Jewish Sexuality dot Com

Question:

I am not suggesting that your Torah sources are in error, but it seems to me that you have exaggerated with all of your fire and brimstone warnings. I can see a movie, or see sexy pics on the Intrnet, go to a crowded beach, or spend a day with a pretty woman and never experience a wet dream or the desire to masturbate. I am sure this is true for most men, not only me.

Answer:

This reminds us of man who works in a boiler room. On a hot summer day when everyone else is sweating, he says he feels cool. He simply has become accustomed to being hot. Because he works in a boiler room, he is insensitive to hot weather. So too, a man who is accustomed to immodest behavior and immodest surroundings, does not feel their impact on him. His spiritual radar has become insensitive and dull.

This is the case with any transgression. If a person does not keep the Sabbath, he does not feel the loss of the spiritual high that the Sabbath brings to a Jew. If he eats cheeseburgers, he thinks he is just as spiritual as his Orthodox friend who keeps kosher. In the same way, a merchant who regularly cheats his clients, comes to believe he is not doing anything wrong - "Business is different." 

The fact is that seeing immodestly dressed women at the beach and in the movies dulls a Jew's spiritual world and distances him from G-d and the Torah. For a person who has an aspiration to live a sanctified life, this is certainly not the way.

In his book, "Kuntres HaAvodah," Rebbe Sholom Dov Ber of Lubavitch, one of the early great Rebbes of Chabad, writes the following:

"Everyone who is concerned about his soul, not to pollute it, G-d forbid, should guard over his eyes. And if this is difficult for him, he should endeavor to restrain himself with all of his strength and might. He must take to heart that this matter is instrumental to the wellbeing of his soul, and if he does not guard himself in this matter, then all of his Divine service is accounted as nothing, and all of his achievements are as naught, and his service of G-d will fall lower and lower....

"Behold, there are people who are far from actually committing evil deeds, G-d forbid, but their hearts pull them to look and stare (at women.) They gaze with a seemingly cold detachment, and they do not feel any immediate excitement when they look, but the reason for their being attracted is because they experience an inner pleasure... This gazing, even with seeming detachment, creates an impression and a great stain on the psyche, which will not go away without arousing some actual evil in its wake, G-d forbid....

"Thus, it is every man's duty to control himself and to guard over the things he sees. In so doing, he will save himself from evil, and his service of G-d will find favor. He will bring salvation to his soul, and he will rise higher and higher." (Kuntres HaAvodah, Ch. 2. For an English translation and commentary, see the book, "Love Like Fire and Water," Moznaim Publishing Corp.)

[See an essay by the Kabbalist Rav Eliahu Leon Levy on guarding the eyes.]