Matthew 5:27-28

"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

For a woman whose husband struggles with lust, the meaning here is pretty obvious.  When a man looks lustfully at another woman, he is seeking pleasure from her that he should only find with his wife.  A continued problem in this area leads the wife to feelings of inferiority - I'm not what he wants, if only I were prettier/thinner/bigger busted...  A wife has the right to be the only person her husband desires.

But this is a two-way street.  What about us as wives?  We tend to think of lust as a male problem, but many women struggle with it as well.  We should not be looking with desire at anyone other than our husbands.  Just as is the case with our husbands, we need to be selective about the books we read and the movies we watch.  Many romance novels are pretty pornographic.  Their purpose is to arouse the reader and ultimately make her unsatisfied with her own life.  Beware of Christian romance novels, too.  While they aren't necessarily bad, the perfect heroes in the book can cause a woman to wish her husband was more like that, and become dissatisfied with her marriage.  Read with caution!

And then there's Hollywood.  Some female relatives and I were recently discussing who should be People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive"...and then I realized that talking about good-looking movie stars isn't exactly honoring to my husband.  I have a friend who won't watch a certain TV show because she finds the star attractive and doesn't want to be thinking improper thoughts.  Another friend called her husband to pick her up from the theater on a recent girls night out, because her friends had decided to see a movie about male strippers.

Sound extreme?  Ephesians 5:3 tells us that there is not to be "even a hint of sexual immorality".  The next verse says we are to avoid coarse joking.  Sure, mentioning that a particular actor is good-looking doesn't necessarily mean I want to sleep with him, but it is a step in that direction.  I think women often have a double standard - I can say George Clooney is hot, but my husband had better not say the same thing about Catherine Zeta-Jones.  If I'm not comfortable with my husband saying or watching something, I shouldn't be doing a similar thing. 

Avoid lust in any form.  We need to take captive every thought and make them obedient to Christ (II Corinthians 10:5)