I'd like to talk about beauty and lust. Is it possible to appreciate beauty without lust (or even envy)? To what point does beauty become lust, Can a desire for a beautiful/attractive wife be made wholesome? Are Christians suppose to not acknowledge that women have a naked body in a moral sense? Should attraction not be a criteria for what we look for women.
A friend told me, that appreciating beauty should be with the moment, that searching for beauty makes it lust.
I'll be monitoring this thread because this is very interesting to me. I like women with long, straight hair because I find that hair beautiful. I genuinely think the look and the way it shimmers in the light is mesmerising. I don't know if I could use the word "beauty" since the meaning of the word is precisely what's being discussed but nonetheless, the way I feel about such hair makes me feel something in my chest. I feel a certain kind of longing. It feels pure. I want to protect that hair.
By comparison, when I look at a woman with a large, round posterior or a pair of large bosoms, the feeling is definitely lower. It's definitely penis-oriented whereas in my imagination, even when I try to sexualise long, straight, smooth hair by using it as a masturbation aid, it still doesn't feel right. It still feels like I'm desecrating something pure.
I feel like that's the difference between Beauty and Lust. For me, at least.
I haven't done a whole lot of thinking about this idea but here's my take on it. To me, beauty is something that is not mutually inclusive with lust. I can look at a beautiful forest, mountain, sunset, or anything else and not feel horny or anything like that. I can do the same with statues and sculptures depicting women in various forms and levels of dress. In fact I was at a gallery today and saw a ton of statues depicting naked women, but never really had a lust for them despite them having a sense of beauty to them. And there are definitely times where I've seen a woman and thought "wow she's gorgeous" without feeling any lust towards her. But that's not to say that the two are totally separate, obviously lust comes from beauty in most cases where lust exists.
Also, if searching for beauty is lustful, how could any Christian be an artist?
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But Attraction is part of what you look for in a wife, right? Or as Christians is that piece removed?
Off topic, but Masturbation is harmful to you, it steals away important testosterone, reworks your reward system, and makes you depressed.
That's what it seems like, that's not even getting into material lust.
Yeah, that's the biggest issue of this for me. It basically means that it's sinful for a man to desire that his wife is beautiful.
What does it even mean then, for a Christian man to appreciate the so-called "momentary beauty"?
Does the bible have any respounce to this?
bump
Song of Songs, where the entire book is one long mushy love poem where the husband and wife praise each other's beauty and express desire for each other, and lament the times where one of them wasn't there for the other.
This is something that has been haunting me for quite sometimes. How can i differentiate from love to lust? I love someone, and i want to not only be with her but i NEED someone like her for my soul's sake who is still wrestling with some inner demons of mine…
pet peeve. you meant to use "covetousness." covetousness is wanting what someone else has and what you yourself don't. jealousy is often misused. jealousy is a positive emotion, a good thing. your God is a jealous God, because he protects what is His; jealously comes from a place of love. envy is different from both. envy desires destruction of the one who has what the envious one doesn't, it's hatred of a type.
examples: a rich and powerful man has a lovely wife. he is naturally jealous of her, and she of him, and these are good things. the covetous man desires the rich man's wife, and the covetous woman wants the lovely wife's husband. meanwhile, the envious woman wants to sleep with the rich man in order to hurt his wife, and the envious man spreads rumors about the lovely wife in order to hurt the rich man.
yes.
when you go from "wow that is a really attractive girl" to "wow i'd like to have unmarried sex with that really attractive girl."
desire to have a beautiful WIFE? that is already wholesome. there's nothing in Christianity that says you should desire to specifically have an ugly or hideous spouse. don't you want beautiful and healthy kids?
read that book when you get a chance. from genesis to song of solomon, it's full of references which laud the beauty of individual men's wives.
marriage is the relationship that sanctifies your lust for one another. sexual desire is the "consolation prize" of the Fall, provided its expression is confined to the sacrament. of course, marriage is its own Cross to bear, just as celibacy is, just a different kind of Cross.
Ask yourself: do you want to possess the person? Is the feeling you get from looking at a beautiful woman "thank God such beauty exists in the world" or "I WANT that girl"? Is your attention drawn to the woman's more sexual features (such as bare skin, breasts etc) or to the ones that reflect God's own likeness?
