Lust and Sexual Attraction, Part 2
Aug 6, 2007 Print This Post
OK, last week I posted on Lust and Sexual Attraction and I promised that I would give my perspective. Here we go…
When I first read the quote I posted, I gave a partial “Amen.” Here it is for reminder sake…
“Eros, the longing for personal fulfillment, must not be confused with lust, the untamed desire for another’s body. Nor is every feeling of attraction toward an exciting person the spark of lust. It would odd indeed if the Creator put attractive people in the world and forbade us to notice them. But there is a difference between the awareness of someone’s sexual attractions and being dominated by a desire for that person’s body.”
I disagree that “eros” scripturally is limited to “the longing for personal fulfillment,” so that part is whack. But I agree with the rest of this statement because I think that we often confuse three things in our culture:
Attraction – Lust – Love
Attraction
What is attraction? It’s finding someone attractive. It’s acknowledging that someone is attractive (at least in your eyes). You have to be blind to not find people attractive each and every day. The only way to try to avoid this is to live in a culture where the women wear burkhas and the guys sport Mullets.
The question ultimately is “what do you do with this attraction?” Can you look at a beautiful woman and say “wow…she is beautiful” without lusting?
(Because I’m a guy, I have to take this from the guy angle because it’s the angle I understand.)
I believe the only way we can be attracted to someone without lusting after them is the Holy Spirit. Because through his power, we can see a beautiful woman as who she is: a beautiful creation of God. Not an object to be ogled at, not an object of fantasy, but an attractive woman.
Wait a minute, Noel, are you saying you find women who are not your wife attractive?
I’m not blind.
Again, the question is “what do you do with this attraction?”
Glorify God, period. Make it a God thing, not a lust thing.
In an interesting blog post I read today called “Why shouldn’t Christians wear burkhas?” the author writes:
A woman who wants to be provocative can be so in almost any type of clothing, and a man fixated on lust can mentally undress a woman even in a burkha. Both women and men need to use wisdom in this area.
Lust
So many of us cross the line into lust, instead of glorifying God. And this is where I must wholeheartedly disagree with Lewis Smedes (the guy who wrote the original post) because he writes:
“Is the person who gets excited by sexually stimulating photographs lusting? The answer must be that all depends…A husband who is distracted, tired, depressed, and in general out of tune with his own sexuality may feel the need for sexual stimulus that his wife, unfortunately, does not provide. If he sneaks a look at some touched-up picture of an undressed woman, he may in fact, be merely receiving the stimulus he needs to make love to his wife. “
This, to me, seems like the ultimate cop-out. Under this definition, what is lust?
Jesus defined it clearly in the very passage Smedes is quoting:
Matthew 5:28 But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
The word for “lust” here is translated elsewhere as “covet” or “desire” or “longing.” You can’t tell me that looking at pornography is not lusting. It’s a word game to try make this statements of Jesus’ into anything other than its normal interpretation.
When you “covet” or “desire” or “long after” someone other than your spouse (including pictures or videos), you are lusting–period.
Love
This is the one our culture has way screwed up. We see love as something we “fall into” or “fall out of.” We believe in “love at first sight.”
We forget that one of the foundations of “love” is a commitment–a decision. Yes, there is an emotional component, but there is also (more importantly) a decision component.
Last night, my wife and I watched the movie “The Last Kiss,” which she thought was going to be a romantic comedy…it wasn’t. BTW, I can’t recommend this movie because it definitely will push you kicking and screaming into the lust category whether you like it or not (lots of nudity…sex scenes).
This movie is based on the premise (like so many others these days) that love is something you fall into and out of. It promotes the idea that when someone better comes along, you almost owe it to yourself to pursue that new someone. Now, granted, the movie tried in a halfhearted and lame way to combat that concept but they failed.
The best part of this movie was this line from a guy to his daughter’s boyfriend after he had an affair:
“Stop talking about love. Every asshole in the world says he loves somebody. It means nothing…What you feel only matters to you. It’s what you do to the people you say you love that matters. It’s the only thing that counts.”
And Jesus says if you commit adultery in your heart, it is just as if you have committed it with your body. Which means when you lust you are sinning against someone you love (your spouse or future spouse).
Does that mean we should run out and have an affair with our bodies because we’ve already done something just as bad?
No.
Does that mean women should wear burkhas?
