexist things and get giggles from the females. One short chubby Jewish guy made an innocent statement and the same females jumped all over him to the point one was threatening to go to HR to report him.

Most young girls do in fact dress to draw attention from males. Its part of the mating rituals humans go through, consciously and unconsciously.

But no two ways about it, most men are first drawn to a female visually. Other more important attributes come later if a relationship comes about.

I hear men talk and how they talk about females, so no one will convince me otherwise.

Jim
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Hey, men have double standards too! It’s normal for humans to only want the attention of the people they are attracted too, no matter how terrible the person of desire is 🙂

My opinion is that girls dress the way they want because they like it/feel more confident in it, but it happens to be what men like (for example a lot of girls like red lips, and it’s proven that red is helpful for attraction). So subconsciously, in some cases. Maybe God made us that way to make sure we are making babies?
The exception being when girls are looking specifically for men/sex, of course. From my experience, girls will sharpen their knives the moment they hear a man insinuate that girls wear makeup to impress boys (a poor guy I know got attacked when he said that guys don’t like a lot of makeup, trust me, young girls will drag you to hell and back if you tweet stuff like that). And it’s true. Most men don’t like makeup but I think I’m prettier with it and hence slightly more confident 🙂 obviously it depends on the woman.

And yes, I do agree that guys are usually attracted to women based on looks, but it’s apparently quite an unpopular opinion here 😦
 
JimR, I think you are right, in fact the same day I posted in this thread, later at work, this young early 20s couple came in, the guy was nothing special, (average looks), but the girl was a definite 10, and she knew it, she had a very tight white tshirt on and her black bra could be easily seen, plus the shorts she was wearing looked like they were painted on, and lets just say the shorts were extremely short in the rear, didnt even cover her rear end totally!

There were many other people in the store at the time and I noticed when they were in line, nearly every guy around her was looking downward, some men were going out of their way to get into a position so they could see her, LOL, a couple women near me were actually talking about how their mother would have likely scolded the girl for wearing those shorts, and they could never wear something like that in public.

The girl herself, she knew she was the center of attention, she was just smiling and giggling, the guy with her didnt seem to care either way what was going on, but I guess he is used to that kind of reaction if he is out with her much.

I used to date this very attractive girl a few years back, and she told me once that when she reached about the age of 11 or 12, she started recognizing men in general would look at her different almost like a piece of meat (her words), and she claimed many girls that are above average in looks or body shape, from a very young age, they recognize men look at them different, and some of them like this and set out to use it to their advantage and others do not like it and wish it would not happen.
 
Heck, just google Cosmopolitan or other Magazines which are popular among young femals and look at the covers and what they’re selling.

Look more Sex, endow sexual confidence, yada yada.

Nothing wrong with women wanting to be attractive to men, its part of our nature and part of being young. However, there is a line that is crossed, and I don’t need to explain further.

Later on in life, if we grow up such things are seen as for what they are.

Of course even at age 65, an attractive looking female will always draw my attention, for no more than 30 seconds. 😃

