LUST

Do You Still Choose Me?

Panksepp, the Bible, and LUST

This is the final installment in our series exploring the emotional mind of marriage through Panksepp’s emotional systems. This month, we look at LUST. For Panksepp, LUST was narrowly focused, primarily tied to sexual motivation, mating, and reproductive behaviors. But I want to broaden this narrow focus and recognize that, in marriage, the sexual desire of LUST reveals something deeper within embodied relationships. It’s not just about sex. LUST is one way marriage can make us feel alive. 

Some readers may react strongly to the word LUST, especially in religious circles, where it carries significant negative connotations. In Christian moral language, lust usually refers to sexual desire that becomes possessive or objectifying—desire that treats another person primarily as a means of gratification. Panksepp uses LUST differently. His use is descriptive rather than moral, referring to the biological system of sexual attraction and motivation. These are two different things. But we will consider the connections between them as we explore LUSTful desire in this blog. 

LUSTful Desire is More than Sex

CARE says “I am willing to comfort you”; 

PLAY says “Come enjoy this with me.”; and 

SEEKING says “I want you to tell me more.” These are all relational and connecting aspects of love. 

But LUST is more physical, conveying a visceral desire, saying — “I want you because you are you.” Lust in the biblical sense can reduce a person to what I want from them. Healthy marital desire moves in the opposite direction: “I want you because you are you.”

Sex may be the end result, but desire encompasses so much more. It includes flirting, physical touch, kissing, moving closer, anticipation, a lingering look, and saying you would choose your partner again and again. Being loved and being desired are related experiences, but they are not identical. Desire moves us into new territory with our partner, recognizing that they are much more than the familiar. 

Christian marriage is often described as life-giving because sexual union can create new biological life. Yet that is only one form of life-giving love. Marriage can also participate in resurrection life now—awakening what has grown tired, flat, buried, or forgotten. Desire can be part of that renewal because it reaches toward the mystery of the other person and says, “There is still life here.”

Desire is Life-Giving

In this series, we have discussed how marriage can become emotionally flat and efficient. Couples can become adept at managing day-to-day life, but the depth of connection and erotic dimensions fade. Conflict is not the problem. It is a drift in which the space between is filled with children, responsibilities, daily stress, aging, illness, and exhaustion. But remember, desire has not really disappeared; it’s just been buried under responsibility. 

But don’t get ahead of me here and think the solution is simply a spicier sex life. A spicier sex life may be enjoyable, but technique alone cannot create desire. Desire grows out of the marriage’s broader relational life. Desire is life-giving because it moves us to explore the partner beside us, believing they could still surprise, attract, and move us. 

Desire lives in a mysterious space between closeness and distance, and between anticipation and discovery. We are neurologically wired to seek security and closeness, yet we also naturally move away and become separate. This is a healthy dance in which desire lives. Desire often lives in the tension between familiarity and mystery. We need enough closeness to feel secure and enough separateness to remain curious. Our partner is deeply known, yet our knowledge of them as a person is never fully exhausted.

This dance of moving apart and coming together does not happen in your mind alone. It is physical. It requires your whole body — your eyes, skin, scent, voice, movement toward, touch, and physical presence. In these physical acts, you communicate that there is much to know and share. If you think the frequency of intercourse is an appropriate metric here, you have missed the point. The vast mystery of knowing and being known by each other is a lifetime’s journey, of which sexual intimacy is only a small part.

Desire Requires Safety

Don’t forget, desire requires safety. 

On the surface, this seems obvious, but it is also deeply complex. Stress, conflict, and perceived disconnection can heighten insecurity and ultimately threaten safety. We have discussed three emotional systems in this series that, without soothing, risk further disconnection: GRIEF/PANIC, RAGE, and FEAR. Healthy couples soothe these states and repair any disconnections. These states often make desire more difficult to access, especially when the relationship itself feels unsafe. 

There is one unique circumstance I often find in Christian marriages that can also lead to blocked desire. Some Christian couples have absorbed messages that wives need to submit to a husband’s sexual desire. The story often goes that God made men with a higher sexual drive, and since this is God’s design, it is also God’s design for a wife to submit. But desire cannot be demanded. Desire under pressure feels unsafe, and to make it safe, partners need to invite, cultivate, and express desire—never demand. This kind of teaching can also make desire possessive, narrowing the focus to sexual satisfaction and neglecting the much more important relational components of knowing all of a person, not just their body. 

Create Space for Desire

This is why the space between anticipation and discovery is complex. There is no formula or checklist that will help you make it work out just right. Our desire is responsive to numerous contextual factors. Do we spend time together? Are we listening to each other? Are we sharing touch that feels connecting? Do we both recognize the external stressors and pressures that influence our daily lives? So just because on a Tuesday night there are no spontaneous sexual fireworks, it does not mean attraction or connection in the relationship is dead. We may just need to reconnect with the embers of desire in our own hearts, enough to reach toward our partner again and discover that there is still life here. 

Desire is more likely to grow when there is enough safety to relax, enough distance to remain curious, and enough freedom for attraction to be offered rather than required. 

Marriage is much more than friendship or two roommates managing a household. It is two embodied people living the lifelong mystery of knowing and being known, repeatedly discovering that there is still more life in the person beside them. It’s a lifelong journey in which desire asks a simple yet deeply human question: “Do you still desire me?”