"Why do you talk about these things in public? The more these things are talked about the more people will think about them!"

Rabbi Aharon Kotler said already many years ago: “I want to awaken you to a painful and shocking matter about which many people err. There are many people whom refrain from speaking about these things under the pretext of modesty. May Heaven help us! In such a fallen and licentious generation as ours, where everything is exposed without shame in the open - to speak about holiness and modesty – this is considered an affront to modesty?! Can there be a greater deception on the part of the evil inclination than this?! On the contrary, it is an absolute obligation to speak about these matters in public!”

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Some readers have expressed concern that an open forum like Tzvi Fishman's blog on Arutz 7 is not the proper place for articles on Jewish sexuality, while other readers have expressed appreciation and encouragement. In order to gage the leanings of the silent majority, we initiated a poll dealing with this important question.

The results of the poll regarding the need for Jewish sex education on the Internet are conclusive. A definitive 55% of the voters believe that an open forum of issues of Jewish sexuality has a positive influence. 28% of the voters feel that the subject has positive value, but should be reserved to specialty sites like jewishsexuality.com, and not be posted on Arutz 7. 9% feet the issue should be dealt with only in closed discussions and classes, and 8% believe that exposure to the subject has a negative influence and does not belong on the Internet.

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Someone posted this very question on the forum at www.jewishsexuality.com as follows:

There is a danger that the very explicit material presented on this site could cause people to think excessively about sexual matters and lead to people to check out pornographic sites out of curiosity and then get hooked. This is one of the reasons why our Rabbis have always insisted that sexual matters be discussed only in private formats in the strictest modesty.

The following answer was posted on the forum:

I strongly disagree.

There is a concept of 'chossid shotah' when an unjustified concern for tzniut holds a man back from saving a drowning woman.

We are drowning! Speaking for myself, if not for this site I would be sinking deeper and deeper into the internet hell that I am challenged with.

Torah is described as 'tzaddikim yelchu bah, u'reshaim yikashlu ba' - people involved with Torah for the right reasons flourish, while those in it for the wrong reasons get tripped up.

The same is true for this site!