Jim
 
About lust from Father Fulton Sheen:
{“
Lust is an inordinate love of the pleasure of the flesh. The important word here is inordinate, for it was Almighty God Himself who associated pleasure with the flesh. He attached pleasure to eating in order that we might not be remiss in nourishing and preserving our individual lives. He associated pleasure with the marital act in order that husband and wife might not be remiss in their social obligations to propagate mankind and raise children for the kingdom of God.
The pleasure becomes sinful at the point where, instead of using it as means, we begin to use it as an end. To eat for the sake of eating is a sin, because eating is a means to an end, which is health. Lust, in like manner, is selfishness or perverted love. It looks not so much to the good of the other, as to the pleasure of self.
It subordinates the other to self for the sake of pleasure. Denying the quality of “otherness,” it seeks to make the other person care for us, but not to make us care for the other person.
Two lessons are to be learned from this Third Word from the Cross: that the only real escape from the demands of the flesh is to find something more than the flesh to love; and that Mary is the refuge of sinners.
If we could ever find anything we loved more than the flesh, the demands of the flesh would be less imperative.
The psychology of this enthusiasm for a higher love of Jesus and Mary as an escape from the unlawful attachments of the flesh is this: by it, we avoid undue concentration on lower loves and their explosions.
Cultivate a higher love, a purpose of living, a goal of existence, a desire to correspond to all that God wants us to be, and the lower passion will be absorbed by it.
Nor must it be thought that the vow of chastity is a burden. Thompson has called it a “passionless passion, a wild tranquility.” And so it is. A new passion is born with the vow of chastity, the passion for the love of God. It is the consolation of that higher love which makes the surrender of the lower love so easy. And only when that higher love is lost does the vow begin to be a burden, just as honesty becomes a burden only to those who have lost the sense of others’ rights.
The reason there is a degeneration in the moral order and a decay of decency is because men and woman have lost the higher love.
The only way love can be shown in this world is by sacrifice—namely, the surrender of one thing for another. Love is essentially bound up with choice, and choice is a negation, and negation is a sacrifice. When a young man sets his heart upon a young woman and asks her to marry him, he is not only saying “I choose you”: he is also saying “I do not choose, I reject, all others. I give them all up for you.” Apply this to the problem of lust.
Take away all love above the flesh, take away God, the crucifix, the Sorrowful Mother, salvation, eternal happiness – and what possibility is there for choice? What is to be gained by denying the imperious and revolutionary demands of the flesh? But grant the divine, and the flesh’s greatest joy is to throw itself on the altar of the one loved, where it counts its sorrow a cheap price for the blissful joy of giving.
Then its greatest despair is not to be needed; it could almost find it in its heart to inflict a wound that it might bind and heal. Such is the attitude of the pure. They have integrated their flesh with the divine; they have sublimated its cravings with the Cross. Having a higher love, they now make the surrender of the lower, so that their Mother may never be put to shame.
There is no reason for the fallen to be discouraged. Hope is the message of the Golgotha. Find a higher love than the flesh, a love pure, understanding, and redeeming, and the struggle will be easy. That higher love is on the Cross and beneath it.
We almost seem to forget that there is a Cross at all. He begins to look more like a red rose, and she begins to look like the stem. That stem reaches down from Calvary into all our wounded hearts of earth, sucking up our prayers and petitions and conveying them to Him. That is why roses have thorns in this life – to keep away every disturbing influence that might destroy our union with Jesus and Mary.
“} from “Victory over Vice” Chapter: Vice, by Archbishop Fulton Sheen

I will add some things later from “Love and Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla, and Theology of the Body by John Paul II, as certain things are better to talk them with certain clarity. Love and acting love in the sexual scheme on this culture is a serious thing. We need to always remember that purity (with chastity) is important, and it can be only achieved by working for it, for our eyes can’t see it, if they are not looking for Him.

Our subjective profiles (affectivity and sensuality) cannot overcome our objective profile, which is to affirm the value of the person.
“John Paul II said: ‘Love according to Christ is a difficult and demanding path. To be what God wants, demands an effort that is patient, a struggle with ourselves. You want to shut oneself up in the circle of your instincts? In man, unlike animals, instinct doesn’t have the right to have the last word.’” “To Save Yourself” by Fr. Jorge Loring

Just to start 'll add this

{“
The underdevelopment of the virtue of chastity occurs when someone “does not keep up” with the affirmation of the value of the person, when he allows himself to be overpowered by the values of the sexus themselves which, upon seizing the will, form badly the whole relation to the person of the other sex. The essence of chastity lies precisely in “keeping up” with the value of the person in every situation and in “pulling up” to this value every reaction to the value of the “body and sex”.
This particular effort is interior, spiritual, because the affirmation of the value of the person can only be a fruit of the spirit.
“} from “Love and Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla
 
Drifting through my mind…

"But I say to you, anyone who stares at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. " Matthew 5.28

Lea; you mention the catechism in passing often, could you maybe look these things up for yoursellf ? it is online. It would give you answers to many things…
 
Lea101 said:
Does anyone find that other sins are way easier to avoid except for lust?

My friend kind of brought her opinion about how it’s impossible to avoid lust. I mean, you can lust for 10 seconds and then stop and feel regret, but you basically just committed a mortal sin and you’re pretty much separated from God.

And then you have people who are not sure whether it was just sexual desire or lust.

This sin is so confusing, I don’t even know how to explain it to my friend?
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the basic answer is that a person can feel temptation to lust but not lust. So - they can have unwanted thoughts or feelings, but if they are unwanted, they are not sinning. Yes it’s a mortal sin even if it’s consented to fully for one second - but that can be avoided.

I think it’s some sort of heresy to think that it’s impossible to live a moral life, including in this way - from what I read anyway. God gives the grace to live purely, and we need to cooperate. Most do not cooperate, or have a habitual sin in this area, which can be a frustrating thing, but over time it can decrease as we fight it.

