When does sex become lust?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: We treat sex as fun, as food, and nothing more than that. Is that why sex converts into lust?

Acharya Prashant: No, wrong. We do not treat sex just as fun and as food. Our longing for sex is far more intense, far more aggressive, far more meaningful, rather loaded with meaning, than is our desire for fun or food. If we could be a little light about sex, a little cool about sex, then sex would have been a lesser problem.

We treat sex as a panacea.

We treat sex as a great relief.

The expectations that we have from sex are unmatched.

You never expect from a pizza what you expect from your girlfriend. Even the most expensive pizza is never looked at in the same way as one looks at a man or woman. So do not look at them in the same dimension because for most of us they are not in the same dimension.

People write poetry, people raise monuments devoted to their partners.

That is sex.

But I have never seen a Taj Mahal raised for a hot dog. So there is a difference. That difference is very unfortunate. That difference must not be there because that difference implies that you are not only treating the other’s…