I think viewing sex as optional means that the person should have sex not sex should have the person
A human being has the strength to be in control over his desires, he can make a decisions, not the his desires should make decision for him

waydown wrote:

I think Lust is not selfish, it's actually a distraction of one self, not being connected to the real self & with present moment, letting the self be controlled by dreams & fantasies

It's not a stira.
We use lust to escape.
What we do with it is selfish.

You are right but selfishness does not define the word lust

Lust is an escape mechanism in which we wrap ourselves up in a cocoon and our world of self focused desire and fail to realize what are the most important things in life. When you are wrapped up in porn and masturbation, nothing else in this world counts and you are constantly looking for a new fix.

Maybe we need to distinguish between healthy lust (which I know nothing about) and unhealthy lust (which I have plenty of).

It is conceivable that healthy lust doesn't have to be selfish.

I was going to say that healthy lust is regular sexual desire, but maybe we're getting into semantics.

Merriam-Webster defines lust as strong sexual desire.

I think we can all agree that sexual desire is a tool that Hashem gave us that we can choose to use in a healthy, productive (literally ) manner, or not.
What is healthy vs. unhealthy use of desire? I'm no expert but again I think we can all agree that one distinction is what the motivation is - to enjoy myself or to manifest an emotional bond with my spouse. A higher level is purely for the sake of procreation, which is almost certainly not possible for all of us here.
If you deliberately strengthen desire, and turn it into lust (as per Merriam-Webster's definition), it's most likely to be unhealthy, because the healthier motivations generally do not require a deliberate strengthening of desire which can also be termed מגרה יצר הרע.

In the rare case where it is a mitzvah to deliberately stoke the fire, I don't know but would assume it's preferable not to do it with porn or through any forbidden method.

Lots of assumptions from an anonymous ignoramus, let it rip and may the best man win.

As long as we keep talking about our favorite subject everybody's happy

Which favorite subject would that be?

eslaasos wrote:

Sounds like you still have your kittel on

eslaasos wrote:

Manifest an emotional bond is one of the higher levels too.
I think our SA distorts reality sometimes

markz wrote:


Please go ahead, give us some more possibilities.

Oneg shabbos

Don't ask me to explain, I'm not there

If my kittel was still on, it just fell off. I have no idea what that means.