So basically, yes it’s possible to fight lust with God’s grace, and to not sin, otherwise every person on earth would commit this sin all the time. There are people who have overcome it with grace. The Saints all tried very hard though they were tempted.

Some things that can really help are regular Sacraments, prayer, and not fighting the temptation directly (rather running from it in this case). That method works well with temptations against chastity and temptations against faith.
 
I copied and pasted this answer I gave years ago:

“Consent is the application of the appetitive movement to something that is already in the power of him who causes the application. Now the order of action is this: First there is the (1) apprehension of the end; (2) then the desire of the end; (3) then the counsel about the means; (4) then the desire of the means.” (Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 15, a. 3)

Sin is “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.” (CCC 1849) Consent is the event when a sin is acted (thoughts are actions in terms of morality). Consent can only be commited by the desire of the means, the last of the four in the order of action quoted above.
  1. Apprehension is your understanding of what it is you want.
  2. Then you desire the object you understand.
  3. Then you proceed in your mind how to achieve it (the means)
  4. Then finally you desire to carry out the plan.
These series of thoughts of lust can be quick. Hence, the importance of grace to slow these motions, there by which we receive the help from on high not proceed to number 4, which would be the point of a commission of sin of lust.

Now, I would add that the we have a duty to slow these motions by fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. To neglect this spiritual exercise would be a sin against prudence, namely the vice of negligence.

Also, as far as the mental step four, St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church, said to gain pleasure at this fourth step would be the indication that a sin is carried out.
 
{“
[TOB 43-2,3:
43-2: Our earlier analysis of the statement in Matthew 5:27-28, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you: Whoever looks a t a woman to desire her [in a reductive way] has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” shows that we must extend and above all deepen the interpretation described earlier with respect to the ethical meaning contained in the statement. Let us take a close look at the situation described by the Teacher, in which the one who “commits adultery in the heart” by an interior act of concupiscence (expressed in a look) is the man. It is significant that Christ, when he speaks about the object of this act, does not stress that she is “another’s wife,” a woman who is not one’s own wife, but says generically a woman. Adultery committed “In the heart” is not circumscribed by the limits of the interpersonal relation that allows one to identify adultery committed “in the flesh.” It is not these limits that exclusively and essentially decide the question of adultery committed “in the heart,” but the very nature of concupiscence, expressed in this case by a look, that is, by the fact that this man whom Christ uses as an example “looks to desire.” Adultery “in the heart” is not committed only because the man “looks” in this way at a woman who is not his wife, but precisely because he looks in this way at a woman. Even if he were to look in this way at the woman who is his wife, he would commit the same adultery “in the heart.”

43-3:These interpretation takes into account more comprehensively what was said in our whole analyses about concupiscence, and in the first place about the concupiscence of the flesh as a permanent element of man’s sinfulness (status naturae lapsae [the state of fallen nature]). The concupiscence that arises as an interior act on this foundation (as we have attempted to show in our analysis above) changes the very intentionality of the woman’s existence “for” the man by reducing the wealth of the perennial call to the communion of persons, the wealth of the deep attraction of masculinity and femininity, to the mere satisfaction of the body’s sexual “urge” (which is closely related to the concept of “drive”). Such a reduction has the effect that the person (in this case the woman ) becomes for the other person (the man) above all an object for the possible satisfaction of his own sexual “urge.” In this way, a deformation takes place in the reciprocal “for,” which loses its character as a communion of persons in favor of the utilitarian function. The man who “looks“ in the way described in Matthew 5:27,28 “makes use” of the woman, of her femininity, to satisfy his own “drive.” Even if he does not use her in an external act, he has already taken such an attitude in his interior when he makes this decision about a particular woman. Adultery “committed in the heart” consists precisely in this. A man can commit such adultery “in the heart” even with his own wife, if he treats her only as an object for the satisfaction of drives.*

*Translator’s note: When this statement by John Paul II was first quoted in the Italian press, it led to an uproar that was picked up also in the international press, including major U.S. papers and networks. Most reporters failed to grasp the difference between “desire” in the positive sense and reductive concupiscent “desire” (see Index at DESIRE and translator’s notes on TOB 24:1 and TOB 25:4. In the immediately following paragraph (TOB 43:4), John Paul II points out that a merely psychological or sexological understanding of sexuality (which is the dominant understanding in our culture) will not allow one to grasp this difference.

