I've been reading a lot of shoujo and romance manga recently and with this overload of "love-love" it got me thinking.. Maybe lust is a more "honest" emotion?

Hear me out, Love, boiled down is a chemical addiction to the physiological responses you get from a person. Theres a euphoria phase, where "everything is new and exciting". Theres a dependency phase, where "the spark and freshness are gone" but you still care about them and maybe miss them when they're gone. Hell theres even the withdrawls of heartbreak.

Putting that aside. With love, theres the possibility that you're not actually in love with the person. Theres "in love with the idea of love", loving who they're making themselves be(when girls/guys try to be something they're not to get you to like them), and loving the image you have of them in your mind.

Even if you do love them, as with any chemical addiction theres always the possibility of a stronger "high". So that love might not be "the deepest". So can it be called love then?

With all these different kinds of "False loves", maybe the more honest emotion is lust. Sure, its also a physiological response to a person. However, I've never heard a person say "I thought it was lust" like they would say "I thought I was in love".

So which is more honest?

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i dont think i have a right to judge but in reality i think lust is prolly the more honest emotion has u put it rather than love because love is often just a person misinterpreting lust and because love is often dependant upon a myriad of different circumstances and requirements whereas with lust its fairly straightforward u either find them attractive or not. that said tho i would like to be less of a cynic and imagine that love as an emotion is fairly honest when in use but yeah agree that lust is definitively more honest at least recognition wise

Well regardless of its "honesty", I think both emotions are significant if not important in their own ways so this is by no means a comparison of the value each emotion has.

Without lust the odds of us being here as a species deminish due to the fact that lust plays a major role in procreation. Sexual attraction is often a major factor in the evolution of some species, them having evolved characteristics for the sole purpose of attracting mates (ex: Peacock).

However, I can't really think of another emotion other than love that has as much of an impact on a person's life. Sure, fear can save you from danger and anger can drive you to murder, but love is often the determining factor when deciding who you're going to marry and have kids with.

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More "honest"? I know what you meant, but I think it's just a matter of one being less ambiguous than the other.



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i think i shouldnt say this since i have never really been that deep in love..
but.. oh what the heck!
*ahem*
i still think that love is still love and its still more of an honest feeling because it continues on but for lust i think that its just a sensation that goes away when its satisfied.. well thats what i think...

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okay first off. . . "sad" love or the withdrawal from a breakup isn't love. It stems from love but it's in fact the lack of it, the absence of love, there's no such thing as "sad love", it's just hate, absence etc. etc. but that's just my opinion. . . now whether lust is more honest than love, then I'd say no. . .

being in love with the idea of love might mean that you don't actually love another person even if you're with him/her, yes that's true, but does that make it less honest? can't I be in love with a house or a season (i.e. summer etc.) or an idea without it being honest? I think an idea can be a very beautiful thing.

Not to say that love is more honest than lust, but what we feel is always honest disregarding the reason, now it may be more or less morally correct from societies perspective but that has nothing to do with honesty. we might hide what we feel and that can be dishonest, but we still feel.

so basically what I'm saying is that:

We feel what we feel regardless of what we are supposed to feel, being with someone without being in love with them is not love, so don't classify it as love, but there might be other reasons that can be just as honest without being either love OR lust.

Oh, well lust is human instinct, love the most complicated emotional in the world. Of course, lust is more honest than love. But I don't agree with your idea of separating lust and love. Deep inside love is always lust, lust without love ,again, is human instinct, is not romance not emotional. "Sad" love or whatever is very emotional, it cannot be just lust, it's other side of love, like I said: love is complicated.

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No, lust is more thoughtless than love. That doesn't make it more honest.


Uh... That's not love. That's infatuation. Which partakes considerably of lust, I might add. Obviously, this unstable chemical combo is not honest! Because it isn't love!

Love is the solid bedrock that remains after the floods of passion and the droughts of longing have gone.

Love stays.

Love is honest.

Love is the courage to see oneself as one truly is, and to see the beloved as what they truly are - and still find in that a greater truth, a sweeter beauty.

I suppose I simply disagree with most common definitions of love, and how people get different things (lust, infatuation, crushes, passion, admiration, sympathy, pity) confused with it. I myself used to get confused, once - but then I found love, and... well, at long last, I understood that love is the deepest part of the ocean that is not swayed by surface currents. That's how you know that it's love. It doesn't change. Even when seriously major sh*t goes down.

Or, as the Bible puts it (not my favorite text by FAR, but this particular quote is accurate!): "Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds." What sorts of alterations? Like terminal illness, living in debilitating poverty, having the world come apart around you - but the people who STAY with you through all that? They're the ones who love you. It's really quite easy to identify love in the midst of hardship - that's one of the few things hardship makes easy. Lol.

In that sense, love is honest. Lust might induce you to spend a passionate night with someone, stupidly utter words you don't really mean, and then disappear like a whiff of smoke come morning (thinking: "Holy crap, did I really say all that?"). But love... Love will have you staying by someone's side even if they're now so ill that they can't move from the bed, let alone have sex with you - love will have you feeling joy in their presence, infinite tenderness in the simple touch of their hand or in the brightening of their eyes, and you will never question your choice in staying with that person.

