Re: Lust is a virtue or a vice?
Kaam is usually translated "lust", but given how it is described in the SGGS it seems closer to the concept of "sexual obssession"-- ie, the idea that the primary goal in life is to satisfy your sexual urges, and thus your sexuality becomes the false guru you follow.
Lust in the old definition basically meant nearly the same thing-- satisfaction of sexual urges. Given that only until the last 50 years, sex could easily mean either pregnancy or a fatal venereal disease-- and still does in a lot of societies.
The whole idea of avoiding Kaam then would then be fold-- first, to decrease your chances of dying from VD; second, to ensure that children weren't illegitimate and third, to ensure that you wouild stay mindful of the True Guru. Additionally, in older days rape was seen as a crime of lust, not violence-- perhaps Kaam was also defined to fight that? Now, I don't know enough about South Asian history to claim this is definitively true, it would take some serious reading about culture at the time to pinpoint the origins and definitions of Kaam during the time of the Gurus.
My particular thought about lust in the present day is this: if the participants are on equal footing-- ie, there are no outside pressure that would force one into a sexual situtaion, if the participants are able-minded human adults, if all participants gave their explicit consent to the sexual activity (including defining adultery as "a sexual relationship your marital partner does not consent to" therefore marital partners have also given consent even if they are not participants), and if the participants ensure the safety such that no one gets severely injured, contracts an STD or becomes inadvertently pregnant, then what grounds does anyone have to criticize the participants? Sure, it is lust in the sense of satisfying sexual urges, but it harms no one (ie, doesn't violate the Wiccan Rede, which is a marvelous religious law IMHO). Is it then kaam? That's a gray area.
Let's say a married Sikh couple goes to a sex club that encourages and enforces those rules. They both consent, they both don't make a habit of it, they do it to have some occasional fun and blow off some physical steam. Does it violate Sikh law? I'd say no, but I think I'd be a distinct minority in that opinion.