*Translator’s notes TOB 24-1: According to John Paul II, sexual desire and sexual pleasure are in themselves good (see Index at DESIRE, FASCINATION, and PLEASURE). “Desire” in a negative sense arises when a man or a woman fails to see the full attractiveness of the other person and reduces it to the attractiveness of sexual pleasure alone. It is this isolation of sexual desire that gives rise to the vice of lust. In lustful or concupiscent desire, one sees the other person in a reductive way as a mere means for sexual pleasure (see TOB 41). It does not matter whether the person one desires in this reductive way is one’s spouse or not, because the reduction is in both cases contrary to the full dignity and beauty of the person (see TOB 43). To avoid the impression that Jesus, as John Paul II understands him, condemns sexual desire as such, qualifiers will at times be added as a reminder in square brackets to the word “desire”:[lustful], [concupiscent], and [reductive].
“} from Theology of the Body by John Paul II
 
{“
*Translator’s note TOB 25-4: As pointed out above, the word “desire” can be used in a positive sense. In courtship and marriage, it is not only morally legitimate but good and holy, in conformity with the spousal meaning of the body, for man and woman to desire each other. “Desire” can also be used In a negative sense for a reductive kind of desire in which the other person becomes a mere means for pleasure, contrary to the spousal meaning of the body. Even husband and wife commit “adultery in the heart” if they “desire” each other in this reductive way.

*Desire from Index:-by nature, sexual desire is positive because it is above all personal and aims at communion. – desire in the good or neutral sense is to be defined in terms of appetitus. The desire caused by eternal attraction of the feminine for a man is opposed to a reductive form of desire.-“Desire” in the negative sense reduces the wealth of the deep attraction of masculinity and femininity to the mere satisfaction of the body’s sexual wants.-genuine sexual desire is connected with noble sexual pleasure, as opposed to reductive “mere” desire.

43-4: It is not possible to reach this second reading of the words of Matthew 5:27-28 if we limit ourselves to the purely psychological interpretation of concupiscence without taking into account what constitutes its specific theological character, namely, the organic relation between concupiscence (as an act) and the concupiscence of the flesh as, so to speak, a permanent disposition that derives from human sinfulness. It seems that the purely psychological (or “sexological”) interpretation of “concupiscence” is not a sufficient basis for understanding our text from the Sermon on the Mount. On the other hand, if we take the theological interpretation as a point of reference –without undervaluing what remains unchangeable in the first (psychological) interpretation —the second (theological) interpretation appears to us more complete. In fact, it clarifies the ethical meaning of the key statement from the Sermon of the Mount to which we owe the adequate dimension of the ethos of the Gospel.]
“} from Theology of the Body by John Paul II
 
From Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla:

• Personalistic norm: The person is a kind of good to which only love constitutes the proper and fully-mature relation
• There are two profiles of love:
A) The objective profile which is the most important one and which “corrects and guides”, is the affirmation of the value of the person.
B) The subjective profile of love that is divided in:
1) Affectivity: particular sensibility (not excitability) toward the sexual value linked to the “whole human being of the other sex” to “femininity”, to “masculinity”, things not directly linked to the body.
2)Sensuality: denotes sensibility toward the sexual value linked directly to the body. Sensuality by itself possesses a consumer orientation, the “body” is at times experienced as “a possible object of use.”

“ For Wojtyla the relation to another man does not merely depend on the fact of him being an end in himself, but also on him being ordained to ends outside of himself that are perfective of him (and of his freedom), and ultimately to God as his final end. Man unalike as other animals has self determination (free will), and is and should be self reliant in his actions, has an interiority which no one can take, and is incommunicable to the other, and no one can will in his stead. “

{"
In discussing the good and evil of human acts, St Thomas applies the Dionysian formula, i.e., “Evil results from any single defect, but good from the complete cause.” This means that a morally good act requires the goodness of all its sources together, namely of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances, including the consequences.
Action in conformity with conscience is thus always morally good, but it is not at the same time always morally right. However, conscience, even if being erroneous, always obliges to action in conformity with it, because the one who errs does not know by definition about his error. The possibility of making a mistake in such an essential issue inclines one toward particular care for the accuracy of one’s moral recognitions. The only way you guarantee this accuracy is to strive for ever deeper knowledge of who man is in his objective structure. To present precisely this structure of man, a man and a woman, within the totality of their vocation to reciprocal love, is the main task of this book. "
”} Footnote From Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla

