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.
“Once he quits cold turkey, be like a merciful vial of methadone for him.”
“Your wife can be a methadone-like fix when your temperature is rising.”
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:
- The victim of lust is the man’s purity
- The sin of lust is men masturbating or watching porn, not actually hurting women
- Women’s experiences of lust aren’t worth mentioning
- 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.
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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!
Why have the effects on women of lust been ignored?
Because in christian culture, men are in power and that power must be protected from anything that threatens it. And many believe that women are temptresses, temptations are from the devil and therefore women (even wives) are often used by the devil to bring “good” men to destruction.
In this, I see and have experienced something even darker than you point out in this article. It is that if you keep following the beliefs that are being expressed by men who believe that lust is something that stumbles all men, they believe, at the root, that women are the cause of their downfall, not their lust. “The woman made me lust”. As with the fifteen year old girl.
Yes, very much so. You definitely see that attitude, and that’s why there’s often such blatant hatred and disrespect of women. They’re literally seen as the enemy (and that’s what Every Man’s Battle literally calls women).
“men who believe that lust is something that stumbles all men, they believe, at the root, that women are the cause of their downfall, not their lust. “The woman made me lust”. As with the fifteen year old girl.”
Type Example: TALIBANISTAN and the way they treat women. The above is their exact justification for the burqa and honor killings.
The comments were bad, and even some women seemed to need to champion the “every man” argument. (I wanted to ask them, have you met every man? How many men do you know that you are so certain about this?) This goes so far beyond what God says in his word. I wanted to post this verse…this is Jesus speaking in Matthew “For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Matt. 19:12 and Paul’s arguments about the benefits of singleness and the importance of sexual faithfulness in church leadership. It is really ridiculous how are away from God’s word these people get in their ideas and argments. I wonder why this is the hill they must die on?
When I was reading the “Every Man’s” books over twenty years ago I actually wrote to the author about what you have named “pornified sex” and the problem of a husband demanding the actions he saw in his pornography. In those days there were actually arguments over whether use of pornography was infidelity and whether it lead to adultery with a person, not a thought for the wife, children or people in the pictures.
Good for you for writing to Arterburn! I know so many have, and he refuses to see.
When my ex and I were married, he believed it was okay to sexually assault me because at least he was not masturbating and to him, masturbating was a sin. He didn’t think what he did to me was wrong. He thought he was entitled to my body. This book wasn’t even written until after I divorced him.
I’m so sorry, Laura, and I’m so glad you’re remarried now! This is really common I think. This idea that men think it’s better to use their wives’ bodies than anything else.
Heard somewhere that masturbation (under the name “Onanism”) became the Unpardonable Sexual Sin some time in the Middle Ages because it was the sexual act farthest removed from making a baby.
And the Victorians got especially Maniacal and just plain WEIRD about it. Crazy Doc Kellogg invented Corn Flakes for an anti-masturbation diet; there were these anti-masturbation male chastity belts worn to bed by male children, unusual and imaginative threats and punishments (of which going blind and growing hair on the palms of your hands are but an echo), you name it.
Chastity- as a former Protestant now turned Catholic I have a new vocabulary. To embrace the virtue of Chastity in marriage is a beautiful thing. Chastity is a powerful virtue worth pursuing.
And TPTB wonder why women are fleeing the church and opting out of marriage.
“I now pronounce you husband and living sex doll.”
There can be NO Companionship with a living sex doll.
My husband and I have recently gotten into this horse racing game called Umamusume where real life race horses are portrayed as horse girls. What is great about the community is that it has a very clear anti-porn stance from the creators about fan art and they aren’t afraid of writing out a cease and desist if you violate the guidelines and the fan base is very happy to oblige and will be very protective of these horse girls like if they were their daughters and shame you if you dare objectify them.
While there is a sizeable number of women in this community (many of them being horse girls themselves, plus I think the culture against objectifying the horse girls makes it feel more welcoming toward women who do want to play the game!), the majority of the people are men and if men couldn’t help but lust and can’t control their lust, then there would be no way that this game would survive because nobody would respect the owners of the horse’s wishes or Cygame’s wishes and the community would end up becoming toxic and imploding like so many other fandoms. Seriously, the men of the Umamasume fanbase prove that not all men struggle with lust and go against a lot of stereotypes of anime fans and gamers.
That’s really neat!
“Umamusume where real life race horses are portrayed as horse girls.”
Sounds Anime.
If there’s Anime where WW2 warships are portrayed as anime girls (and there is), horse girls are not much of a stretch.
“the fan base is very happy to oblige and will be very protective of these horse girls like if they were their daughters and shame you if you dare objectify them.”
Then they’re doing a LOT better job than Furry Fandom.
I know I’ve thought of my creations along those lines as my daughters, and what sort of father pimps out his daughters?
Because of the anti-porn policy the creators and the community have it does feel like the horse girls with the big breasts (which they are like that because it is based on how muscular they look IRL) feel like they are allowed to exist and on the flip side the horse girls that look like little girls are also allowed to exist without worrying about objectification either like a child should.
