8 Ways Lust Hijacks Your Brain and Wrecks Your Soul

A couple of years ago, following my now well-known debate with Dennis Prager on the morality of pornography (here), I was invited onto Ben Shapiro’s show to talk about lust. He had publicly stated that he disagreed with my view—specifically, my claim that lust is both possible and sinful within marriage. Though by the end of our discussion I think we were in agreement. If you're curious to see how that conversation unfolded, here's the clip:

And just a heads-up—if I look unusually stoic and unresponsive to Ben’s occasional playfulness, it’s not because I was trying to be intense. I just didn’t have a monitor in front of me and had no idea when he was smiling, or being serious or whatever. So if it looks like I’m staring into the void—it’s because I was.

In that exchange I gave a definition similar to that of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Namely, “Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes” (2351).

In this article I’d like to invite us to reflect upon what St. Thomas Aquinas says lust actually does to us. Here’s his summary followed by my summary of his summary. Ya welcome.

When the lower powers are strongly moved towards their objects, the result is that the higher powers are hindered and disordered in their acts. Now the effect of the vice of lust is that the lower appetite, namely the concupiscible, is most vehemently intent on its object, to wit, the object of pleasure, on account of the vehemence of the pleasure. Consequently the higher powers, namely the reason and the will, are most grievously disordered by lust.

In other words, when our lower desires—like the craving for pleasure—grow too strong, they disrupt the higher powers of the soul: reason and will. In the case of lust, our natural drive for pleasure becomes so intense that it clouds our judgment and weakens our freedom. Lust does not just affect the body; it throws the whole person out of order.

Here, then, are the eight effects of lust, as outlined by Aquinas in accordance with Saint Gregory the Great.

1. Blindness of mind – Hinders the ability to recognize a good end.

2. Rashness – Hinders the ability to take counsel.

3. Thoughtlessness – Hinders sound judgment.

4. Inconstancy – Hinders the ability to follow through with reason’s command.

5. Self-love – Inordinate desire for pleasure as an end.

6. Hatred of God – Resentment toward God for forbidding the pleasure.

7. Love of this world – Inordinate desire for worldly goods as means to pleasure.

8. Despair of a future world – Loss of desire for spiritual goods due to attachment to carnal pleasure.

I don’t know about you, but I can relate to every. single. point. In the past lust has made me blind, reckless, and stubborn. It’s warped my judgment, weakened my will, and turned my heart inward. I know what it’s like to feel my desire for God fade as my craving for pleasure grew. They don’t call St. Thomas Aquinas the Angelic Doctor for nothing. He knows how to identify a sickness and he knows where the medicine is to be found.

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