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Can Lust Be Subdued By Exercising “Emotional Apathy”?

Oct 5th, 2009
by Michael Krahn.

http://jischinger.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/apathy.jpgA few weeks ago at The Ascent to Truth, we had a lively discussion about pornography and internet monitoring in the comment section of the post “No Excuses. No Porn.”

In the comments Chris offered a solution to the problem of porn in the form of something he called “Emotional Apathy”. It works as follows:

Chris says: “As far as I’m concerned, most men are completely unequipped to handle the visual onslaught they face daily. If we continue to pretend it doesn’t exist, it will take over even more of our lives. I prefer to live very eyes-wide-open with regard to all aspects of life, because as our understanding of reality increases, so does our ability to respond to it.

What I have determined as an effective deterrent is what I call “emotional apathy”, the ability not to care about seductive images. Our wives (I’m single, so I’m speaking hypothetically here) should still arouse us, but it’s because we love them, not simply because they are sexy. Unless we develop this ability, we can never be “in the world” without being “of the world.” It’s dangerous, yes, but it’s necessary if we ever want any sort of REAL success, not isolationist success.

I don’t mean that we should actively seek out porn, but we should understand the true context of sexual arousal, which is relational arousal. From there, it’s simply a matter of association, which takes active effort on your part. When you see a seductive image, which you’re GOING to see a seductive image, remind yourself that you don’t care. This takes serious discipline in controlling your emotions, but this is something you can practice without any particular stimuli.”

What do you think?  Does this sound like a reasonable and effective strategy? Have you tried anything like it? Has it worked?

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  • Diane

    O.K. So I’m a woman. This might make some men discount what I’m about to say, because many men assume that women don’t struggle with visual stimuli like they do. Maybe most women don’t.

    But some do.

    Maybe not to the same extent that men do – I’ll never know – but I know that I am someone who struggles in this way.

    HOWEVER, over the years, I have learned a lot of what Chris is saying.

    As a teenager, I was overloaded – it seemed like there were cute guys EVERYWHERE, and it was really hard to control my thoughts. Sometimes I didn’t.

    Then, when I became more extreme about my faith in my early twenties, I tried just not looking at men – but this started twisting things for me. Since I couldn’t look at men, I started looking at women… which made me start questioning myself, obviously. (Personally, I think this is where a lot of the issues with the misguided Catholic priests have come from: since they can’t look at/be with women, and definitely can’t be with men, they turn to boys – who are the furthest thing from women… But that’s just my opinion, based on the road I was headed down.)

    When I realized what was going on, I prayed about it and started thanking God for making me a sexual being. I asked Him to purify my desires and help me to be able to look at my brothers as His sons. Then, over time, as I matured and learned what the traits I value most in a man are (which – mostly – have nothing to do with what he looks like), I’ve been pleased to discover that I can now look at a very attractive man and simply acknowledge that he is very attractive. And the same goes for women ;)

    Now attraction, for me, grows from respect. I become deeply attracted to men that are upstanding, godly men that I can look up to. And I am thrilled about this.

    I know I’m a woman, but I think this clarifies what Chris was saying above a bit more.

  • http://http://senrei-taro.livejournal.com.livejournal.com tebasbouy

    “From there, it’s simply a matter of association, which takes active effort on your part. When you see a seductive image, which you’re GOING to see a seductive image, remind yourself that you don’t care. This takes serious discipline in controlling your emotions, but this is something you can practice without any particular stimuli.”
    Where I have been able to read about it?