TOB: Lust Differs From Sexual Attraction

Man will always be attracted to woman, and woman to man. It is part of our human nature. In itself, there is nothing wrong with being sexually attracted to the opposite sex. In God’s designs, sexual attraction in an invitation to a communion of persons, lived in reciprocal self-giving and acceptance. It a sign of the perennial call to exist with and for another person in love.

Lust or carnal concupiscence is different from mere sexual attraction. It is, in fact, a distortion of it. In psychology, lust is understood as an intense desire directed to the sexual value of a person. In biblical understanding, lust blinds man’s heart and mind to the full truth of the person and to the perennial call to communion. It involves an impoverishment of God’s plan. It reduces the richness of the person to a mere object of one’s selfish sexual gratification. It. therefore, obscures the nuptial and procreative meanings of the body.

In the case of the man who looks lustfully at a woman, such lustful look remains as yet an interior act, but it already reveals, says John Paul II, the man inside. The man who looks lustfully at a woman has already, within him, radically altered the purpose of the woman’s body and femininity to a mere object of sexual satis-faction. In his heart, he has already denied the nuptial meaning of the body. Thus, lust depersonalizes the person.

Finally, lust limits the freedom with which man and woman can truly give themselves to each other in love, in the full truth and richness of their masculinity and femininity, as God has willed them to be. It blurs, diminishes their capacity for a real communion of persons.