Explainer
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Sin
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 and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

Illustration of Aubergine

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.  

 

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When christenings happened in secret

Modern day christenings might appear fairly benign on the surface, says Julie Canlis, but they still bear vestiges of an older, more perilous, rite of baptism.

Julie Canlis

Julie connects Christian spirituality with ordinary life in Wenatchee, Washington State, where she teaches and writes.

A father wearing a suit carries his child who is dressed for a christening in white.
A Mexican father carries his son to a christening.
Photo by Marco Antonio Casique Reyes on Unsplash.

Christians today are baptized – often christened as babies – as part of an ancient entry rite into the church. Some of you reading this were probably christened, or have attended christenings, as a conventional rite of passage. But eighteen centuries ago, joining a church was not for the faint of heart. Baptisms happened at Easter, often in secret, and only after a semi-Olympic training of three years in order to be allowed into its secret membership. Every aspect of preparation was vital – almost brutal – aimed at the spiritual survival (certainly not bodily survival) of the church and its members. This was no pinky handshake. Why would people want to join at all? This was an ordeal which, if one passed, meant public shame at best and lions if the wrong emperor reigned.  

First there was the obstacle of finding one. Churches were secret, often hidden in remote underground catacombs, and undetected by officials. Those who risked their lives to bring ‘candidates’ for membership into their secret fellowship had to vouch for character because betrayal could mean death for all gathered. (Enter the first 'godparents' into the rites of the church).  

Second, one’s profession could mean disqualification: if a gladiator, prostitute, or actor was seeking admission, they would be given three years to stop their vocation – and begin caring for the poor, the orphans, and the widows of the city. Within these years, they were only allowed to hover on the outer threshold of the church, increasing desire for the more classified rite of the eucharist. Stock items such as the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed were kept strictly confidential until the week prior to baptism (never written – only memorized), lest they be handed out too early to those who would later fall away. 

All this was leading up to the clandestine rite of initiation – baptism – which occurred in the middle of the night, Easter eve. After fasting until sunset for 40 days (enter the modern practice of Lent), these candidates would undergo final questions during Holy Week. They took part in daily exorcisms, rejecting all darkness in their life, and culminating in the final renunciation: “I renounce you Satan, and all your works and all your empty promises.” An ancient description of bling. 

They were also examined by the local bishop for whether their lives were characterized by social justice: were they caring for the sick? were they living according to an obsolescent class system or into their new reality as equals? were they treating their bodies as temples of God? As one fourth-century bishop exhorted in the middle of Easter night, “why do you stand there, different in race, age, sex, and rank, who will soon be one?” Baptism was the great leveler, like death.  

And die they did. Earliest baptisms were held in secret, but as Christianity was sporadically tolerated, people were baptized in mausoleums – Roman funerary buildings, to communicate very loudly: you are coming here to die. These primitive structures continue to be unearthed all over Europe, every time a new underground route is being laid, or a skyscraper is being dug. And the foundations tell all: large fonts to walk down into, shaped like crosses, octagons, or even wombs. Here you go down to die, and be reborn. Archaeology reveals hooks on walls for cast off clothing, for the candidates were to become like newborn infants again. Plunged into the waters three times, they emerged naked and were clothed in white – a symbol of overcoming suffering and of primal innocence. In this upside-down society, one went into the water having been classes as a Competent One (competentes) but was upgraded after baptism to the nickname of Infant (infantes) – even higher praise. And the reward? Finally, being admitted past the gate (origination of the church ‘narthex’) into the sanctuary itself, to take part in its contraband banquet: the bread and wine.  

Modern day christenings might appear fairly benign on the surface, but they still bear vestiges of this older, more perilous rite. We have godparents, white garments, and a triple splash of water. The Book of Common Prayer still requires parents and godparents to renounce Satan on behalf of the baby, that supposed figment of our imagination. And although we have lost much of the symbolism of death and rebirth, one thing hasn’t changed: this adorable baby will still die. For the ancients, one’s death was merely the completion of baptism, in which one had already begun the art and process of learning to die. Baptism didn’t keep one from death, but baptism “baptized” death and allowed one to get on with living. 

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