Like scriptures states love does no evil. “Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.” Romans 13, 10

{“The condition of acknowledging and experiencing the full value of the human body and sex is precisely the appreciation: elevating it to the value of the person.”
“Intellect rules the appetites. It employs virtues through habits to attain its goals, is not meant to extinguish or disregard the sensual and affective energy, but to take advantage of it instead. Reason and the will are able to assimilate that energy making it fully their own. These virtues should be employed in a despotic way whenever suitable.”}
 
{
"So we conclude back that the sexual value must be firmly joined in the consciousness and the will with the relation toward the value of the person. Only then can one think about the union of persons and their belonging to each other. Without the objective union of persons love does not have the essential meaning, that is, a personal meaning…

Hence one may not call love what is merely its element or “part”, since an improper concentration of these “parts” or elements can result not in love, but rather in the denial of love. Furthermore, there is a fundamental postulate from the viewpoint of ethics: for the good of love, for the sake of realizing love’s true essence both in every person and between persons, it is necessary to be freed from all those “amorous” lived-experiences that do not find justification in true love, that is, in the reciprocal relation between a man and a woman based on a mature affirmation of the value of the person. This postulate hits the crux of the matter concerning chastity. The word chastity speaks of being free from all that “makes dirty”. Love must be in a sense transparent: through all lived experiences, through all deeds that find their source in it, it must always be apparent that this relation to the person of the other sex proceeds from a genuine affirmation of his value. Since the lived-experiences and deeds that deprive love of this transparency spring from the substratum of the senses and the affections connected to them, a separate virtue is needed in order to protect from this side the true character and objective profile of love. This virtue is chastity, which is allied most closely with the love of persons Y and X…
Although love is based on the body and the senses so firmly and explicitly, it is nevertheless not the body and the senses alone that create its proper framework and proper profile. Love is always an affair of interiority and of spirit, in fact, to the degree it ceases to be an affair of interiority and of spirit it also ceases to be love. What remains in it in the senses themselves and in the sexual vitality of the human body alone does not constitute its proper essence. The will (in its freedom) is in a sense the last resort in the person; without its participation no lived experience has full personal value, it does not possess the complete specific weight of the person.
Love in the psychological sense must be subordinated in man to love in the ethical sense, otherwise the integration of love is out of the question.
There can be no psychological fullness of love until ethical fullness is achieved. Love understood as many situations or a as concrete one, are psychologically mature and complete insofar as in each of them separately and all together, love possesses its ethical value…

Love has its ethical sense as it is bound and “governed” by the personalistic norm. So love as lived experience must be subordinated to love as virtue, and to such extent, that without love as virtue there can be no fullness of the lived-experience of love. The Christian Gospel knows love as a supernatural virtue, a divine virtue. A supernatural virtue is rooted in nature and acquires some human form thanks to man’s actions, and at the same time is expressed and confirm in his action, both In interior and exterior acts.

In accord with the full meaning of the word, love is a virtue and not merely an affection. Love as a virtue lives in the will by being disposed toward the value of the person, and so it is the source of the affirmation of the person that permeates all reactions, lived experiences, and all conduct in general.

Love as a virtue relates to affective love and sensual desire, as the point in the ethical order, is to bind the sexual values firmly with the value of the person, since love neither turns to the “body” alone nor even to the “human being of the other sex” himself, but precisely to the person. Love cannot be based neither on sensuality or affectivity alone as they in some way deviate from the true fullness of the person, and do not permit or at least do not lead to his affirmation.
Love in the world of persons must possess its ethical completeness and fullness; its psychological manifestations alone will not suffice – indeed, love is mature, also psychologically mature, only when it possess an ethical value, when it is the virtue of love.
“} from “Love and Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla
 
{
“Sin is a violation of the true good. For the true good , which is the concern of love between a man and a woman, is above all the person, and is neither affection for its own sake nor, much less, pleasure for its own sake. After all, these are secondary goods and from them alone it is impossible to build love, that is, the durable union of persons, even though these goods are so strongly manifested in love’s subjective, psychological profile. A person may never be sacrificed for them, however, for that would introduce an element of sin into love.

“Sinful love” is not else but precisely a system of reference between two persons Y and X in which affection alone, and even more so pleasure alone, assumes the dimension of the self reliant good and determines everything, ignoring the objective value of the person and the objective laws and principles of interaction and relations between persons of different sex.

