Lust is an emotional force that is directly associated with the thinking or fantasizing about one's desire, usually in a sexual way.[1]
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The word lust is phonetically similar to the ancient Roman lustrum, which literally meant "purification". This was the five-year cycle time for the ritual expiation of "sins" called the lustration as practiced in ancient Greek and Roman cultures, occasionally involving human sacrifice. Sexual intercourse was one of a list of sins requiring lustration. Another similar word existed in ancient Latin, lustratio.[2]
The Seven Deadly Sins, written during the 5th century is a similar list of sins requiring expiation or forgiveness. These doctrines forbade even thoughts and desires for fornicatio (fornication), later generalized as luxuria (lust/lechery).[3][4][5] The concept also was progressively embodied in debates about mandatory Clerical celibacy beginning in the 1st through 5th centuries and following. For example, Henry Charles Lea states that "Sixtus III barely admits that married persons can obtain eternal life" in his "Sacerdotal History of Christian Celibacy" (p. 45). He also states, "Siricius and Innocent I ransacked the Gospels for texts of more than doubtful application with which to support the innovation <of required celibacy>". (p. 53)
However, in the 11th to 15th centuries the northern European usage of the verb still meant simply "to please, delight;" or "pleasure". A related form "lusty", originally meant "joyful, merry" or "full of healthy vigor". See.[6]
The word "lust" began being used in the 16th century in the Protestant Reformation's early non-Latin Bible translations. This is despite the fact that the original Koine Greek Bible has no single word that is uniquely translated as heterosexual lust. q.v.
Today, the meaning of the word still has differing meanings as shown in the Merriam-Webster definition. Lust: 1. a: pleasure, delight b: personal inclination: wish 2. intense or unbridled sexual desire: lasciviousness 3. a: intense longing: craving <a lust to succeed> b: enthusiasm, eagerness <admired his lust for life>. See [7]
In translations of the New Testament, the word "lust" is occasionally used as a translation of the Koiné Greek word, 'επιθυμία', Strong's number 1939 and in its various forms. The related word 'ἐπιθυμέω' Strong's number 1937 is rendered as "lust" in the oft-quoted King James Version verse here:
However, this verse represents the only instance 'ἐπιθυμέω' is rendered as 'lust' in the New International Version of the Christian Bible. Further insight can be gained from Jesus Christ describing His own feelings using both of these word forms in Luke 22:15:
Note also that doubling two similar words in Koine Greek is not mere redundancy. Rather, it is a common semantic mechanism to accomplish the emphatic voice. Various versions therefore render Christ's words in Luke 22:15 as "eagerly desired" NIV, "great desire" BBE, "fervent desire" NKJV, "earnestly desired" WEB, RSV. Obviously, Mt 5:27–28 has no expression of intense desire using this mechanism.
This analysis raises several questions in Biblical Hermeneutics. Did Christ deprecate even casual heterosexual desire in Mt 5:28? Is all heterosexual desire lust? There are several understandings of Mt 5:27–28 that attempt to answer these questions.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, a Christian's heart is lustful when "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". Pope John Paul II states that lust is totally different from the natural desire for sexual love of man and woman.[14]
In Roman Catholicism, lust became one of the Seven deadly sins, taking the place of extravagance (Latin: luxuria). This change occurred because in the Romance languages, the cognates of luxuria (the Latin name of the sin) evolved to have an exclusively sexual meaning; the Old French cognate was adopted into English as luxury, but this lost its sexual meaning by the 14th century.
In the Romanesque art, the lust is often represented by a siren or a naked woman with breast bitten by snakes.
Lust is now considered by Catholicism to be a disordered desire;[15] when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna, an Avatar of Vishnu declared in verse 21, that lust is one of the gates to Naraka or hell. "Arjuna said: O descendant of Vrsni, by what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force? Then Krishna said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world. As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, the living entity is similarly covered by different degrees of this lust. Thus the wise living entity's pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire. The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this lust. Through them lust covers the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him. Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bharatas, in the very beginning curb this great symbol of sin—(lust) by regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realization. The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence. Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to the material senses, mind and intelligence, O mighty-armed Arjuna, one should steady the mind by deliberate spiritual intelligence and thus—by spiritual strength—conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust." (Bhagavad-Gita, 3.36–43) In this ancient manuscript the idea behind the word 'Lust' is best comprehended as the psychological force called 'Wanting'.
In Islam, intentional lascivious glances are forbidden. Lascivious thoughts are disliked, for they are the first step towards adultery, rape and other antisocial behaviors. But in Islam, "Desire for the opposite sex" is not forbidden (haram) as it is natural..The Prophet Muhammad had his fears about lust as he once said, "The fornication of the eyes is to look with lust; the fornication of the tongue is to speak lustful things; the fornication of the hands is to touch with lust; the fornication of the feet is to walk towards lust; the fornication of the heart is to desire evil.", the prophet also stressed the magnitude of the "second glance", as the first glance towards an attractive member of the opposite sex could be just observatory, the second glance could be that gate into lustful thinking. Islam does not advocate celibacy but it requires marriage to conduct sex legally. So in conclusion Islam prohibits the actions that may lead to forbidden sexual acts, especially lustful gazing, to decrease the probability of "sinful" behavior.
