Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 513

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513. THE LUST OF SEDUCING INNOCENCES The lust of seducing innocences is neither the lust of defloration nor the lust of violation, but is a lust peculiar to itself and stands alone. It exists especially with the deceitful. The women who appear to them as innocences are those who account the evil of whoredom as an enormous sin and who therefore are zealous for chastity and at the same time for piety. It is towards these that they burn with desire. In countries of the Catholic religion they are nuns. Believing these nuns to be pious innocences above all others, they look upon them as the dainties and delicacies of their lust. In order to seduce such women, being deceitful, they first think out artifices and then, imbuing their talents therewith and undeterred by shame, they practice them as though they were natural. Their artifices are chiefly simulations of innocence, love, chastity, and piety. By these and other cunning means, they enter into interior friendship with the virgins and so into their love. By various persuasions and at the same time insinuations, they then turn this love from spiritual into natural, and later, by incitements, into corporeal-carnal love, and then they take possession of them at their pleasure. With this accomplished, they rejoice in heart and laugh to scorn those whom they have violated.


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