Poetic

Must We Experience Lust Before Love?

16 January

Is It Necessary To Experience Lust Before Love?

Is lust before love necessary, or do we mistake emotional readiness for experience?

Lust is passionate.
It’s exciting, spontaneous, exhilarating.

And while love can be all of those things too, love also comes with compromise, disappointment, realism, and the discipline of continuing to show up even when you don’t want to.

And that part?
That part isn’t so hot.

Love carries responsibility, responsibility that often feels too heavy to bear when you’re still becoming yourself. And if we’re being honest, when you sacrifice that much for someone who isn’t even the person you end up saying I do to, it can feel like a misuse of your emotional capacity. Like you keep pouring yourself into a cup you were never meant to drink from long-term.

Yes, you learn lessons.
Yes, you gain clarity on how you want to be loved.

But you also break your own heart over someone you may never speak to again, someone who, in hindsight, never deserved the weight you carried. Yet at least you get to say, I’ve been in love before.

To Be Clear, “Lust” Is Being Used As Clickbait Here, But Not In The Way It’s Often Understood.

This isn’t an argument for sleeping around, or the idea that detachment equals freedom. That version of lust often does more harm than good, leaving people emotionally fragmented and spiritually empty.

Here, I’m talking about the innocent kind of lust.

The kind where you flirt.
Where you enjoy being desired.
Where you experience beauty, excitement, and connection without the responsibility of carrying someone else’s wounds, or asking them to carry yours.

In lust, you get to shop, travel, flirt, and like someone without inheriting their problems or projecting your own. There is joy without obligation. Curiosity without consequence. Presence without pressure.

Love, however, asks for something more.

It requires showing up whether conflict exists or not.
It means staying when stability disappears and provision changes.
Love asks you to listen on bad days, even when both people feel tired, overwhelmed, or hurting.

When you give that level of commitment to the person you eventually marry, it becomes worth it, completely, even sacred.

But offering that same level of capacity to someone who isn’t meant to last can feel costly, not because love is wrong, but because timing matters.

The Questions That Makes Me Pause.

Why does the girl who married her high school sweetheart who never experienced lust go to Europe and suddenly have six new rendezvous in a one-month hiatus?

Or the “nice guy” who gets cheated on retreats into the gym and hardens himself into someone hyper-masculine and emotionally inaccessible, someone he was never meant to become.

Even Hugh Hefner was a virgin until 22, married his high school sweetheart, got cheated on, and then went on to build an empire rooted in sexual excess?

I’m not presenting these as proof, but as patterns worth questioning.

What Does The Bible Say About Lust And Why It Matters Here?

Biblically, scripture never frames lust as harmless. Jesus himself says in Matthew 5:28 that lust isn’t just an action, it’s a condition of the heart. Lust objectifies. It consumes. It prioritizes desire over dignity.

But here’s what often gets missed:
The Bible doesn’t just warn us about lust, it also warns us about misplaced love.

Love, in its truest form, requires maturity. Wisdom. Discernment. Timing.

You should never enter love lightly.

It’s covenantal, weighty, and meant to build, not drain.

And maybe that’s the real issue, not whether we experience lust before love, but whether we mature before love.

Maybe Love Is Too Heavy For The Immature.

I’m not saying lust is the right avenue.
I’m not saying it’s the answer.

But I am saying that love requires a level of emotional regulation, self-knowledge, and spiritual grounding that many people simply don’t have yet and when love comes too early, it can crush instead of cultivate.

Maybe what some people call “lust” is really just space.
Space to become, learn yourself and enjoy without over-attaching.

And maybe what breaks us isn’t loving deeply, but loving prematurely.

Reflections On Lust, Love, And Emotional Readiness.

Know the difference between attraction and capacity
Just because you feel drawn to someone doesn’t mean you have the capacity to carry them. Attraction can exist without readiness, chemistry without sustainability. Before you enter love, ask yourself: Do I have the emotional, mental, and spiritual capacity to show up consistently, or am I only prepared for the excitement? Love demands endurance, not just desire.

Lust is light because it asks for nothing, love is heavy because it asks for everything
Lust feels easy because it is responsibility-free. You get moments, not maintenance. You get affection without accountability. Love, on the other hand, requires presence even when it’s inconvenient, on bad days, tight months, quiet seasons, and moments when attraction alone won’t carry you. Neither is inherently evil, but they serve very different purposes.

Don’t confuse growth with damage
Some people claim their “lust phase” helped them grow, when in reality it just hardened them. Exposure does not equal maturity. Pain does not automatically produce wisdom. If your experiences leave you numb, guarded, or disconnected from your values, that isn’t growth, it’s erosion. Maturity should make you clearer, not colder.

The Importance Of Timing And Depth.

Timing matters just as much as intention

Love entered too early can become burdensome, even if the person is good. There are seasons where you are still learning how to regulate emotions, communicate needs, and hold boundaries. In those seasons, love can feel overwhelming rather than fulfilling. That doesn’t make you incapable of love, it means you’re still becoming someone who can carry it well.

Choose depth over novelty, even when novelty looks more exciting
The world romanticizes experiences that look freeing on the outside, constant flirting, endless options, the illusion of abundance. But depth requires restraint, discernment, and patience. Love proves itself not through experience, but through your ability to commit, care, and remain present when the thrill fades.

So The Question Remains: Must We Experience Lust Before Love?

I’d argue not necessarily.

But we must experience maturity.
And there is nothing shameful about not being mature enough yet.

Wholeness matters more than timing.
Becoming matters more than rushing.

Too many of us confuse love with lust and end up settling for someone’s attraction mistaking intensity for commitment. And when life inevitably gets heavy, when responsibilities pile up and convenience disappears, lust does what it has always done: it runs. It flees at the first sign of discomfort. It disappears when capacity is required.

And when someone tells you they no longer have “capacity”, don’t wait around for them to find it. If it were love and not lust, you wouldn’t be waiting for capacity, it would already exist for you. Love doesn’t pause you until life feels easier. It expands to include you.

Love stays and fights, not just for you, but with you.

So no, don’t rush love just to say you’ve had it.
Don’t force depth before you’ve developed the capacity to carry it.
And don’t let impatience convince you that brokenness is a prerequisite for devotion.

Becoming whole first isn’t avoidance, it’s wisdom.