L
_L
Guest
I have a certain moral quandary that I have been thinking about and was hoping for some insightful comments.
From time to time, out of curiosity or a desire to see beauty I find myself looking up pictures of a beautiful model, actress, etc. And from the start I recognize that I have ZERO intention to fantasize lustfully about the person, or experience any sexual pleasure at all. My sole intention is that to admire beauty in a similar way one would look up images of beautiful landscapes. Temptations are inevitable, but I know myself well enough to recognize where the line that should not be crossed is, and by this I mean that in this regard I understand the varying degrees of occasion of sin… remote occasion where sin is extremely unlikely to occur and near occasion were sin almost always occurs which is in and of itself a grave sin to put ones self in that situation. And in this situation I’m talking about, I know myself well enough to understand that it is not a near occasion of sin, but rather a bit more remote to the point where I know (and the track record confirms) that this sort of activity has not caused me to lust ever.
But regardless of my intentions I tend to feel guilty afterwards eventhough I know for sure I have not lusted. And I think this is in part due to the fact that some of the pictures I viewed were immodest; now my question is… is viewing immodest pictures in and of itself sinful?
I make sure that I am not focusing on any immodest portion of the photograph and my computer allows me to re-cut the photograph to block off anything objectionable. And as I said I am not keying in on immodest portions of the pictures but am always looking at the face.
But the very fact of just having seen the immodest photographs to begin with causes me to feel guilty, eventhough if I had it my way the only photographs I would see would be modest ones, but even google image search is a gamble these days in that regard.
So now it comes to the issue of sin against modesty vs sin against chastity…
I know that I did not lust, but did I commit a sin against modesty? Was my willingness to put myself in a situation where immodest photos were likely to come up tantamount to a sin against modesty or “custody of the eyes” ? Considering my intention from the beginning not to sin, I really can’t see this as being a grave sin, but rather a venial one, (if even that) or just an unwise choice that really had a low reward to a higher unnecessary risk even though that risk as I said was not a near occasion of sin because its an occasion of sin where sin was highly unlikely to occur based on my previous experience regarding these types of situations.
For the record, I tend to be a very scrupulous person and all this anxiety surrounding the issues of lust and modesty really cause me a lot of grief because I feel it really prevents me from having a healthy and Godly view of sexuality considering all of the potential dangers surrounding sexual sin erroneously give the impression that sex is bad, our sexuality should be denounced, and so on. And while of course I know sex is a gift from God the fears and anxieties surrounding it morally speaking are enough to kind of taint the concept, which is not what God intended.
And certain attitudes regarding looking at attractive people really foster that anxiety. For example I have often heard people say that we shouldn’t “take a second look” when we see a beautiful woman pass by (speaking from the male perspective) and my question is “why not?” If our intentions are pure, what is wrong with turning around to admire the beauty of that person? obviously we shouldn’t be rude or make the person uncomfortable but objectively speaking I don’t see anything wrong with looking at someone who is attractive as long as you have pure intentions and we shouldn’t treat beauty as some sort of trap for the sin of lust.
Thoughts?
From time to time, out of curiosity or a desire to see beauty I find myself looking up pictures of a beautiful model, actress, etc. And from the start I recognize that I have ZERO intention to fantasize lustfully about the person, or experience any sexual pleasure at all. My sole intention is that to admire beauty in a similar way one would look up images of beautiful landscapes. Temptations are inevitable, but I know myself well enough to recognize where the line that should not be crossed is, and by this I mean that in this regard I understand the varying degrees of occasion of sin… remote occasion where sin is extremely unlikely to occur and near occasion were sin almost always occurs which is in and of itself a grave sin to put ones self in that situation. And in this situation I’m talking about, I know myself well enough to understand that it is not a near occasion of sin, but rather a bit more remote to the point where I know (and the track record confirms) that this sort of activity has not caused me to lust ever.
But regardless of my intentions I tend to feel guilty afterwards eventhough I know for sure I have not lusted. And I think this is in part due to the fact that some of the pictures I viewed were immodest; now my question is… is viewing immodest pictures in and of itself sinful?
I make sure that I am not focusing on any immodest portion of the photograph and my computer allows me to re-cut the photograph to block off anything objectionable. And as I said I am not keying in on immodest portions of the pictures but am always looking at the face.
But the very fact of just having seen the immodest photographs to begin with causes me to feel guilty, eventhough if I had it my way the only photographs I would see would be modest ones, but even google image search is a gamble these days in that regard.
So now it comes to the issue of sin against modesty vs sin against chastity…
I know that I did not lust, but did I commit a sin against modesty? Was my willingness to put myself in a situation where immodest photos were likely to come up tantamount to a sin against modesty or “custody of the eyes” ? Considering my intention from the beginning not to sin, I really can’t see this as being a grave sin, but rather a venial one, (if even that) or just an unwise choice that really had a low reward to a higher unnecessary risk even though that risk as I said was not a near occasion of sin because its an occasion of sin where sin was highly unlikely to occur based on my previous experience regarding these types of situations.
For the record, I tend to be a very scrupulous person and all this anxiety surrounding the issues of lust and modesty really cause me a lot of grief because I feel it really prevents me from having a healthy and Godly view of sexuality considering all of the potential dangers surrounding sexual sin erroneously give the impression that sex is bad, our sexuality should be denounced, and so on. And while of course I know sex is a gift from God the fears and anxieties surrounding it morally speaking are enough to kind of taint the concept, which is not what God intended.
And certain attitudes regarding looking at attractive people really foster that anxiety. For example I have often heard people say that we shouldn’t “take a second look” when we see a beautiful woman pass by (speaking from the male perspective) and my question is “why not?” If our intentions are pure, what is wrong with turning around to admire the beauty of that person? obviously we shouldn’t be rude or make the person uncomfortable but objectively speaking I don’t see anything wrong with looking at someone who is attractive as long as you have pure intentions and we shouldn’t treat beauty as some sort of trap for the sin of lust.
Thoughts?