Is Desire a Form of Madness—or the First Step on the Ladder of Love?
By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.
Essay substantially revised on 8 September 2026.
For the Apostle Paul, marriage has, it seems, no higher purpose than the containment of lust:
For I would that all men were even as I myself… But if they cannot contain let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
Lust is the strong, passionate desire for something: not only sex, but also food, drink, money, fame, power, or knowledge, among others. Even so, owing to the historical resonance of Matthew 5:27-28, lust has come to be associated almost exclusively with sexual desire:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
There are many reasons for which we might desire sex, for example, to be close to someone, to hold on to or manipulate that person, to dominate that person, to injure a third party, to injure ourself, to define ourself, to feel alive, to pass the time, to make a child, or to gain some advantage such as money or preferment. But with lust, sex is contemplated primarily for itself, or, more precisely, for the pleasure that it may procure.
It is possible to seek out sex for itself without this desire being lustful. For the desire to be lustful, it has to be disordered, that is, inappropriately strong or inappropriately directed—although what counts as inappropriate is, ultimately, a value judgement that varies according to person, time, and place. People who experience lust without acting upon it are lustful without being lecherous; but if they act upon it, especially repeatedly or habitually, they are both lustful and lecherous.
King David was undone by his lust for the bathing Bathsheba, and Bill Clinton, while still the most powerful man in the world, was impeached following his affair with a young White House intern. In the Divine Comedy, souls that have committed the sin of lust are blown around in a whirlwind that symbolises their lack of self-control. More recently, MRI studies have found that patterns of brain activity in people experiencing lust are similar to those in addicts receiving their fix.
No surprise, then, that reason and philosophy are a poor defence against lust. In Greco-Roman art, Eros/Cupid is depicted as a child, and the ithyphallic (erect) satyrs are only half-human. According to mediaeval lore, when Alexander the Great found Phyllis (by some accounts, Alexander’s wife) riding Aristotle like a horse around the garden, he exclaimed, “Master, can this be!” Quick on his feet, Aristotle replied, “If lust can so overcome wisdom, just think what it could do to a young man like you.”
Shakespeare went so far as to compare lust to a form of madness, for instance, in Sonnet 129:
Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action…
…
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so…
But it is not just that lust can, at times, overcome reason. For Schopenhauer, the sexual impulse is the most powerful manifestation of the Will, the blind striving that directs all human behaviour. This idea is certainly borne out by modern advertising, which seems mostly about suggesting that buying a particular product will help us to obtain the objects of our lust. In contrast, no one ever made a fortune by peddling restraint or wisdom. It is sometimes said that everything is about sex, except for sex itself, which is about power—or would that be the other way round?
Even the Holy Church, when seeking to express ecstatic communion with God, could do no better than Bernini’s orgasmic Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.
Schopenhauer, who had read Indian philosophy, held that, so long as we are enthralled to lust, we can know no peace or happiness.
In the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, Krishna declares that, along with anger and greed, lust is one of the three gates to Naraka, or Hell. When the warrior Arjuna asks him by what one is impelled to sinful acts ‘even unwillingly, as if engaged by force’, he replies:
It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born from contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world… Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bharatas, curb in the very beginning this great symbol of sin—by regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realisation…
Lust, in the broader sense of coveting or craving, is also at the heart of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism:
1. Suffering (dukkha) is inherent in all life.
2. The cause of all suffering is lust.
3. There is a natural way to eliminate all suffering.
4. The Noble Eightfold Path is that way.
Lust, taught the Buddha, can be eliminated through attaining a higher level of consciousness. This idea can also be found sporadically in the Western canon. For instance, the poet Charles Baudelaire (d. 1867) went so far as to suggest that artists should never have sex: ‘Only the brute is good at coupling, and copulation is the lyricism of the masses. To copulate is to enter into another—and the artist never emerges from himself.’
As well as being harmful to the subject, lust is harmful also to the object. Lust is the only appetite that is for a person rather than an object, but a person qua object rather than qua person, shorn of human qualities such as dignity and agency. The lustful person is unconcerned about the blossoming of the object of his lust. More than that, he will act against her best interests to feed his appetite, and, with his appetite sated, discard her as ‘one casts aside a lemon which has been sucked dry’. These acerbic words belong to the philosopher Immanuel Kant (d. 1804), who held that a person should never be treated as a means-to-an-end but only ever as an end-in-herself.
It is in the nature of lust that it seeks to possess or ‘have’ the other, to incorporate and degrade the other by undermining her integrity and autonomy. In One Fat Englishman (1963), a novel by Kingsley Amis, the protagonist says that, when it comes to sex, his aim is ‘to convert a creature who is cool, dry, calm, articulate, independent, purposeful into a creature who is the opposite of these: to demonstrate to an animal which is pretending not to be an animal that it is an animal.’
Lust, in the words of Shakespeare, is ‘a waste of shame’. To hide that shame, many cultures magic up a male demon who lies upon sleepers to have sex with them. This incubus (and the less prevalent female equivalent, or succubus) is made to carry the blame for embarrassing nocturnal emissions, accusations of abuse or adultery, and even unexplained children. Another response to the shame of lust, much more prevalent in our culture, is to pass off lust as… romantic love. Unlike lust, love is respectable, even commendable. We look on approvingly at a pair holding hands or hugging, but turn around for the police as soon as they start acting out their lust.
Love is the acceptable face of lust, but the love that is lust in disguise is arguably even more perverse and destructive, and, in that sense, even more shameful, than the lust that knows its game. How to tell lust and love apart? While lust is hasty, furtive, and deceitful, love is patient, measured, and constant. While lust is all about taking, love is all about sharing. And while lust is all about degrading and destroying, love is all about building. Lust can lead to love, but is a poor start and a poor basis, akin to choosing one’s favourite book by the picture on the cover.
There is nothing wrong with sexual desire per se, and none of us would be here without it. Sexual desire is a life force, to be enjoyed and even celebrated. But, as with alcohol, the problems start when it turns from servant into master. Unfettered lust is especially unbecoming in the elderly, because, as the saying goes, there is no fool like an old fool.
Lust is hard to extinguish, but can more readily be redirected. If Kat is having a bad day, she can take out her frustration on anyone or everyone who crosses her path—the receptionist, her colleagues, her partner—or she can instead discharge all her nervous energy into the novel that she is writing. This second instance of anger displacement, working at her novel, is also an instance of sublimation, the channelling of unproductive or destructive forces into socially condoned and often constructive activities. As Baudelaire put it, ‘the more a man cultivates the arts, the less randy he becomes.’
For Plato, lust is the first step on the ladder of love and not to be shunned or shunted. In the Symposium, the lover begins with one beautiful body, before recognising that its beauty is shared by other bodies. From beautiful bodies, he rises to beautiful souls, practices, forms of knowledge, and finally Beauty itself. Desire is not suppressed but educated, redirected from the particular and perishable to the universal and eternal.
Lust contains its own cure, so long as one is able and willing to learn.
Continue Exploring
If this essay spoke to you, you might look into For Better For Worse, an unconventional exploration of romantic love, marriage, and lasting relationships. For a broader exploration of love, desire, jealousy, and the emotions that shape our lives, see Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions.
You may also enjoy
You must be logged in to post a comment.