S
SpeakKindly
Guest
If lust is adultery, then how is lust before marriage, especially with your future spouse, adultery?
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F
faithfulwannabe
Guest
I think it’s sin before you enter marriage.
It will be only sin of thought & feeling if you didn’t act on it. It became adultery when you act upon it.
Perhaps.
It will be only sin of thought & feeling if you didn’t act on it. It became adultery when you act upon it.
Perhaps.
C
CatholicRaven
Guest
We usually think of “lust” in the secular use of the word: a strong sexual attraction. In other words, it’s just a feeling. But when we speak of lust as a sin, we are not talking about simple attraction, noticing beauty, etc. It may start with a strong sexual attraction, but if that’s where it ends, it’s not sinful, it’s just a feeling.
When we talk about lust in a moral way, it is about viewing the other person as an object for your pleasure. It’s about allowing your thoughts to go where they shouldn’t.
Lust is often (but not always) based only on physical attraction (and often includes fantasy). It’s about pleasing yourself, and/or possessing the other. It’s not about giving, it’s about getting (or taking). It’s selfish, not self-sacrificing.
So you can probably imagine that this can even be done within marriage, with your spouse.
Love, especially married love, is about giving and sacrifice. It’s wanting what is good for the other. It includes a desire to please them–and not just because you get something out of it. This isn’t to say that love always requires us to sacrifice or do something we don’t want to do, or that we never get anything out of it–it’s just that those things are not the primary motivation for love. When you love your spouse, you are not just focused on the physical–you want to spend time with them even when it doesn’t lead to sexual things, you want to get to know them, you want to please them and do what is good for them. You generally want to be intimate with them as a way of expressing and sharing that love, of becoming “one flesh” with them.
Love and lust are choices. But we often confuse them with the feelings that usually precede or come along with those choices. Especially since the secular definitions are usually all about the feelings, nothing more.
HTH.
When we talk about lust in a moral way, it is about viewing the other person as an object for your pleasure. It’s about allowing your thoughts to go where they shouldn’t.
Lust is often (but not always) based only on physical attraction (and often includes fantasy). It’s about pleasing yourself, and/or possessing the other. It’s not about giving, it’s about getting (or taking). It’s selfish, not self-sacrificing.
So you can probably imagine that this can even be done within marriage, with your spouse.
Love, especially married love, is about giving and sacrifice. It’s wanting what is good for the other. It includes a desire to please them–and not just because you get something out of it. This isn’t to say that love always requires us to sacrifice or do something we don’t want to do, or that we never get anything out of it–it’s just that those things are not the primary motivation for love. When you love your spouse, you are not just focused on the physical–you want to spend time with them even when it doesn’t lead to sexual things, you want to get to know them, you want to please them and do what is good for them. You generally want to be intimate with them as a way of expressing and sharing that love, of becoming “one flesh” with them.
Love and lust are choices. But we often confuse them with the feelings that usually precede or come along with those choices. Especially since the secular definitions are usually all about the feelings, nothing more.
HTH.
B
BeingSaved
Guest
wow,
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PaulinVA
Guest
I don’t think the poster meant HTH in the sarcastic sense at all.
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FrenzyJen
Guest
Because if it is a boyfriend or girlfriend, or even a fiance, that person is still not your spouse. Oh they might be, but they aren’t yet. And even though they are the same person, at that time, they are not your spouse.
Does that help at all?
I did things with my husband back when he was my boyfriend that I wish I had saved for my husband. Sure it was the same person, but those things were deserved by my husband, not a guy I was dating.
Does that help at all?
I did things with my husband back when he was my boyfriend that I wish I had saved for my husband. Sure it was the same person, but those things were deserved by my husband, not a guy I was dating.
E
EasterJoy
Guest
A fiancé does not always go on to become a spouse. On the wedding day, consent will be the most free if the correct order of consent is preserved.
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Cackles
Guest
This is what I keep saying. That’s because lust in itself is NOT sin.
As far the bible is concerned theres not even such a word as ‘lust’. That word is a later English translation.
