Lust

Lust is what love becomes in an endoself, and the substitution is exact rather than approximate. Where love is a flow of energy through a connection to a primary source, lust is a desire for possession in order to obtain secondary anima, so the object is owned rather than connected to and the energy is taken rather than exchanged. Calling it avarice removes the sexual restriction that ordinary usage places on the word, since possession of an object, a position or a reputation follows the same three stages as possession of a person. The stages are the useful part because they are predictive. First the intense desire, which is the stage everyone recognizes and mistakes for love. Then possession, during which the endoself seeks complete ownership or sublation of the target along with outside reflection in the form of admiration for the new possession, which is why the acquisition has to be displayed. Then disillusionment, boredom and punishment of the object, which is blamed for the disappointment. That third stage follows necessarily rather than accidentally. Secondary anima produces highs, crashes and cravings rather than the peace of secure connection, so the object cannot deliver what was wanted, and since an endoself cannot assign guilt to itself the failure is assigned to whatever was acquired. Lust emanates from the emotional will, which is the will motivated solely by potential anima gain or loss.

Lust is one of the seven deadly sins and is treated in that tradition as disordered desire. Psychology separates lust from romantic love and attachment as distinct systems with different neurochemistry, following Helen Fisher, and studies objectification as a measurable perceptual and attitudinal phenomenon after Nussbaum and Fredrickson. Erich Fromm distinguished having from being as modes of existence, which is nearest to Marsh's contrast. The unusual element in her account is the third stage, since most treatments describe desire and its objectification without predicting that the object will be punished for failing to satisfy, which she derives from the properties of secondary anima rather than from anything about the individuals involved.