“Visitors trolling for casual sex on Craigslist.org last week were left wondering about an unfamiliar reference that has surfaced in a flurry of recent postings. ‘I keep seeing this term ‘Frum.’ Can somebody please clue me into what the hell that is?’ wrote Jeff, a 30-year-old regular on the site. ‘OK, I give up. What does ‘frum’ mean?‘ huffed another. To the posters’ disappointment, frum (pronounced ‘froom’) is not shorthand for a kinky new posture or adventurous attitude. It’s a Yiddish word that technically means ‘religiously observant,’ but for all intents and purposes is used by men and women who identify themselves as Orthodox Jews. Jeff, an events planner who grew up Catholic in the Midwest, said he kept seeing requests from frum men and women seeking frum sexual partners. ‘The only thing that was in my mind was fru-strated, m-arried … ? I had no clue what it was,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize it was an Orthodox Jewish person. From what I understand, they’re supposed to put a sheet between them when they have sex.’” —Metroactive (US)

There have been a lot of articles in recent times about the liberating power of the internet — in China, for example, it enables people to bypass the official news outlets and obtain information written from other viewpoints. Less often do you see articles about how the internet is affecting groups that more or less choose to repress themselves, and yet these groups are slowly being transformed as well. The “frum” community is a good example. Orthodox Jews abide — or are supposed to abide — by a self-imposed body of laws that include keeping kosher, observing the sabbath, and so on. As with most religious groups, these laws also frown upon sexual promiscuity. (They do not, however, mandate that couples have sex through the intermediary of a sheet. That’s a total myth.)

Nevertheless, boys will be boys, and girls will be girls, and so apparently frum Jews are learning that the internet is a place where they can seek relief for some of their unbearable urges. This is hardly a surprise — in fact, it’s hardly even newsworthy, since all it amounts to saying is that horny people are finding ways to connect. The interesting part, though, is that as frum Jews and similarly reserved cultural groups explore the internet, so too do the “regular” denizens of the internet begin to explore them in return. This news article mentions how “frum fakes” have begun to respond to the frum posters. And while it is difficult to imagine how a non-Jew could muster the cultural background and Yiddish lingo to pass himself off as Orthodox, if you happen to live somewhere that exposes you to frum Jews, you can easily imagine why somebody would at least try. Setting aside whether Jews are any sexier than any other ethnicity — though some would say that they are, as evidenced by certain gays with a fetish for Hasidic men (no lie) — any community with traditional values is alluring for the precise same reason as virginity is alluring. Innocence, reserve, lack of experience — these qualities can have a powerful sexual appeal. Think about it. If you can find a virgin boy or girl attractive, why not an entire virgin culture?

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