Sin which is contained in sinful love dwells by its very essence in free will. The concupiscence of the flesh is merely its “hotbed”. For the will can and should prevent the “dis-integration” of love; it should prevent pleasure or even affection alone from assuming the dimension of the self-reliant good, to which everything else is subordinated in the relation toward the person of the other sex or within the reciprocal interaction and relations between persons. The will can and should be guided by objective truth. It can, and so it should, demand that reason give it the true vision of love and of the happiness that love can bring to a woman and a man (so much evil proceeds here from a false, purely subjectivistic vision of happiness in which the “fullness of good” was replaced by a mere “sum of pleasures”)… “
"
By analyzing love under three different aspects (the metaphysical, psychological, and ethical), we managed to distinguish many of its elements. The point is to integrate the elements correctly, both in every person and between them, between a woman and a man, so that they form a proper personal and interpersonal whole. That is why the function of integration is so important. Love cannot remain merely a subjective “situation” in which the energies of sensuality and affectivity that are awakened by the drive come to light. For then it does not measure up to the person nor does unite persons. Love must be firmly based on the affirmation of the value of the person so that it can attain full personal value and unite properly a man and a woman. Taking this affirmation as a departure point, one can easily proceed to thoroughly desiring the good for the beloved person — the good worthy of the person ---- which confers on love a “beatifying” character. People, a woman and a man, long for love, because they count on the happiness that it will bring into their life.

Longing for the true happiness for the other person and genuine self-giving for his good impress on love the invaluable mark of altruism. All this, however, may not mature and crystallize in the love between a man and a woman if what prevails is the concupiscible attitude, love of desire, or especially desire born from the reactions of sensuality, even if placed against the background of rich affective lived-experiences. These lived-experiences give love a “flavor”, but do not always contain its objective essence, which is most closely connected with reciprocal affirmation of the value of the person.

For love is something different from amorous lived experiences. Love is formed on the basis of a thorough and fully responsible relation of a person to another person, whereas amorous lived-experiences are born spontaneously in reactions of sensuality and affectivity. A very abundant development of these lived-experiences may conceal in itself an underdevelopment of love. Therefore, in our analysis of love, we drew attention to the necessity of distinguishing between these two profiles: the objective and the subjective.
And therefore we must consider very seriously the possibility of a disintegration of love. This refers to a lived-experience or even a number of amorous lived-experiences that find their source and basis in the senses and affections, while themselves being still personally immature. The desintegration means above all an underdevelopment of the ethical essence of love… "
} from “Love and Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla
 
{“
Love in the world of persons must possess its ethical completeness and fullness; its psychological manifestations alone will not suffice – indeed, love is mature, also psychologically mature, only when it possess an ethical value, when it is the virtue of love…

It is necessary for the sensual movements (erga bonum sensibile, in relation to the good perceivable sensorially) to be subordinated to reason: this is the precise task of the virtue of the temperance. If man lacked it, the will could easily yield to the senses and would choose as the good only what the senses perceived and desired as the good. The task of the virtue of temperance is to defend the rational being against such a “degeneration”. For to long for and pursue what reason acknowledges as good is natural (i.e., in conformity with nature) for a rational being such as man. Only in such a pursuit, in such a relation toward goods, is the true perfection of a rational being, of a person, expressed and realized. The virtue of temperance contributes to this by helping rational beings to live in a rational way, and this to achieve the perfection proper to their nature.

The fully mature virtue is a habit that consists in keeping constantly in balance the concupiscent power by the habitual relation to the true good, which is defined by reason… “temperance” is a habit ensuring constant moderation and, together with it, the rational equilibrium of the sensual-concupiscent power…

There is no way to comprehend chastity without the virtue of love. Its task is to liberate love from the attitude to use. As follows from the analyses previously conducted in this chapter, this attitude proceeds not merely (and not so much) from sensuality alone or from the concupiscence of the flesh, but from subjectivism of affections, and especially from subjectivism of values, which implants its roots in the will and directly creates the conditions favorable to various egoisms (egoisms of affections, egoisms of the senses). These are the closest dispositions for “sinful love”, which contains the attitude “to use” that is concealed by the appearances of love.

