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Creed

Seven Deadly Sins

31 July 2023

6 min read

Lust: disordered desire

In the fourth of a series on the Seven Deadly Sins, Belle Tindall explores how Lust minimises or sensationalises sex and desire.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

In the Emmy-nominated HBO show, White Lotus, we’re introduced to three generations of a glamorous Italian-American family: F Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli and Adam DiMarco play a grandfather, father, and son, two of whom are in an ever-present battle with a sex addiction. Lust has made a home in this family, it has dug out and paved its own neuropathways, and ultimately blown these people apart. Scene after scene, we witness these men pathologically view women as nothing more than bodies to conquer, much to their own despair. You could say that Lust is the unseen, unspoken, yet undeniable villain of the entire series. We witness it obliterate relationships of all kinds and ultimately make way for danger and death to ensue.

It’s a masterful case-study in how destructive of a force Lust can be when left unchecked, not only to the objectified, but also to the one who can’t help but do the objectifying.

I conducted a little experiment in preparation for writing this piece, I asked five friends of mine who would not, and never have, identified as Christians, for the three things that they most associate with Christianity.

Out of those five people, four of them mentioned Christianity’s rather peculiar sexual ethics. Now, I know that as far as research goes, this isn’t the most scientific finding. But it is telling. An article on lust may just be the least surprising thing one could find on a magazine site that offers ‘Christian perspectives on just about everything’. In popular culture and common thought, Christianity is to sex is what Jamie Oliver is to sugary drinks: an almighty party-pooper, a tiresome force that is out to spoil everybody’s fun. That’s largely a result of Christian sexual ethics being reduced to a set of repressive ‘don’ts.’

Don’t have casual sex, or any kind of sex outside of the confines of marriage, for that matter.
Don’t watch pornography
Don’t explore self-sex
Don’t talk about it
Don’t think about it

Just don’t.

As such, Christianity’s view of sex has been regarded as square or prudish at best, and oppressive and cruel at worst. And here you are, having stumbled upon an article which is about to place Lust back in its familiar old ‘deadly sin’ category. Ground-breaking, I hear you cry.

Well, allow me the pleasure of beginning this piece by saying something that is less predictable: Lust is not interchangeable with sexual desire. The two are not one and the same.

Sex is good. Very good, in fact.

According to the book of Genesis, the book that acts as the Bible’s start-line, it is one of the first instructions ever given to humanity. It’s an apparent component of our purpose (pre- ‘original sin’, might I add). We’re told to go ahead and multiply, to increase in number, to have sex. But it doesn’t end there. If it did, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Bible presents sex in purely practical and procreational terms. But, not so. From one biblical poem to another – this time, the Song of Songs. This book is nothing short of erotic literature, it is a fully-fledged sex-scene. The composition and inclusion of this book speaks volumes, it does away with the notion that sexual pleasure and desire are some kind of inherent evil. On the contrary, if it’s a biblical perspective that you’re after, here it is: sex was designed by God and gifted to humanity. For procreation, yes. But also, for pleasure, intimacy, and well-being.

So, in summary: sex is a gift, a very good one at that.

With that firmly in mind, let’s return to Lust. If Lust is not sexual desire, per se, what exactly is it?

It is a perception of sex, and a corresponding desire for it, that has been either minimised or sensationalised. Sex is a gift, that is the Christian insight at least, but Lust wants to blur your vision, it wants you to believe that sex is either more or less than a good gift. Lust seeks to disorder your desire.

To only desire one third of a person, to regard them exclusively as a body, is to undermine their full personhood.

The belief that sex is inherently meaningless, that it can be devoid of any kind of sacred or unique value, often acts as a wide-open door to Lust. It is also the predisposition that tends to normalise Lust, allowing it to hide in plain sight. That is, until it has damaged us and/or others. Lust tells us that we can obtain a person’s body, without paying any heed to the rest of them. It lessens them in our sight, it reduces them, it de-humanises them. This may sound a little dramatic, but if we are the sum of our bodies, our minds, and our souls – then to only desire one third of a person, to regard them exclusively as a body, is to undermine their full personhood.

A more subtle, yet just as pervasive, form of a disordered sexual desire would be to regard sex as more than a gift, to sensationalise it, to mistake it for love. Lust’s other tactic is to suggest that sexual activity is tantamount to value. It seeks to convince us that to be sexually desired is to be appreciated, and being sexually active must equate to being actively loved. Lust wrongly offers us sex as a source of worth, affirmation, and significance. In such cases, we may not be regarding someone as a means to a physical end, so much as a means to an emotional one.