If your single your allowed to lust after other single people.
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Cackles
Guest
This is actually partly true.
‘Sin in the mind’ can lead to all sorts of false doctrines and heresys. It’s too Buddah, Hinduistic, and New Age in my opinion and shouldnt be tought because people use it to bastardise Christianity into religions of faith alone. It can also create religious OCD which is a legitimate psychiatric condition.
God cares about ACTIONS and only cares about the BIG things. Before cain slew able God himself said that sin was brewing in his heart. He didnt actually commit the sin yet.
The only time sins of thought are valid is you cant use thoughts of family members for masterbation purposes. This includes Father Daughter although there is no specific prohabition on that act for pro-creation purposes.
Do you think God cares about how you hold your fork, or drink out of a straw, or if your looking at some girl in short short with her butt hanging out the bottom wanting to ‘do that’. No. These are all sinless, useless, fruitless, daily things that God doesnt care about.
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CatholicRaven
Guest
Right, thank you, not meant sarcastically at all. I meant sincerely, “hope that helps.”
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BiffRuffle
Guest
No, I think lust is a sin. Lust involves seeing another, not as a person to be loved, by as an object to be used, denying their human dignity and intrinsic worth.
There is certainly a place for chaste sexual and romantic attraction - Benedict XVI and Christopher West describe it as being intended to draw us towards something more.(The Love That Satisfies, Ascension Press) This ‘eros,’ or romantic love is meant to lead us to the agape, self-giving love imaged in the marriage, and on the cross.
Lust, though, leads us to ourselves - we see the other as something to be used for our satisfaction. Doing that, we turn the object of our lust into something other than the amazing and unique image of God that they are, into simply a collection of qualities. We are not just our qualities, we are made for love and by love, and nothing can justify seeing another person as less than that.
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BeingSaved
Guest
oh, sorry, first time back to this thread,…i didn’t mean wow about HTH,(I don’t know what that even is)
I meant wow about what she wrote,…content was great
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Vico
Guest
Catechism of the Catholic Church2351 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.
The sixth commandment is act primarily and the ninth is the dwelling on it in thought or emotion. St. Thomas Aqunias detailed the parts of* lust* which are the species or types of lustful sins as six:
*]simple fornication,
*]adultery,
*]incest,
*]seduction,
*]rape, and
*]unnatural vice (sodomy, masturbation, bestiality, unnatural intercourse such as with use of condoms, etc.).
[1] Fornication is the normal, but unlawful, use of sex by an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. …
[2] Adultery is the normal, but unlawful, use of sex by a married and a single person, or by two married persons, who, however, are not married to each other.
[3] Incest is the use of sex by man and woman who are related by ties of blood, or by affinity, that is, by relationship arising out of a marriage
[4] Seduction is the violation of a virgin.
[5] Rape is a species of lust - and gravely sinful - in which force is employed in committing a lustful action.
[6] Unnatural vice is any lustful perversion of normal and natural processes for procuring sex pleasures.
“Lust, by being directed to another vice as its end, becomes a species of that vice: and so a species of lust may be also a species of irreligion, as of a higher genus.”
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SpeakKindly
Guest
I liked this answer, but is all lust adultery?
What would sexual acts (not a form of intercourse) of marriage be? Things considered foreplay, for example.
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mommamaree
Guest
Foreplay is not sinful. Have you had a chance to peruse The Way of Our Lord Jesus by Germaine Grisez? You can read it for free online and you can scroll through it to find the pertinent sections. He describes how sexual acts (caresses, kisses, and other forms of sexual contact) are good in and of themselves, between spouses. Spouses using such actions to arouse and prepare each other for intercourse, or using actions to express affection and sexual desire (even if they do not have the opportunity for intercourse), or such actions to enjoy the act of intercourse that just happened (post-coital affection) are doing good actions. For example, a husband caressing his wife or kissing her bosom, or a wife fondling her husband. These actions, oftentimes a part of foreplay, but oftentimes also used to communicate desire and affection even when intercourse is not possible, are GOOD and not sinful. More intensely arousing contact is simply within the realm of the prudence of the couple themselves, as well, and are not sinful, even if opportunity for intercourse is not available. So that applies to all incomplete (meaning not leading to climax) acts.