Seriously, I wish a lot of times you can have characters with big boobs that are allowed to exist without being sexualized or have big boobs because that is who they are and not because they were made to be “big boobs girl” for fanservice.
It’s as old as time – willful ignorance out of arrogance. No one can see anyone if there is an ego in the way. Now utilizing discernment, I find it interesting that any Christian author using “experience” as evidence and any pastor preaching Biblical messages that keep the status quo (household codes, duty sex, obligation sex, etc.) use Bible passages to suit their arguments by saying, “It’s what the Lord says and if you don’t like it, then you must not love ther Lord.” Weaponizing Scripture is also as old as time, or at least as old as I am. They take Paul at his word, “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands.” Egregiously, they do not take God at His word: BOTH created in the image of God (does God lust?) (Gen 1:27); there is neither female nor male (Galatians 3:28); WOMEN are blessed for their faith (Luke 1:45); and commands HUSBANDS to treat wives with respect and as fellow heirs (1 Peter 3:7) just to name a few I barely ever hear these Christian authors or Christian pastors speak to. They totally disregard the character of the God of the Universe AND His Son. This whole shame thing men are feeling? Put down your egos; you can’t see who you are hurting.
Well said!
Noticing really is not the same thing as lusting. I’m imagining being, for example, the casting director for some movie. I would of course notice each of the actors who tried out for a part, and, being neither blind nor brain damaged, I would be noticing, “Okay, this one has a really great body and would be a good fit for this part.” BUT my heart wouldn’t speed up even a little, because that man is not the one I love. He’s just some random, good-looking-by-objective-standards, guy, who deserves to be treated and thought of respectfully as a professional and as a fellow human being. It doesn’t become lust unless I begin to fantasize about him. Merely noticing, “Yes, that person is really beautiful . . . but it doesn’t have anything to do with me” is not lust.
I also think it’s sad that the proponents of this message seem to see attraction as being so surface level. Many years ago, someone commented to me that once you come to know and love someone, they become beautiful to you, and I have found this to be true. It’s the person within the body who is attractive (or not), when all is said and done, and I know that this is true for many men as well, so it is not a gender difference. Real men (and women) don’t desire strangers, or lust after mere bodies without consideration of who the person is that inhabits that body.
Yes, that’s the way it should be!
I just keep coming back to the the idea that Christian overemphasis on lust is a misguided attempt to reclaim masculinity in a world where being a virgin before marriage and sleeping with one woman only thereafter puts one’s masculinity in serious question.
I think you’re definitely right. To claim that they struggle with lust is another way to brag about all the women they’ve slept with when they’re not allowed to brag about that.
i.e. How to brag about your body count when you’re not allowed to have any.
I think revisiting the definition of terms here is really important. One of the most helpful things I’ve learned from you is what lust really means. I think when pastors and men say that “all men lust,” they don’t know what they’re talking about. Purity culture taught us men that even noticing a woman was beautiful or attractive or thinking about her as anything more than a sister was lust. Thinking sexual thoughts or having sexual feelings or desire? Definitely lust. So given that they define lust that way, *of course* they’ll say “all men lust.” But the examples you provide here of predatory behavior represent a much better definition of lust. By this definition, it’s seems more likely that the number of men who struggle with lust is actually quite small.
So to really get rid of the “every man lusts” message, we have to reframe what they mean by lust. You get push back when you say “not every man lusts” because almost every man does notice attractive women. And then they feel bad about it. Properly defining lust as something much more akin to sexual covetousness is tremendously freeing. It removes the need to find solidarity with “every man’s battle.” Undoing the purity culture teaching that noticing (or even admiring) a woman’s beauty is not the same thing as lust has done a tremendous amount to help free me from unnecessary shame (not to mention helped me to stop viewing women as some kind of threat). Being able to get in touch (or even acknowledge) our own sexuality as men is just not something we’ve been taught was even ok. To learn these things are normal and not deviant is very important. It sometimes can feel like the focus on pointing out predatory behavior in a minority of men can lead the discussion away from trying to set free the majority who are living under undue shame.
I applaud your efforts to reframe the conversation to think of the effects on the objects of lust. Purity culture made *way* too big a deal about “internal purity” (indeed, we’ve made too much of faith a psychological or internal spiritual exercise in general, but that’s a story for another time). But I do think that sometimes people can come away with the impression that you’re saying: “if all men lust, then all men are predators” and they naturally resist that. Maybe if we put the emphasis back on “no, all men don’t lust, because the things you’re feeling guilty about aren’t actually lust at all” then the conversation might go more smoothly? You’ve done a great job of that in the past – maybe it could use more attention though? Then perhaps it will be easier to denounce predatory behavior together?
I realize I may have come across here as somehow ignoring the negative effects of actual lust on women – please understand that was not my intent. I’m not trying to say “yeah but what about the men!?” Not at all. I affirm and agree that men who act this way are responsible for their own immoral behavior.