Pure contemplation of female beauty, without lust, is possible, but difficult, especially if you are a young male. It might be an occasion of sin if you haven't trained yourself for it, so be careful with it.
For me, it's both. There are plenty of women I know who without a doubt are a reflection of God, but I also want cuddles by the fireplace.
OP research the history of "eugenics" and why it would be beneficial to a bunch of Roman politicians, wealthy patrician families, members of the Romen priesthood, the Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman military to organize a system of dogma which is based on "breeding" and rearing up offspring.
Adolf Hitler told Germans to have many children.
In the same way, the writers of the Bible may have been trying to control people (I've heard some people speak of extraterrestrial soul harvesting) especially in sexual ways and reproductive ways.
Perhaps the writers of the Bible were collaborating with Rome and the writers of the Tanakh were collaborating with the Jewish kingdoms to create a sort of "master race".
The idea of "racial supremacy" appears to be very powerful in the Jewish cultural conscious.
So, what I'm saying to OP is that the Bible and Christian and Jewish traditions are not so much as trying to scare people about "lust" and "vanity" to protect their soul, as much as it is trying to scare people about these topics for the purpose of mind control and for the purpose of ancient bourgeoisie eugenics.
I believe that beauty can be defined as a 'whole or partial reflection of God'. Beauty itself is, therefore, not a emotion as much as it is a perception of the transcendent divine. Instead, what we feel when we perceive something beautiful is either love or lust: a desire to give, or to take respectively.
This is why a woman can be beautiful, as can a painting, a musical score, or even an idea or dream. All these things have within them reflections of God, and we feel inclined to respond to it.
As Christians we are called not to take, but to give - that is to say, we are called to love. Perfect love is the love of God - that which we are called to. I suppose that love itself is therefore a beautiful insofar as it is a whole reflection of God's grace. Consequently, lust cannot be considered beautiful, as God exhibits not selfishness.
This isn't to say that sexual attraction is evil; rather, it is how we act on it that is categorizes sin: husband's and wives should sacrifice themselves to each other, precisely as Paul writes in Corinthians 13:4-8:
Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the sonne of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousnesse,
16 But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumbe asse speaking with mais voice, forbade the madnesse of the Prophet.
17 These are welles without water, cloudes that are caried with a tempest, to whom the mist of darkenesse is reserved for ever.
18 For when they speake great svelling words of vanitie, they alure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonnesse, those that were cleane escaped from them who live in errour.
19 While they promise them libertie, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is o'ercome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are againe intangled therein, and o'ercome, the latter end is worse with them then the beginning.
21 For it had bin better for them not to have knowen the way of righteousnesse, then after they have knowen it, to turne from the holy commandement delivered unto them.
Faggot
Who are you?
Why do you say "faggot"? Are you calling me a "faggot"?
Because of your Reddit-tier fedorapost. Enjoy your ban.
The problem with your distinction here is that you can desire a girl without being in sin. For instance a man who is pursuing to make a girl his wife is rightly pushed on by sexual desire for her.
It only seems to become sin to sexually desire someone when they are not yours to have, or if you are not going to enter into covenant with them before sex.
Sexual attraction, in its natural state, is to direct you towards a mate who is genetically and physically fit to bear healthy children. There is nothing wrong with that imo. That's why men are attracted to things like wide hips, they are directly related to the woman being able to give birth easily.
beautifully worded user
Beauty is subjective, beauty isn't always understood by everyone and not interpreted equally by everyone. Beauty as we know it isn't a mysterious or divine thing, it's just a form of pleasure. If we understood divine beauty, we would be God. But as of now, the earthly beauty is corruptible.
I'm a catholic, yet I don't agree that we beauty is an essential thing in a christian art. A gay religious artist draws nude men from nude male models and call it beautiful, if you want my honest opinion it's sick and depraved. I wouldn't blame him though because we're all clueless of the meaning of beauty. I wouldn't say that modern art isn't beautiful, because earthly beauty can't be anything other than a subjective thing. Many artist had made a pact with the devil due to their love of beauty.
And the conclusion, I think beauty and lust do coexist. I think people should not love beauty very much, because beauty is corruptible. What humans truly need is a transmission of emotions. Beauty is just complimentary, like the taste of food rather than it's nutrition.