Actions that contribute to the climax of one’s spouse is also good, when it is done within the complete marital act. The main rule about climax is that the husband must climax inside his wife, and a wife may climax at any point during foreplay, coitus, or post-coital intimacy.
To summarize then,
Sexual desire for one’s spouse is GOOD.
Sexual contact with one’s spouse is GOOD.
Foreplay is good, coitus is good, post-coital affection is good.
Being sexually playful and affectionate at other times to “keep the fire burning” is GOOD.
It is true that married persons can struggle with lust, even toward their spouse. However, any marital act, or the sexual actions (foreplay) that lead to and support the marital act, if such is mutually agreeable and not coerced, the act cannot be condemned as objectively lustful. Now if such were against the will of a spouse and it was done anyway, with no regard to the feelings of the other, that would be very wrong, and it might possibly be motivated by lust. But a couple just enjoying the mutual self-giving and the pleasures of the marital act and foreplay does not need to self-accuse for lust when they are merely being passionate and desirous.
Hope that helps! God bless.
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mommamaree
Guest
Sexual acts between two unmarried persons is fornication, and is motivated by lust.
Sexual acts between two people who are not married to each other, but one or both of them is married to another, is adulterous, and is motivated by lust.
Consensual and mutually agreeable sexual acts between two persons married to each other is not lustful, and is neither adulterous nor fornication.
Sexual acts between two people who are not married to each other, but one or both of them is married to another, is adulterous, and is motivated by lust.
Consensual and mutually agreeable sexual acts between two persons married to each other is not lustful, and is neither adulterous nor fornication.
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harpallsuhana
Guest
Each person under the Sun is unique and lusts in different ways.
Lust is a form of distraction before marriage hence your mind and has to be controlled.
In my opinion lust is a necessary ingridient in a successful married life,however lust should not be confused with unnatural sexual activities.
As one of the members rightly points out that foreplay,coitus,post coitus activities are all the result of lust and very much acceptable within marital status.
Lust is a form of distraction before marriage hence your mind and has to be controlled.
In my opinion lust is a necessary ingridient in a successful married life,however lust should not be confused with unnatural sexual activities.
As one of the members rightly points out that foreplay,coitus,post coitus activities are all the result of lust and very much acceptable within marital status.
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mommamaree
Guest
No, this is not correct. Lust is a vice and is never acceptable and should not be confused with sexual desire and sexual attraction. Lust is a disordered desire (meaning beyond or outside of the natural order of things) for sexual pleasure, and it causes a person to view the other person as an object to be used to satisfy their disordered desire. It leads to one person using or attempting to possess another person for their own pleasure and without any regard for the feelings and will of the other person.
Sexual desire within the natural order is different. Instead of a desire to take from someone, it leads a human being to give of themselves to their mate. It bonds a couple together, rather than leading them to use one another.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a very good explanation of lust, and explains why it is a vice and not a virtue, as some in our world today would have us believe.
God bless!
T
TMO
Guest
Lust is a capital sin. End of explanation.
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TMO
Guest
This is so UNTRUE.
Remember what we recite in the contriction act: “I confess to God almighty and to all of you brothers and sisters that I have sinned very much, in thought, word, action and omission”. YOU CAN SIN IN YOUR THOUGHTS. It’s like saying that if I think that I want to beat someone, it isn’t a sin just because it’s still in my head.
Our thoughts are like the script of our actions. We can’t dismiss them. God sees our heart and HE SEES OUR MENTAL SINS. Lust is a particular sin since you can do it and there’s no physical “proof” you did it. But that’s how it all starts. You start looking at someone as objects, to dwell in their body parts, to imagine doing sexual things with them. What does that lead to? Most of the times, to masturbation, so we can’t say we can sin in our head and that it doesn’t matter.
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