LUST: One of the 3L's

I know that in our last listing we spoke about the three L’s. Just to remind you, they are love, lust, and limerence. I won’t deal with them all in this post.  Also, I won’t deal with them in the same order as I have been listing them. Please remember I don’t intend to convey the notion that one of the three L’s is better, more wholesome or more noble than the other’s. All three play an important role in our lives. They are things we do and things we experience as a natural part of being human.  Trouble generally comes not from doing or experiencing one of them.  Trouble generally comes when we get them mixed up. When we do or experience one for the other or when we do or experience one when we should be doing or experiencing one of the others. Another way we can have trouble around the 3 L’s is when we can’t do or experience one or more of them. All three of the L’s are common human realities and any life lived without one or more of them is much emptier for it. So, let’s begin with a 3L examination of the L called lust. I know it seems to be out of order but it works out better if we talk about this one first. Lust is a common, even necessary characteristic of human beings. The Wikipedia definition is helpful here.  It is:

Lust is an intense desire for something. Lust can take any form such as the lust for sexuality (see libido), money, or power. It can take such mundane forms as the lust for food (see gluttony) as distinct from the need for food or lust for redolence, when one is lusting for a particular smell that brings back memories. It is similar to but distinguished from passion, in that passion propels individuals to achieve benevolent goals whilst lust does not.

We have the ability to feel passionately about many things. In common parlance, the word lust is used in a wide range of contexts. We have heard of sayings such as lust for life or I lust after that particular kind of donut or I lust for the great outdoors. It generally means that I have a strong attraction to or need for something. So far, our definition of lust has been pretty broad.  However, in the context of the 3L’s we need to narrow it down a bit.  Let’s start with a dictionary definition of the word lust.  Since we are talking about lust in the context of the 3L’s we’ll stick with the following. 

Oxford Languages Dictionary:     LUST

noun

1.      very strong sexual desire:

"he knew that his lust for her had returned"

verb

1.      have a very strong sexual desire for someone:

"he really lusted after me in those days"

I chose this definition because it relates to a relationship between people.  I know, it would be fun to talk about all the ways we can lust. It would be entertaining at the least.  Perhaps we can have the discussion about all the ways we can lust and about all the things we can lust for another time.  For now, let’s stick with this one because it relates to human relationships as do the definitions of the other 2 L’s.

Yes, I know that in many of the world’s great religions lust is seen as one of the great cardinal sins. However, that is not how we’ll be looking at it here. It is very human to experience lust and in fact the human race would not last long if we did not have that capacity. You’ll note that I did not use the word love I did not use the word marriage I did not use the word procreation. Lust is a basic and routine biological and psychological part of the human fabric. Life would, in fact, be very dull if we were unable to experience lust for the many positive things in our lives including and especially our relationships. It’s important to note here that one does not have to be in a committed relationship to experience lust. Lust clearly can exist in the absence of love or even liking of the individual for whom one is lusting. Lusting for another does not require that we know, like, love the individual who is the object of our lust. It can be truly said that lust in the context of a loving relationship is certainly much better. Unfortunately, in my experience, clients have come to me and told me that they have fallen out of love with the person with whom they are living or the person with whom they are in a relationship. Too often what they’re actually saying or what they meant to say was I have fallen out of lust. They have confused lust with love and when they can’t conjure up love (lust) like they used to know for that individual, they believe that they no longer love that individual.   This often times leads to the expression “I still love that person I’m just not in love with that person.”  This is one of the most common ways in which one of the L’s can be substituted for and or confused for one of the others. Literature is filled with references to loving relationships there are not bound by or do not contain lust. Lust is not a necessary requirement for love.  It is a gift found in many (most?) loving relationships.  Such loving relationship surely exist. The great joy certainly in any life, is a loving relationship that has a good amount of lust expressed between the parties in the relationship. I have had couples come to me because they still loved each other but wanted to find the old passion (lust ) they had previously known with each other.  Thank goodness in these cases the couple recognized that there was a difference between simple lust and love. It is a blessing in these cases that these individuals know love when they see it and can experience it fully. It is good that they do not mistake one for the other. It is the love they have for each other that is the basis for their desire to return to previous levels of passion. Most of the time they recognize that they don’t need that level of passion for their love to endure. They recall how they enjoyed the passion they’ve had for each, other the lust, and miss it in their lives.

An example here may help to clarify how lust can be mistaken for love. In my practice over the years I have dealt with a great many individuals in recovery from drugs and alcohol. During the course of their recovery a question invariably comes up. It is where can I meet women and or men. If I’m sober how will I find love? This is the case clearly where they are drawing on past recent experience where they have had brief fleeting, perhaps lust filled, relationships with people who were in the environment where they used their drugs and alcohol. Their lives during that period of time were filled with love for only one thing and that is their drug of choice. It is sad that this is entirely too common. I noticed in my practice that individuals would come to me after a prolonged period of time in recovery from their addiction with a simple request.  It was “I want to know how to love and be loved”. This typically followed a dawning realization that what they have experienced in the past was simply lust. In their sobriety they came to know that lust, while enjoyable, was simply not enough. They began to reckon that what they had experienced was not love.  They saw it in others or had earlier experience of it on their own lives. One of the first things that I did with them was to help them to see the difference between the three L’s.  In this way I helped confirm their notion that while this “lust thing was cool”, it was not love.

Next time, let’s look at another of the “L’s”.  Namely:  Limerence

In keeping with my tradition of ending these posts with an inspirational or meaningful saying here is one I recently rediscovered and want to share with you.  It is not strictly relevant to this post but…

“Listen to the mustn'ts, child.  Listen to the don'ts.  Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.  Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child.  Anything can be.”―

 Shel Silverstein