Recently, one of the Facebook groups I belong to has been having a discussion about the relationship between religion and homosexuality.  The person who started the discussion, a gay man, expressed his struggles with the fact that his own faith teaches very negative views of same-sex relationships and gay people in general. He wanted to know how others dealt with that struggle.

In the myriad of wonderful answers he received, one person pointed out that one of the reason certain religions see homosexuality as bad is because they assume it’s just all about lust. It’s an astute observation and one I’ve made elsewhere myself. Same-sex relationships often involve much more than just hopping in bed and slating our sexual needs and desires. There’s other forms of intimacy and mutual support that many of us find with our partners, and it’s insulting and harmful to erase that.

But at some point, we also need to acknowledge and defend the fact that lust itself ain’t so bad either. In fact it’s a natural and good thing.

As I gathered my thoughts to write this post, I decided to look online for a definition of the word lust. It seemed to me that the definitions were split almost evenly between defining lust as merely (possibly strong or intense) desire (often for sex) and defining lust as going beyond simple desire into the “excessive,” “overmastering,” and even “lecherous” or “illicit.”

What’s interesting to me is the one definition — which clearly falls into the first camp — is marked as “obsolete.”  I find that interesting when I look at the blurb about the origins of the word:

before 900; Middle English luste, Old English lust; cognate with Dutch, German lust pleasure, desire; akin to Old Norse lyst desire; see list⁴

Note that none of the earlier cognates mentions excessiveness, loss of control, or lechery. These two things together make it clear that the idea of lust being excessive or negative in some way was an association people made later.

The thing is, I get the impression a lot of people still use “lust” to really refer to all sexual desire while simultaneously holding onto that added negative connotation. As if there’s no such thing as good sexual desire.

Now, I can already hear people objecting to that in my mind. They’ll say that of course they believe there’s such a good thing as sexual desire. They’re not prudes, after all. They even have examples of what they consider good sexual desire.  Chances are, those examples involved married couples and/or other long-term relationships.  The message there? Sure sexual desire is good, but only when redeemed or moderated by romantic love.

I don’t buy that at all. I think it’s possible for some people to explore their feelings of sexual desire with other people in a healthy and responsible way without romantic love or a long-term relationship involved. It just takes mutual respect and a commitment to make sure that everyone involved has a positive, fulfilling experience.  That requires neither a romantic attachment nor a long term commitment.

I’m not sure we can ever reclaim the word “lust” as a positive thing. I’m not sure we should even try. However, I do think that we need to think about what we’re communicating — even subtly or unconsciously — to others and ourselves when we start talking about “lust.” Are we really just talking about the abusive and exploitative ways in which some people might satisfy their own desires? Or are we vilifying sexual desires in general and healthy ways others explore those desires that we don’t approve of?

I also have a book recommendation that I feel both covers this topic and related ones in an intelligent and insightful way. And in far more depth and detail than I managed here.