It is sometimes said that "lust" must be understood as meaning a reckless indulgence of the sexual impulse without regard to other considerations.

So understood, we are quite safe in rejecting it.

But that is an entirely arbitrary definition of the word.

"Lust" is really a very ambiguous term; it is a good word that has changed its moral values, and therefore we need to define it very carefully before we venture to use it.
Properly speaking, "lust" is an entirely colorless word[62] and merely means desire in general and sexual desire in particular; it corresponds to "hunger" or "thirst"; to use it in an offensive sense is much the same as though we should always assume that the word "hungry" had the offensive meaning of "greedy." The result has been that sensitive minds indignantly reject the term "lust" in connection with love.[63] In the early use of our language, "lust," "lusty," and "lustful" conveyed the sense of wholesome and normal sexual vigor; now, with the partial exception of "lusty," they have been so completely degraded to a lower sense that although it would be very convenient to restore them to their original and proper place, which still remains vacant, the attempt at such a restoration scarcely seems a hopeful task.

We have so deeply poisoned the springs of feeling in these matters with mediaeval ascetic crudities that all our words of sex tend soon to become bespattered with filth; we may pick them up from the mud into which they have fallen and seek to purify them, but to many eyes they will still seem dirty.