Why is lust a sin?

That may seem like a silly question, because it’s obvious, right? It’s LUST. And lust is bad.

But seriously–what, specifically, is bad about it?

I think that answer really matters, because part of the reason the “all men struggle with lust; it’s every man’s battle” message becomes so harmful is because it gets that answer wrong. So let me tell a bit of a story that will help us understand this.

Last week I caused a kerfuffle on Facebook by posting about “every man’s battle.”

As I explained in last Friday’s round-up video, I’ve been trying to get work done as fast as possible because I was on toddler duty as my youngest daughter is ready to deliver her second child any day now. So one day I was looking through old graphics, found one I liked, and put it up on Facebook without thinking much. It was saying that when pastors and authors teach “all men struggle with lust”, we hear “I struggle with lust.” Because if he’s teaching this, then he’s including himself in it.

That started a firestorm of comments, mostly from men, incensed that I would try to shame men like this.

But over the course of the week, and several other posts, a few things became apparent. Many men don’t want to let go of the every man’s battle message (that all men struggle with lust) even if they now it’s (1) not empirically true and (2) causes harm to both men and women, because they think that without the message, men would feel shame. Here Keith and I dissect that:

Men don’t want to feel shame, which I do understand.

But we must ask: what, exactly, are they feeling shame for? And I think the answer to that points us to something important.

One thing that my statistician, co-author and researcher Joanna Sawatsky found when she analyzed Every Man’s Battle is that the book never refers to women as victims, or never frames encounters as assaults, rape or coercion. The only victim that is ever mentioned in Every Man’s Battle is the man–he is a victim of his own lust.

Here’s an example of something Fred Stoeker, one of the authors of Every Man’s Battle, said on a Focus on the Family broadcast, which I “fixed.”

In essence, Stoeker is saying the main problem with lust is not that we’re “pushing against the boundaries of our girlfriends”; no, it’s that we’re masturbating while watching porn. The real sin is actually masturbation. 

But let’s be clear: “pushing against the boundaries of our girlfriends” means pushing past their “no.” What’s it called when you push past someone’s “no”? It’s called sexual assault. But he doesn’t think that’s a big deal. The real big deal, you see, is if a guy were to lust and masturbate. (He goes on to blame women and girls for dressing in such a way to incite this, or for creating porn in the first place).

In the book Every Man’s Battle, when they talk about the victim of lust, it’s always the guy’s purity. That’s what is sacrificed when he lusts: he loses his purity, and thus loses his relationship with God. Somehow the girl or woman that he is lusting for is never even really mentioned. At one point they even tell the story of a dad who is a youth group volunteer in his 30s who is “seduced” by a 15-year-old youth member who he is driving home, who flirts with him so much he asks her to take off her clothes and she does, and then they end up having sex. The girl immediately tells her parents (what girl who wants that tells her parents immediately?) and now he may be charged with statutory rape! Oh my godness! How awful for the man!

It is never acknowledged that this is, indeed, rape; that she cannot consent; that she has been harmed; and that he was a predator. Instead, she is framed as the flirt that lured him to his demise, and the moral of the story is that he must not be lured away, because not only do you lose your purity, but you may even be arrested! What a terrible framing of this crime–but that’s what they do in the book.

Over and over again, the woman’s or girl’s experience as a recipient of the lust is ignored.

Instead, only the man’s experience of losing his purity is lamented. 

We see this in how they frame a wife’s responsibility for ending lust

Every Man’s Battle literally called women “methadone” for their husbands’ sex addictions. 

What is methadone? It’s a drug that you take when you’re trying to wean yourself off of a more powerful drug that you really, really want. Methadone isn’t as addictive, and so it can be a treatment for addicts. Methadone helps deal with the cravings for what you really want by giving you an acceptable, though not as good, substitute. That’s what they think wives are. A substitute for what they really want that can help the cravings for something else much better go away.

So, to recap so far:

1. The victim of lust is the man’s purity
2. The sin of lust is men masturbating or watching porn, not actually hurting women
3. Women’s experiences of lust aren’t worth mentioning
4. Because women are both the cause, and the solution, for lust

Here’s where things get really dark.

Because of this teaching, men can think coercing their wives is more righteous than lusting

The effect on women is an afterthought, since the real sin is masturbating while imagining other women. And God gave your wife to you as your sexual outlet. So coercing her into sex is actually a good thing, because then you’re using the outlet that God gave you so that you don’t sin! And many men actually think they’re being righteous when they make their wives feel dehumanized, objectified, and used. The problem is that she doesn’t understand why she was made, not that he is treating her badly. She doesn’t understand that she is keeping him from sin!

When you ignore lust’s effect on women, and you discount the experiences of real sexual assault victims the way that this book does, then using your wife does, indeed, seem righteous.

That is so hideous and disgusting, but that is the logical outcome of this teaching–and, indeed, it’s what’s explicitly taught in the book too.

If women aren’t front and centre in messages about lust, then the message isn’t of God.

Jesus cared about protecting women; the authors of every man’s battle, and those who parrot the message, only care about protecting men’s self-image. That’s what the men on my Facebook page were saying last week–what really matters is that men don’t feel shame, not that women are protected or that women aren’t victimized.

The every man’s battle message is just another way to dehumanize and objectify women in the name of righteousness–which is really an example of taking God’s name in vain. It’s attributing to God the antithesis of what Jesus taught and modelled.

When men lust, women suffer. When men act on that lust, women are victimized. When men treat their wives like sin management tools, women are coerced into sex and often raped, and their sexuality and safety are stolen from them.

Until our conversation about lust centers on the actual victims, we won’t be able to overcome lust. When we make men into the victims of their own lust, we ignore the damage done.

And who, after all, would benefit from such framing?

That’s yet another reason we need to reject the every man’s battle message.

Check out our synopsis of the problems with Every Man’s Battle, and the even more heartbreaking issues with Every Young Man’s Battle.

What do you think? Why have the effects on women of lust been ignored? Let’s talk in the comments!