I suppose what I’m asking for is more direction for those of us who are *not* men that want to push women’s sexual boundaries or blame women for lust or use our wives for our own purposes while ignoring her feelings. Most Christian men that I’ve met *don’t* want to be the types of people you’re describing, but purity culture and complementarian messages keep them stuck in unhelpful ways of thinking. You’ve shared a lot of examples of what’s *not* good – I’m wondering if we can see more examples of what *is* good. And thus lead men and women both to more abundant life, and help us move past the “us-vs-them” attitudes that so plague the whole evangelical conversation.
I think this is related to the evangelical view of sin. In this ideology, the reason that sin is bad is that it separates us from God, and we deserve to go to hell for any little sin. Sin is not defined as something that *hurts people*, it’s breaking God’s rules, however arbitrary they may be- there’s no concept of there being a “victim” of your sin- the concern is for the person who sinned because they are separated from God and deserve to go to hell. And the “gospel” is good news for people who are in danger of going to hell because of their sin, rather than being good news for the victims/ oppressed/ people who are in need.
i.e. “Accept Jesus Christ As Your PERSONAL LOOORD and Savior and have a PERSONAL Relationship with Him.”
A Personal Relationship of ONE (nobody else), as Selfish as anything from Ayn Rand’s typer.
Like the Sigma Male of the Manosphere, an Alpha so Alpha he becomes a lone wolf Predator.
Perfect Number, I think your analysis is correct. Instead of judging between humans as to who is the sinned against vs sinning party, the emphasis is on making sure everyone knows that we are all sinful before God.
I think part of that is just facing facts- in 2,000 years of Christianity, efforts to make the world a better place are at best a two-steps-forward-one-step-back situation. No matter how idealistic, noble minded and unified a Christian movement may be at the start, it always quickly falls apart or becomes corrupted. So, it might just be more realistic to make your hopes about heaven, rather than anything in this world- if 2,000 years of history are any lesson to us.
I wrote more about this on my blog, and linked to your post~
“In evangelical ideology, sin is bad because it separates you from God, not because you hurt another person” https://tellmewhytheworldisweird.blogspot.com/2026/03/in-evangelical-ideology-sin-is-bad.html
Which just elevates everything out of Reality into The Spiritual Realm(TM).
Until we all become disembodied souls (not people) floating around like wisps of smoke.
Just as Germans over-engineer everything, so Christians over-spiritualize everything.
P.S. Wasn’t the original Christian afterlife “resurrection of the body into a new Heaven and Earth” instead of souls floating around Fluffy Cloud Heaven like shades in Hades?
Regarding Purity(TM) in general: Back in the Nineties when I was flushing $$$ down the crapper of dating services (the CHRISTIAN dating services being the strangest), the thing I remember about this one Christian phone dating service was the universal question “Are You PURE? Are You PURE? Are You PURE?” from all the phone-messaging profiles. “Are You PURE? Are You PURE? Are You PURE?”
Why do we treat lust differently from any other sin?
If someone felt shame after hearing a message about stealing or lying or gossip or unrighteous anger, we would encourage them to turn to Jesus in confession and repentance.
But when someone feels shame after hearing a message about lust, everyone rushes round to reassure them and blame the person who spoke the message.
The time to worry is surely when you DON’T feel shame over your lust – because it suggests that your heart is so hard, it can no longer sense the prompting of the Holy Spirit to turn from your sin.
“Why do we treat lust differently from any other sin?”
Because Lust (which originally just meant “desire” in general) is SEXUAL in English and SEX makes people stupid but makes Christians crazy.
And Christians are just as screwed-up sexually as everyone else, they just show it differently.
Thank you for that!
Maybe one factor is that lust, as one of the 7 deadly sins, is a “lifestyle” sin— necessary aspects of our humanity that can become unhealthy and sinful, and pushback about being shamed comes from not having the discernment to tell what’s healthy and what’s sinful . When does sexual interest, attraction or arousal cross the line into lust? When does appetite become gluttony? When does aspiration become envy or pride? If all appetites that go beyond asceticism are sinful, then, yes, we might all be living in a perpetual state of shame.
Another factor might be that biological sex does make a difference, and men (generally speaking) feel like women (generally speaking) don’t understand the male experience of sexuality and this makes men extra defensive.
In his YouTube review and commentary on the animated miniseries “Over the Garden Wall” (and its parallels to Dante’s Inferno), Trey the Explainer had this definition of Lust:
“Lust is Loving Too Much.” (i.e. until it reaches pathological levels.)
I just had the thought that: maybe because of this teaching, is the reason for why their plea when taken to court is “not guilty”. It’s not that the act didn’t happen, or that it was mutual, but they believe that they are not ‘to blame’ for its happening. Instead, they see it as: the one who is saying they are the victim/violated is who actually should be blamed.
“Not guilty” is the actual legal term, not “Innocent”.
There is a subtle difference between the two.
“Not Guilty” refers to legal verdicts and judgments,
“Innocent” is a moral definition, not a legal one.
Like that billboard ad for a criminal defense lawyer that went viral decades ago:
“Just because you did it doesn’t mean you’re Guilty.”