In Judaism, all evil inclinations and lusts of the flesh are characterized by yetzer hara (Hebrew, יצר הרע). Yetzer hara is not a demonic force; rather, it is man's misuse of the things which the physical body needs to survive, and is often contrasted with yetzer hatov. This idea was derived from Genesis 8:21, which states that "the imagination of the heart of man is evil from his youth".
Yetzer hara is often identified with Satan and the angel of death,[16] and there is sometimes a tendency to give a personality and separate activity to the Yetzer. For the Yetzer, like Satan, misleads man in this world, and testifies against him in the world to come. Yetzer is, however, clearly distinguished from Satan, and on other occasions is made exactly parallel to sin. The Torah is considered the great antidote against this force. Though, like all things which God has made, the Yetzer is good: for without it, man would never marry, beget a child, build a house, or trade.
Few ancient, pagan religions have actually considered lust to be a vice. The most famous example of a widespread religious movement practicing lechery as a ritual would be the Bacchanalias of the Ancient Roman Bacchantes. However, this activity was soon outlawed by the Roman Senate in 186 BC in the decree Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus. The practice of sacred prostitution, however, continued to be an activity practiced often by the Dionysians.
In Sikhism, lust is counted among the five cardinal sins or sinful propensities (the others being anger, ego, greed and attachment). In common usage, the term stands for wanting to have sex and it is in this sense that it is considered an evil if uncontrolled in Sikhism.
According to Brahma Kumaris, a spiritual organisation which is based on Hindu philosphy, sex lust is the greatest enemy to mankind[17] and the gateway to hell.[18] Followers do not eat onions, garlic and eggs as the sulphur in them can excite sex-lust in the body which is bound to celibacy in the Brahma Kumari doctrine. Physical sex is impure and leads to body-consciousness and many crimes. It poisons the body and leads to many diseases. The Brahma Kumaris teach is it like foraging about in a sewer. Students at the Spiritual University must conquer lust in order to go to Golden Age heaven on earth where children are created by power of mind for 2,500 years of peace and purity (like holy swan).[19][20]
From Ovid to the works of les poètes maudits, characters have always been faced with scenes of lechery, and long since has lust been a common motif in world literature. Many writers, such as Georges Bataille, Casanova and Prosper Mérimée, have written works wherein scenes at bordellos and other unseemly locales take place.
Despite the apparent evils of Baudelaire, author of Les fleurs du mal, he had once remarked, in regard to the artist, that "The more a man cultivates the arts, the less randy he becomes... Only the brute is good at coupling, and copulation is the lyricism of the masses. To copulate is to enter into another—and the artist never emerges from himself".
The most notable work to touch upon the sin of lust, and all of the Seven Deadly Sins, is Dante's la Divina Commedia. Dante's criterion for lust was an "excessive love of others," insofar as an excessive love for man would render one's love of God secondary.
In the first canticle of Dante's Inferno, the lustful are punished by being continuously swept around in a whirlwind, which symbolizes their passions. The damned who are guilty of lust, like the two famous lovers, Paolo and Francesca, receive what they desired in their mortal lives, their passions never give them rest for all eternity. In Purgatorio, of the selfsame work, the penitents choose to walk through flames in order to purge themselves of their lustful inclinations.
The link between love and lust has always been a problematic question in philosophy.
Schopenhauer notes the misery which results from sexual relationships. According to him, this directly explains the sentiments of shame and sadness which tend to follow the act of sexual intercourse. For, he states, the only power that reigns is the inextinguishable desire to face, at any price, the blind love present in human existence without any consideration of the outcome. He estimates that a genius of his species is an industrial being who wants only to produce, and wants only to think. The theme of lust for Schopenhauer is thus to consider the horrors which will almost certainly follow the culmination of lust.
In many religious doctrines lust is loosely defined with the result that it is often equated and confused with the physical expression of love in the sexual act. Barry Long states that lusting is only the thinking about sex, and this thinking about the natural sexual energy gives rise to a separate powerful emotional condition known as lust. This emotional condition is the problem in love. A quote from Barry Long on the subject of celibacy (with regard to being free of sexual force) clarifies his definition of love:
"You don’t need a celibate body, you need a celibate mind"[21]
A celibate mind is a mind free of lust. He states that the natural attraction between the sexes is pure and holy. The physical act of sex in the absence of wanting and trying, thinking and fantasizing(lust), results in the creation of a state of love in the bodies. The error in love is to think about sex.[22][23][24]
Lechery currently redirects to this article though it is not the same as lust. Lust is an interior, psychological action.[14] Lechery is behaviour, a physical manifestation or behavioural pattern of an interior condition (lust). Lust does not necessarily result in the action of lechery. The dictionary definition confirms that lechery is a behaviour: inordinate indulgence in sexual activity; unrestrained and promiscuous sexuality; immoderate indulgence of sexual desire; lewd and lustful behavior.
Lust, in the domain of psychoanalysis and psychology, is often treated as a case of "heightened libido". A person is more likely to lust over someone who does not resemble oneself. Self-relatedness is a cue of kinship and causes an instinctual reaction to not be attracted. Therefore, self-resemblance decreases attractiveness and sexual desire in a person while less resemblance increases attractiveness and sexual desire creating a higher possibility of lust.[25]
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