Whether its tactic is to minimise or aggrandise, Lust whispers in our ear, encouraging us to regard another person as an object to possess, a tool of gratification. All the while, telling us that it doesn’t matter, because sex doesn’t matter.

As is the case with all of the deadly sins, it’s not that you possess them, as much as they begin to possess you. Lust can be a demanding master, indeed. Insatiable, even. And indescribably harmful.

The demand for restraint on the part of the powerful, purely for the protection of the poor and the vulnerable was nothing short of jaw-dropping.

Lust has much to answer for. In its darkest and most insidious extremity, often intertwined with toxic perceptions of power, Lust has led to atrocities being committed against people who were ever-so-wrongly treated as objects.

There is a reason that Lust is regarded as ‘deadly’.

Tom Holland recalls that in Graeco-Roman households, for example, it was utterly taken for granted that the bodies of enslaved people were objects to be possessed, owned, and utilised for physical gratification. In fact, Holland recounts how their bodies were spoken of in the same terms as urinals. People were regarded as nothing more than literal places/products for their masters to relieve themselves.

When placed in this context, the sexual ethics that were being adopted by early Christians were radical, not square. The very idea that there was something morally good about standing up against the whisperings of Lust was unheard of. The demand for restraint on the part of the powerful, purely for the protection of the poor and the vulnerable was nothing short of jaw-dropping. Historians note that as the Christian movement began to bubble up, so did a rather radical sexual revolution.

Not quite so Jamie Oliver-esque after all.

This revolution was fuelled by the idea of imago Dei, the notion that every person was made in the very image of the one who did the making. Therefore, every person is worthy of being treated as such, of being afforded unconditional dignity and worth, of being acknowledged for the uniquely valuable individual that they are. It was also, in part, a defiant re-enchanting of sex; it was a bold reminder that sex was always supposed to be healthy, enriching and inherently good. That it is precious and fragile, and therefore needs to be guarded with the utmost care. Such notions leave very little room for the reductive tendencies of Lust. Christianity, in its very essence, wages a war on such things.

This is not to say that Christians have won such a war, nor have they always fought this war well. To say so would be telling only half of the story, and do a significant disservice to those, for example, who have had shame heaped upon them in the name of purity culture (ironically, a culture which was/is also fuelled by reducing a person to the sum of their body parts).

But the war itself is one that is still worth fighting, surely? For the sake of others, ourselves, and sex itself.

Article

Character

Creed

23 April 2024

6 min read

‘Marriage is martyrdom', seriously?

Arguing relationship requires sacrifice ignites a sleepy tutorial.

Henna Cundill

Henna is a researcher with the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

Quizzical-looking students look across a tutorial to others.

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai.

It is late afternoon on a rainy Monday. My students mooch through the door, filling up the seats in our overheated, clinically modern tutorial room. They are a particularly young class this term – nearly all teenagers still. The setting feels entirely the wrong for poring over texts that are thousands of years old, texts written by some of the earliest Christians, now displayed on flashy laptops and smartphones.

The first excerpt is short – part of a hand scribbled note by Ignatius of Antioch. He wrote it even as he was marched to his execution at the hands of the Romans.

Suffer me, my brethren; hinder me not from living, do not wish me to die… Suffer me to receive the pure light; when I shall have arrived there, I shall be a human being.

Ignatius shows no fear despite facing his impending martyrdom, I explain, because he goes to his death as one who was utterly convinced by the hope of resurrection. To him, death was life, and life was death.

From the mixture of expressions on the faces around the room, I can easily tell which members of the class have attended Professor Behr’s lectures on this week’s material, and which members of the class have attended only to their mattresses and duvets. (‘Twas ever thus with undergraduates.) “Let’s look at Professor Behr’s own chapter on the subject,” I suggest, adding with a certain emphasis, “It was your required reading for this tutorial.”

