Lust

Conceptualization and Measurement

The experience of lust is presumed to be distinct from other sexual responses, including sexual arousal (which involves physiological arousal, genital excitement, and the subjective awareness of genital and physiological arousal), sexual activity (which consists of overt sexual behaviors, such as masturbation, “petting,” or intercourse), and sexual feelings that are associated with these responses (such as satisfaction, fulfillment, and pleasure). Of course, these sexual responses frequently co-occur and thus are experienced relatively simultaneously. For example, the sight of an attractive person may cause an individual to feel an urge to engage in sexual activities with that person and to fantasize about what sex with that person might be like; these lustful feelings may subsequently produce physiological arousal and genital excitement. The subjective awareness of this sexual arousal may, in turn, increase the desire to engage in sex with the other person and may result in actual sexual behavior. After orgasm or sexual satiation, the individual's body will return to its prearoused state, and sexual desire also may decrease. Thus, the interrelationship among desire, arousal, and activity is complex; each response can influence the others, and they may co-occur. Researchers nonetheless consider each experience to be a separate component of the human sexual response cycle.

Lust or sexual desire varies along at least two dimensions. The first dimension is quantitative and concerns the magnitude of the desire that is experienced. Both the intensity and the frequency with which lust is experienced can vary within one individual over time. For example, a person may experience sexual desire on numerous occasions one week, only to feel no desire at all the following week; similarly, he or she may possess a powerful sexual urge at one point in time and then a much less-intense sexual need at another. In addition, people differ in the chronic amount of lust that they experience; some individuals generally have a low level of sexual appetite, whereas others habitually experience high levels of desire.

The second dimension along which sexual desire varies is qualitative and concerns the specificity of the desired sexual goal and sexual object. A person in the throes of lust may wish to engage in a specific sexual activity (e.g., intercourse) with a specific other individual (e.g., the partner). Alternately, he or she may simply have an urge to engage in some form of sexual activity with an unspecified partner; in this situation, both the sexual goal and the sexual object are diffuse rather than specific.

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