Chrssie Hynde, a gifted rock musician, is also noted for this quote: “In my experience lust only ever leads to misery. All that suspicion and jealousy and anguish it unleashes. I don’t want those things in my life.”
Biodun Atanda agrees with her. Biodun loves his wife, Dora, very much. He adores her and she enjoys it, so are their two kids who have their fair share of love. The happy home must have challenged the devil. When Biodun’s dedication at work earned him a promotion as General Manager, it came with long meetings and late nights.
That made Dora uncomfortable. She resorted to nagging, the one thing that drives Biodun mad.
On this Tuesday morning she rocked the house with another session, Biodun was so mad, he stormed out of the house even without his tie.
Lagos is not a place you drive in anger. He hit a new Toyota Camry car from behind. Against all expectations of the familiar Lagos scene, an elegantly dressed lady slide gently from behind the steering wheel and walked up to Biodun, who was inspecting the damage.
He was stunned by her attractiveness when he looked up. Lust is defined as a psychological force producing intense desire for an object.
She said nothing as Biodun pleaded for forgiveness and promised to fix her car. Rather, she fixed her eyes on him like a psychic. Then, “you look worried this early morning, sir,” she said. “Le’me have your card and expect a call if the cost is more than I can bear.”
Miracle in Lagos! They exchanged cards and she drove off.
When about evening, he called for the bad news, he got another pleasant one. “Don’t bother, sir.”
Somehow, Biodun found comfort in her and was pushed to reward her with a lunch the following day. It happened that she also worked in Victoria Island, where they had lunch and chatted like old friend.
In the ensuing friendship, Biodun found himself infatuated with the woman he fondly called Lizzy. Not a stunning beauty, but she was very attractive and he enjoyed her company. With his normal sexual drive overheating, he sensed they would end up in bed. They did.
Many more “long nights at work” rocked his family like an earthquake. It was in-between the tremors that he said he read somewhere that, “when the devil wants to get you, he sends a beautiful woman.”
I have argued the unfairness of that statement to him repeatedly: his mother is a woman, so his adorable wife, Dora. But he has held on to the mantra.
Forget the circumstances of their first encounter; Biodun was a victim of lust, after falling into the anger-lust cycle. Experts have observed that many men experience their most severe times of lust after a struggle or problem at home or at work because such encounters leave us feeling depressed and inadequate. And because no one likes to feel bad about ourselves, we look for something to perk us up, to make us feel comfortable, powerful and important again.
Lust normally should be a basic feeling, appealing and uncomplicated, but it gets complicated tricky things such as emotions and perspectives muddy it.
And although its broad definition makes it a harmless normal word, the long history of victims of lust has given it a scary connotation. Lust could be a beautiful foundation for love, but while love is beautiful, lust has become an ugly word.
Lust is an emotion or feeling of intense desire in the body. The lust can take any form such as the lust for knowledge, the lust for sex or the lust for power. It can also take such mundane forms as the lust for food as distinct from the need for food.
Lust is a powerful psychological force. It ruined Samson. A delicate lady Delilah, in the Old Testament, was the central figure of Samson’s last love story. Samson was supposed to be a Judge, while she was a Philistine. Bribed to entrap Samson, she coaxed him into revealing that the secret of his strength was his long hair, and took advantage of his confidence to betray him to his enemies.