Reading Ignatius, along with some other texts from this period, Behr summarises the argument as follows: earthly life is a transitory thing, and driven by the fear of death, it becomes all too easy to focus on and hang on to this fleeting life. However, the Christian hope is that the self-sacrificing death of Christ, who gave up his life in the service of others, has transformed the reality of death. Death is no longer just the end of this life but the beginning of another one – a better, eternal life. And this, for each Christian, becomes the impetus to pursue one’s own journey towards self-sacrifice, towards laying down one’s earthly life for another, following in the example of Christ, just as Ignatius wished to do. Behr writes:

“Through Christ’s having ‘changed the use of death’ we are able to change the ground of our existence from necessity and mortality to freedom and self-sacrificial love…”

I glance around the room. A few students seem mildly interested, some others are gazing at their screens, scrolling. Perhaps their curiosity has been piqued by the chapter that they are meant to have already read? More likely they have zoned out and are flicking through TikTok. One guy at the back stares glumly out of the window, mouth half open, the one next to him is dismantling a ballpoint pen.

“Any thoughts?” I ask the room. Every pair of eyes is on me, and I know that there are thoughts – the silence is thick with them.

A few moments later, however, and all their eyes are on me. Why? Because in the second part of his chapter, Behr takes this argument of self-sacrifice, of death to life, and uses it as a lens through which to examine the specific human phenomenon of marriage. I read out a few well-chosen excerpts – juicy ones that include the words “eros”, “sexuality” and even “ecstasy” – and it is no surprise that a room full of drowsy teenagers becomes somewhat more alert.

It is through the natural human desire to be united with another person, argues Behr, that we are truly drawn out of ourselves, and by doing so we learn to give out of our own lives for the sake of the life of another. To commit one’s life and one’s body to another in marriage is the epitome of dying to self, even a kind of martyrdom. And, if marriage leads to parenthood, then the opportunity to live a life of self-sacrifice only increases. However hard it might be, those who are married, parenting, or both are driven by love to place the lives of their spouses and children before their own.

“Any thoughts?” I ask the room. Every pair of eyes is on me, and I know that there are thoughts – the silence is thick with them. But who will be brave? Patiently I stare them down. Eventually someone cracks, and a hand creeps up into the air.

“Yes, go ahead…” I encourage.

“Well… I think you should never be in a relationship where you have to do that!”

“OK.” We’re off. “Never have to do what, exactly?”

“Like, be expected to give up your life for someone else. Like, it’s your life. No one else has a right to ask for you to sacrifice yourself.”

The conversation went on from there, the class getting more and more animated, a polemic against the idea that marriage, or just long-term relationships in general, should involve the sacrifice of one’s ‘self’. A spouse, they insisted, should be someone who affirms and celebrates everything that you are, and who supports you in whatever dreams or ambitions that you want chase. And children? Well, they should only be brought into the equation to fulfil your dreams, not to limit them. Marriage is many things, but it should not be a sacrifice, less still a martyrdom.

Well, let us not be too hard on the optimism of youth. The optimism that imagines marriage and family life will be something that gives, and gives, and will never take anything away. How can they know – those who have never been awake at 3am with a projectile-vomiting toddler, and those who have never had to calmly negotiate over where all the money goes? It is the optimism of those who have never had to pass up on a job or an opportunity because it doesn’t fit in with the spouses’ promotion or the kids’ schooling. These, and a thousand other moments of self-sacrifice: the gritty realities of a daily choice to stick in a marriage (or any kind of long term relationship) and make it work.

This is a much slower kind of martyrdom, a decision made not once but daily, in a society where such decisions are frequently undone.

But is this gritty reality a giving up of life, or an embracing of it? Perhaps, like Ignatius, in this kind of death to self we actually find life. In a committed union, we carefully place our lives in the service of another, not because they expect us to, but because out of love we choose to. This is done, of course, in trust that the other person will do the same in return. There is no suggestion, either here or in Behr’s chapter, that someone should stay in a union where that placing of oneself is being merely used and abused. But where two people find a true mutuality in that laying down of self, well, love has funny way of making limits feel like a kind of freedom after all.

“Hinder me not from living…” writes Ignatius, as he is marched to his certain death. His eyes were filled with the image of new self, a better self, that would come to him all at once and suddenly through the laying down of his life for what he believed in. With a faith so strong, this may have been an easy kind of martyrdom – a decision made once, which could not, by him, be undone. But let us also hinder not those who choose to unite their lives to another. This is a much slower kind of martyrdom, a decision made not once but daily, in a society where such decisions are frequently undone. One day some of these young people will feel the call to this kind of death, and that in this death there is life. Hinder them not to die.