Recently, Indian Islamic scholar Dr Zakir Naik visited Pakistan. During a local news channel interview, he made a controversial statement as he opined that, “If a man does not feel lust after staring at a woman for 20 minutes, he is mentally ill and needs medical consultation.”
He then proceeded to give an example, stating that a news anchor, wearing makeup, is reporting live for 30 minutes, and if, in the process, a man observes her for 20 minutes without becoming attracted to her, it would be, according to him, a health issue. Dr Naik’s statement did whip up widespread outrage, especially in the comment section of news-related columns.
People started criticized his viewpoint as inappropriate and too simplistic because it reduces human attraction to something that cannot be explained by one reason and ignores individual differences in how people react to visual stimuli.
Is Zakir Naik’s statement ‘a man is mentally ill if he does not feel lust after staring at a woman’ applicable in all cases?
However, not all men are destined by nature to feel lust in these kinds of situations. Many men never feel any form of sexual attraction because, for various reasons other than mental illness, they hold personal values that diminish their lust or make them asexual, focus on personality rather than body, and even lack interest at this point can explain why a man might not feel lust.
Sexual stimuli evoke varied responses in different people, and no one has an issue to report if a man does not become aroused by it. Not all men will automatically feel lust, nor does the inability of some to feel it in itself constitute pathology.
To what extent is this statement true?
Yet, according to some of the theories in evolutionary psychology, men, by their wiring, are sexually attracted to any potential mate just for the sake of reproduction. The sexual desire of males is regulated by the main male sex hormone testosterone. The rewarding effects of a stimulus are increased quickly through visual stimuli, especially in males, activating sexual attraction feelings.
Studies have indicated that males experience a heightened level of testosterone when they encounter an attractive female, usually accompanied by primal instincts for mating. If this is not the case with a male who feels no type of attraction or arousal even after much exposure to such visuals, then it may be due to some underlying conditions with low testosterone levels, depression, or sex dysfunction, which might require a doctor’s consultation.
Notoriously, psychic disorders such as depression or anxiety might reduce the sex drive, and hormone imbalances such as lower testosterone levels can significantly reduce the libido. Therefore, in this regard, one can even argue that lust is not felt after seeing very close images for a long because it might be a physiological or psychic disorder. Yet, this cannot be implied in all cases.
The Bottom Line?
The problem with a statement like this from Dr Zakir Naik, in which he said a man who will not lust after looking at a woman for 20 minutes is “mentally ill,” is that it not only generalizes all men but also denies the rights and dignity of the women. All men do not react or express themselves in the same vein, and lesser attraction with a woman is not reduced to lust.
It downplays self-discipline, respect, personal values, and self-control that may be at work. In this view, women are also objectified, suggesting that their presence serves the purpose of activating passions rather than treating them as human beings with inherent worth, dignity, and rights to be seen as worthy personalities and not just something to be attracted to.
Keeping aside cast and race, women should have the right to exist in public space, and media without constantly being put through sexual evaluation. This would suggest that when a man is not lustful, he would have a mental disease, which once again sends harmful gender stereotypes and the fact that mutual respect, emotional maturity, and the ability to look beyond the physical attributes are what makes for healthy, equitable relationships. Both should be much better than a mentality that reduces human interactions to one-dimensional, biological reactions.
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