To be chaste means to have a “transparent” relation to the person of the other sex— chastity is the same as the “transparency” of interiority, without which love is not itself, for it is not itself as long as the wish to “use” is not subordinated to the readiness to “love” in every situation. …

This “transparency” of relation to persons of the other sex cannot consist in some artificial pushing of the values of the body (or in particular the values of sexus) down to the subconscious, in creating the appearance as if they did not exist or act. Very frequently chastity is understood as a somewhat “blind” inhibition of sensuality and of the movements of the body when the values of the body and the values of sexus are pushed down to the subconscious, where they await an opportunity to explode. This of course a false understanding of the virtue of chastity, which indeed creates a danger of such “explosions” if it is practiced in that way…
“} from “Love and Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla
 
{“
The underdevelopment of the virtue of chastity occurs when someone “does not keep up” with the affirmation of the value of the person, when he allows himself to be overpowered by the values of the sexus themselves which, upon seizing the will, form badly the whole relation to the person of the other sex. The essence of chastity lies precisely in “keeping up” with the value of the person in every situation and in “pulling up” to this value every reaction to the value of the “body and sex”.

This particular effort is interior, spiritual, because the affirmation of the value of the person can only be a fruit of the spirit.

The point is not a provisional “destruction” of the value of the “body and sex” in consciousness by pushing the lived-experience of the value down to the subconscious, but a durable and long-term integration: the value of the “body and sex” must be embedded and confirmed in the value of the person.

For “moderating” lived-experiences and deeds connected with the sexual values serves the value of the person and love.

[It is only through love, i.e., through the affirmation of the person, that chastity becomes a virtue, a moral habit, in accord with St. Augustine’s expression: caritas est forma virtutum (charity is the form of virtues). In his Summa Theologiae (II-II 23.8), St Thomas attributes this saying to St. Ambrose. (Footnote)]

[Here the demand of chastity is understood precisely as respect for the body and human somatic dynamism. At the same time it is understood that this dynamism acquires the fullness of human expression through its integration with the whole human dynamism by “elevating” it to the personal plane. For the dynamisms of the body are not a self-subsisting and self-reliant manifestation, but in a natural way are directed to serving the integral good of the human person. (Footnote)]

Humility is the proper attitude toward every true greatness, including one’s own, but above all toward the one which I am not, and which resides outside of me. The human body should be “humble“ toward the greatness that is the person: this is the true and definitive greatness of man. Moreover, the human body should be “humble” toward the greatness which is love—humble, i.e., also subordinated to it. Chastity contributes precisely to that. When chastity is missing, the “body” is not subordinated to true love but, on the contrary, attempts to impose its own “laws” and to subject love to itself: the bodily use alone based on the intensive co-experience of the value of sexus then takes over the essential, personal role of love and precisely in this way annihilates love, Therefore humility of the body is needed.

The body should also be humble toward the great affair of human happiness. How often does the “body” insinuate that by itself it possesses the key to the mystery of happiness. “Happiness” would then be identified with delight alone, with the sum of pleasures provided by the “body and sexus” in the relationship between a man and a woman. This superficial vision of happiness obscures even the truth that a woman and a man can and should seek their temporal, earthly happiness in a durable union, which has a personal character because in both of them it is based on the thorough affirmation of the value of the person. All the more, the “body” can – insofar as it is not “humble” , not subordinated to the full truth about man’s happiness—obscure the ultimate vision of the happiness of the human person in union with the personal God… It must be added that it is precisely the truth about the union of the human person with the personal God, which in its fullness is to be accomplished in the dimensions of eternity, that elucidates and explains all the more fully the value of human love, the value of the union of a man and a woman as two persons.
}” From “Love and Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla
 
{“
"Fully-mature protection against the concupiscence of the flesh is found only in the deep realism of virtue, and the point here is precisely the virtue of chastity. Affectivity, however, and this “idealization” that is born on its substratum in the relation X-Y and Y-X, can be very helpful in forming the virtue of chastity. Nevertheless, even the most delicate natural reactions that arise on the ground of affectivity with respect to “femininity or “masculinity” do not by themselves create an adequately deep basis for the love of the person to crystallize.

In fact, a certain danger exists that the concupiscence of the flesh will absorb these reactions, that it will assimilate them as a kind of “accompaniment” that will obscure its proper relation to the human being of the other sex.

It must be added that when affectivity is not strengthened with virtue but left to its own devices, and in this way made to face the powerful concupiscence of the flesh, it is most often reduced to that role. Indeed, it then adds from itself a certain new moment; it makes love something of a subjective “taboo” in which affection is everything and decides everything.

