Lust Definition:

Ballentine defines lust as:

"A strong desire for sexual relations."

In JR Distributors, Justice Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals wrote:

"Obscenity jurisprudence — based as it has been on contemporary community standards and changing social mores — is an extremely fluid area of law....

"The word (lust) has acquired such acceptable connotations that, prior to his election in 1976, presidential candidate Jimmy Carter confessed in a popular national publication that he had 'looked on a lot of women with lust and committed adultery in my heart many times.' We do not think that President Carter was describing a shameful or morbid interest; rather, he was obviously expressing a healthy, wholesome, human reaction common to millions of well-adjusted persons in our society. Certainly, we think it clear that is how the country understood his remark, and how the term lust is generally perceived today."

REFERENCES:

• Ballentine, James, Ballentine's Law Dictionary (Rochester: Lawyers Co-op Publishing Co., 1969), page 759.
• Brockett v. Spokane Arcades Inc., 472 US 491 (1985)
• JR Distributors Inc. v. Eikenberry, 725 F. 2d 482 (1984)