No.
Does that mean that guys should pluck their eyes out to avoid looking at women?
No.
It means we need to learn the difference between attraction and lust.
I will be attracted to women who are not my wife. Why? Because I am a perverted sinner? Although that’s a good description of me (thankfully Jesus saved me and is saving me every day), it’s not the reason why.
The reason I will be attracted to women who are not my wife is because there are attractive women in this world who are not my wife.
It is my responsibility to give God glory for such a beautiful creation and not lust. Lucky for me, my wife is smokin’ hot…that definitely helps. :)
Hope this long rambling makes sense.
August 6th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Hi Noel,
It does make sense–and we are in agreement on these three issues. I do believe, all women are “smokin’ hot.” :-)
August 6th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Thanks for the comment, Dan. I must say I enjoy reading your blog.
August 7th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This was always a huge area of contention in the college group and even at LTs. This is the clearest explanation of the topic I’ve heard.
August 7th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
First I have to say that I’ve always pictured Jesus in a robe and the women around him in robes too. While he spoke to a Samaritan woman I doubt he’d have been pleased to converse with people who showed off their bodies like we do today. The more honestly I pray for women who are advertising their bodies publicly the less I have been attracted to that sort of behavior. The quote about fixation might be a little exaggerated because I can tell you that I’m going to more likely to picture something behind a curtain after walking around with everyone’s curtains being drawn back.
That is a great line from the movie you talked about… I won’t be watching it, thanks for the warning. I totally agree with you about love and commitment. While I’ve been hurt so much and American’s are statistically flaky I have a lot of hope for these people to grasp reality Jesus paints in Matthew 19.
I could never “fall out of” love and I’m happy to say I’ve never felt so much love of God. Christ has healed my heart from terror as a child right up to deceit as an excuse of being a man. I got a lot of love for you too brother; but its not a Pitt thing. Thanks for the in depth explanation and thanks for not actually playing that music in the background (would’ve been too much).
August 7th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Amen, Amen and, again, Amen!
On attraction, I agree that it’s the Holy Spirit that makes us “different.” Shaunti Feldhahn has reassuring words for the women in our lives regarding this topic.
On lust, after reading other of Smedes’ posts, I began to perceive his view, indeed, to be a grand cop-out and then some. Something about his writing gives me the heebie-jeebies. I think it has to do with his starting off with good ideas — ideas that other current Christian writers handle well — but then taking them out-of-bounds of what, I see anyway, it is that God is really trying to tell us in scripture. Yes, Paul writes about the freedom of a saved-by-grace life, but he also instructs to not use that as an excuse to flounder in one’s shortcomings (read “sin”).
On love, I agree that our culture has this screwed up — in more ways than one — and so does the church at times. Embarrassingly too often, secular culture’s demonstrations of love, of the varied types of love that do exist, trump church culture’s. You describe here romantic love supported by commitment, which I, in my relationship with my wife, should be all over demonstrating to the world since I see Christ being that way with the church.
I’ve seen Christians wrestle with (and over) so many issues that stem from what it is I think you’re pointing out as a root. I like this:
If we all followed these words, the world would know a whole lot more about God’s love than they do now.
August 9th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
thank you for an easy and clear thinking on attraction and lust. when talking to middle school boys about lust and the question is usually “when does looking (noticing a girl) turn to lust or is looking, lust?” I now have a clear way to explain to them. Our middle school has been using the “Double Dang Principle” The Double Dang works like this. When you see an attractive girl and your like “Dang!” that is normal. It is when you look again and are like “Daang!” you have crossed the line to lust. So we tell them don’t double dang. Simple yes but it helps.
August 9th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
I like the “Double Dang” idea.
August 11th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Noel, you were the right age in the 80s … be honest: there are mullet pictures of you in some dark closet, aren’t there?
;)
(not to totally miss all the seriousness of this topic or anything)
August 11th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Suprisingly, I didn’t sport a mullet. I was more of an Alex P Keaton conservative, actually.
Not sure which is worse, really.
January 26th, 2008 at 10:32 am
[...] I was working on my message for tonight I stumbled onto an old post I did at NoelHeikkinen.com. It fits with the topic at hand, so I figured I’d repost it [...]
August 1st, 2008 at 11:58 am
Fatigue and ritalin….
Ritalin. History of ritalin. Research paper on ritalin….