The problem of subjectivism appears right here, for it is affection more than anything else that introduces a subjective moment into human love. Affection must be distinguished from affectivity. By affectivity we understand the ability to react to certain values connected with the “human being of the other sex” (“femininity” – “masculinity” – “charm” – “strength”). Affection, however, is a subjective psychical fact bound with the reaction to various values, and therefore it is bound with deeds that are formed in the orbit of that reaction, in its extension, so to speak. So, sensual-bodily affections are joined with the reaction of sensuality and with the exterior or interior deeds that have their source in the concupiscence of the flesh. Affections are also joined with the reactions of affectivity and with deeds to which these reactions create a stimulus. When we speak of the need for integration, that is, for the correct incorporation of all that proceeds from sensuality and affectivity into an ethically and fully-mature relation of one person to another, then we take fully into account the plasticity of human affection. Affection can develop and adjust to what man consciously forms with his will. The integration of love demands that man consciously forms with his will all that the senses provide him with in the reactions of sensuality and affectivity, so that by thoroughly affirming the value of the person he places all this on the level of a relation between persons and keeps it within the boundaries of a true union of persons.

Subjectivism differs fundamentally from subjectivity, from the subjective profile of every love. Subjectivity belongs to the nature of love which concerns two subjects (a subject), Y and X. Subjectivism, on the other hand, is a distortion of the essence of love — it is such an overgrowth of the subjective moment that the objective value of love becomes partially or completely absorbed and lost In it. "
”} From “Love and Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla
 
**Something about tenderness in love:
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“Accordingly, it is necessary to call for even greater responsibility in granting a woman and a man the “right to tenderness”, both with regard to receiving as well as showing it. A tendency certainly exists – especially in some people— to widen these rights, to take premature advantage of them, while we are presented in both persons merely with the arousal of affectivity and sensuality with it, yet the objective profile of love and the union of persons are still missing. This premature tenderness in interaction between X and Y at times even destroys love or at least does not allow it to be developed in full, in all its interior as well as objective truth…

Without the virtue of temperance, without chastity and self mastery, it is impossible to educate and develop tenderness in man, so that it does not hinder love but serves it. For a serious danger occurs of some shallow, superficial lived experience of love and at the same time its “consumption” (i.e., using up the material from which love is formed in a woman and a man). Within limits of such lived experience both persons will fail in the effort to reach love’s objective profile and the proper good, but will remain with purely subjective manifestations, deriving from them merely ephemeral pleasures. Then love, instead of constantly beginning anew and constantly growing between them, quite the contrary, constantly, so to speak, ends and breaks off. Let us add that among other things a great deal depends here on the correct education of tenderness, on the responsibility for its manifestations….

Tenderness has an enormous role to fulfill here. When thoroughly joined with true love of the person, and being disinterested, it is capable of leading love out of various dangers of egoism of the senses, out of the dangers of the attitude to use. Tenderness is the ability to feel the whole man, the whole person, in all, even the most hidden movements of his soul, but always bearing in mind the true good of that person….

It may seem strange that the reflections on tenderness are located in this part of the chapter, which speaks of the problem of abstinence. (This chapter is The Person and Chastity)
However, there is a close connection and the reflections here are in their proper place. There can be no true tenderness without mature continence, which has its source in the will that is always ready to love, thus consistently overcoming the attitude to use imposed by sensuality and the concupiscence of the flesh. Without this continence the natural energies of sensuality and the energies of affectivity absorbed in their orbit will become mere material for egoism of the senses, and eventually for egoism of affection. This must be clearly and explicitly stated. Life teaches this at every step. The faithful know that behind this lies the mystery of original sin, whose consequences weigh in some particular way on the sphere of sexus and threatens the person, the greatest good among those of the created universe. This danger in a sense borders on love: what can be developed on the basis of the same material is true love, a union of persons, as well as ostensible “love”, which merely provides a cover for the interior attitude to use, for egoism that contradicts love. How enormous and in effect how positive a role abstinence fulfills here, for it liberates from that attitude and from egoism, and thereby indirectly forms love. The love of a woman and a man cannot be built otherwise than through a certain sacrifice and denial of oneself. We find the formula for this denial in the Gospel, in the words of Christ: “Whoever wishes to come after me, let him deny himself….” (see Mt 16:24, Mk 8:34, or Lk 9:23) The Gospel teaches abstinence as a way of loving.”
"} From “Love and Responsibility” by Karol Wojtyla
 
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