In Reply to: actually I already answered them (repost) posted by lydia on June 17, 2004 at 14:18:27:
This is so much better than the "you really have issues". Thank you.
I would ask some more questions about situations I have seen but I am not sure you will feel comfortable with this issue. I have had a lot of women friends and the friendship has remainded "holy" as you put it - in reality, in every case it is very difficult to know what is in somebody's mind so third party observers can hardly discern. As a participant, I can also testify that it is difficult to discern what is happening at that level.
Based on that observation, trhe idea of sin (which you identify correctly in my post) must come from the individual participant. I know that I have had platonic relationships with women with whom I had no interest to take it into another level and other cases where I would have had. In both cases, several times, I never acted on it but some times I was sinning and other times I wasn't.
That is pretty clear. I and I alone (and God, of course) will know about the "sin".
But what about the times when everything is platonic and then something happens and the relationship just moves on to a physical level without any premeditated thought but in a natural way? This has also happened to tme and I can say that I didn't have any intentions to get there but it took place anyway. My guess is that it was simply part of human nature.
If this happens and nobody is injured or in anyway hurt by the action, and in the hearts of the participants, their action is simply a beautiful extention of their very intimate and total friendship, at what point that becomes a sin?
Will this be a matter of defining the word "lust"? Or rather separating the spiritual aspect from the purely selfish physical act of intimacy?
I have to say that as a man I am not necessarily turned on by just sex alone. Some men and women are driven just by the erotic sexual intercourse and it is possible that at some point the human body just simply reacts to certain conditions, but many men and women require more than just being naked to have sex...
Some people and some times we, as human being, need the companionship and the close intimacy more than a satisfaction of the lust" part.
Would that be a sin in you view?