So which is more honest? It certainly isn't lust. Because love owns up to its responsibilities, and does so wholeheartedly. Lust... doesn't really have any responsibilities, does it? I'm not saying lust by itself is BAD, or anything, but you can't look to it for honesty or emotional fulfillment. It's here today, gone tomorrow. That isn't to say that you shouldn't enjoy it intensely in that spirit of momentariness, but just don't mistake it for honesty! Or you might start believing what some scoundrel tells you just to get into your pants - or what he says to you after a mind-blowing orgasm. Seriously. And then where will your heart be? Shattered in itty-bitty little pieces on the floor, that's what, when said scoundrel doesn't even meet your eyes next week at the college cafeteria. (Who, me? Bad experience? Nawh. )

As far as I'm concerned, honesty requires thought. Not instinct. Lust is only instinct; it can't be honest OR dishonest, it just is what it is. You only say that someone is being dishonest if they had something in mind and then misrepresent it, right? Similarly someone is only being honest if they are truly representing what they THINK. (Not just what's in their pants.) So obviously, lust and honesty have nothing to do with one another. (Our attitudes to lust, though? They can have something to do with honesty, since attitudes are informed by thought. Like the attitude of the cafeteria scoundrel. Grr.)

To compare something instinctual to something thoughtful in terms of honesty is simply inappropriate. It's like comparing apples and oranges.

That would be like saying that hunger is honest. Or the need for breath. I mean, they can't be honest - or dishonest. They're instincts. And so is lust.

Love is honest, though. Real love. If the love you're feeling (or that someone else is feeling) is dishonest, then I don't categorize it as love. Of course, many of us don't realize our own (or others') dishonesty until much later, and in that interim, we might get what we're feeling (infatuation etc.) confused with love...

But when you find it, Love with a capital L, lol, then you'll know it. Or rather, you'll discover it, slowly and over time, and will keep re-discovering it as you grow older. Because love is depthless; you can't plumb its depths.

If you can hit "rock bottom" with your feelings, though, then they were never love - for the simple reason that there was a rock bottom to hit. There was a finite depth.

Love's depth is, of course, infinite.

You have to consider types of love.
I love my friends and I love my family.
I really do. I couldn't describe it any other way

It isn't love if it's chemicals. That's infatuation and it eventually wears off.
True love can last as long as you take care of it.

I mean love can go away, it just needs work.
But you can fall in love again eventually.

I think love is more honest.

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I might agree with "lust is thoughtless" and quite instinctual, but the same can be said about arguably every emotion/feeling. The most easily recognizable is fear and the "fight or flight" response being an instinctual reaction to danger or possible dangers.

To quote the oracle in the matrix "No one can tell you're in love you just know". (apparently its like being the one :haha. Love is often described as being irrational or blind, so to say its not thoughtless might be incorrect. I think it probably stems from a place outside conscious thought.

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WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!!

wait just ONE sec. . . the BIBLE?!?

isn't that line is from "Let Me not to the Marriage of True Minds Admit Impediments" which is sonnet by SHAKESPEARE?

here it is in its entirety. . .

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! it is an ever-fixéd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come'
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

this is one of my absolute favorite poems so that's why I react so strongly. . .

Last edited by MapleSyrup at 10:07 am, Mar 5 2010

Lust is an instinct to breed, so of course it is more 'honest' than the emotion love. Love is an emotion that draws you to a person because you want them as a life long mate. Lust is the instinct that draws you to a person because you want to reproduce with the person. To be in a successful relationship, you need to be in love and lust with the person. You must need the person to satisfy both your love and lust, or else you'll wind up telling the person you still love them despite sleeping with several people other than them. Instincts will always be more powerful than any of the emotions we have developed from evolution, but the combination of both emotion and love is even more powerful.

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Lust is the definition of an animal instinct to procreate. A male will seek out as many mates as possible in order to guarantee that his genes are passed on. A female will seek out the protection of a male, and will use the act of mating to guarantee his protection. If we look at it from a purely scientific point of view, then love is simply a figment of the human mind.

I would say that this is not a fair comparison. If love is boiled down to a chemical addiction, then it is simply lust.

However, a romantic* would say that if you compare love and lust in the poetic sense (which seems to have inspired your thread), then there is no question of which is more honest.

*I am not a romantic. Honestly, I have never been in love with another person. I just read a lot of poetry in school.

@MapleSyrup, lol thanks for pointing that out! I think I got it confused with another quote from the Bible that is very similar (can't remember it now, but the spirit was the same - smth about love never ends, never changes). Heh!

@KazukiNezan, I still think that because it's an instinct, lust can't be honest (or dishonest), anymore than hunger or any other physical instinct can be honest. Honesty can only exist when there is pre-thought...

@orpheus17, when you say, "I would say that this is not a fair comparison. If love is boiled down to a chemical addiction, then it is simply lust," I partly agree... Partly.

Some people might boil love down to something non-lusty that is chemical, for example if you believe in oxytocin (a chemical induced by childbirth & sex that fosters "bonding" between lovers or between mother and child). So it doesn't have to be lust if it's just chemical... BUT I still agree with you that love is greater than that. The oxytocin thing is just attachment being fostered; love can grow outof that, but it isn't actually love by itself. Love is greater than that.

I don't know about the honesty of them, but lust is a physical feeling and love is psychological (I'm making this up as I go ) Lust is kind of like a craving, kind of like what your body wants. Love is something that develops over time (usually?) so I would say love is more honest, since you consider the actual person and personality, not just the person you are lusting over.

Or something like that

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