Saturday, October 18, 2008

On my last post I was stirred to consider the following question – Does beauty beget lust? Now I come to this question strictly speaking for men only, and that with some caution; I hope men will speak up if they differ, or not.
My intention as I begin this is to shoot from the hip, and not make a month long study but to just throw out my initial thoughts and see where it leads.
As I choose pictures for my posts I make a conscience effort not to post anything that I consider sexually provocative. This of course is limited to my inner filter; and with my wife’s opinion if I think it is borderline. So here are the personal standards I go by – I don’t think the beauty of a person of the opposite sex is lustful, regardless of how great that beauty may be. I think there are a number of elements that contribute to changing what I consider 'innocent beauty' into something not innocent.
First, I think, is expression; a wink of the eye, the curl of the lip and all the other looks, glances, pouts, that women know only too well how to use to attract, flirt, arouse, seduce, profit or show interest in a man with. Now each man will respond to these differently depending on how he considers the woman’s appeal. That of course differs widely.
Second, I think, is dress; revealing of skin, posture, lace, tight clothes etc.
I think all reasonably normal men, find these two things “triggers” that bring arousal to some degree. That of course depending on many things; how long one chooses to gawk, a past memory, exposure to pornography, and biological differences, and age. But in general that about covers it.

These two things cause an involuntary bio-reaction which can be acted on or not, depending on one’s conscience.
That being said, I have posted a picture of a young woman who is very pretty but lacks all of the above as far as point 1 - expression and point 2- dress. It is a picture of a face, nothing else revealed. I know of no man who would find the enticement of lust or arousal from this picture: but I would expect remarks such as – lovely, sweet, innocent, darling, delightful, easy to look at, charming, enchanting, cute, pleasing, attractive, fine, gorgeous, captivating, comely, fair, but most commonly -pretty.

But in ‘male language’, these are terms devoid of lust. It would take word pictures, or animation or the revealing of point #2 to move a man into lust, or arousal.
When one looks upon a beautiful flower it is a similar endorphin sensation as looking upon the beauty of a woman. Now regardless of what a flower does, our feelings don’t change or accelerate; of course that is different with a person of the opposite sex if Point 1 and 2 are added. Oh, I just thought about a sexy voice, which can have a degree of arousal to it, but limited.

I think beauty is a blessing for men and women to admire and enjoy, and like the different flavors of foods or aromas and scents, textures etc. there is an unending variety to enjoy, of course, without becoming gluttonous.

The difficulty lies in the eye of the beholder, and I may find something arousing in a picture that to a more innocent brother would be invisible, and vice versa.
I think there are some men who lose the ability to see anything without the lens of lust because they have bathed themselves in it to a degree they become reprobate. Seems unlikely they are reading this post or my blog.
So, what do you think?

Photo by Lev Daichik

3 comments:

Dianna Wood said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joseph Pulikotil said...

Hi Fred :)

Well thought out, informative post!

Thanks for sharing!

Best wishes :)

FCB said...

Hi Joseph,
Thanks, a rather subjective issue but I think it is generally true with nearly all men.
Many blessings,
Fred