Los Angeles, USA - With his shaggy beard and black garb Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is no-one's idea of a sex god. But for years the ultra-orthodox Jewish religious leader has been making headlines in the United States and around the world with his surprisingly candid sex advice. Often called the Love Rabbi, Boteach's books include such sizzlers as Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments and Kosher Sex, in which he introduces what he calls "Jewish relationship values" to the outside world.
Though a strict monogamist and believer in traditional female roles, he's never afraid to get into detailed discussions about sexual positions, masturbation and how to increase attraction and compatibility between partners. He has even registered a website called LoveProphet.com and is said to be working on his own branded online dating service.
If that idea doesn't grab you, you can taste a different flavour of Boteach on his cable TV show Shalom in the Home, in which he attempts to reconcile sparring couples, or catch one of his many appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show. The black talk show queen thinks so highly of him she even gave him his own show on her satellite radio channel.
His most recent book is The Broken American Male: And How To Fix Him, which was released in January 2008.
Boteach first came to fame when he was sent by the Lubavitch Hassidic sect to Oxford University to introduce Jewish students to their traditional religion.
He founded the L'Chaim Society that attracted world class speakers like Mikhail Gorbachev and Stephen Hawking to talk on spiritual themes. The stint made him a spokesman for universally accessible Judaism. But other rabbis condemned him for talking openly about sex and he was forced to resign his synagogue and was shunned by his Lubavitch movement.
His critics painted Boteach as an incorrigible publicity hound, eager to ride on the back of his religion to garner personal fame and fortune. But Boteach insists that his motives are pure, and that by focusing attention on Jewish attitudes to sex he can not only help heal modern society, but re-instill faith in millions of wavering Jews.
There's no doubt that the smooth-talking rabbi has a gift for publicity. He hyped his book Kosher Adultery: Seduce and Sin With Your Spouse which urged couples to turn their marriage into "an illicit affair."
"Whereas marriage often loses its spark and novelty, statistics show that adultery retains its interest, for couples who are having an illicit affair," Boteach said. "What I do is teach couples how to take the best elements of adultery and bring it into their marriage, for example, separation and renewal, jealousy, etc."
Though he has earned rebuke from other Jewish leaders by ruling that oral sex is permitted under Jewish law, the reality is that he proposes highly conservative relationships in which sex before marriage is frowned upon, as is masturbation.
He believes that teenagers should be gender separated at school to preserve the mystique of the opposite sex, and that the laws of Jewish sexual purity, in which a couple are banned from having sex for two weeks every month, are the basic prescription for a happy sexual relationship.
"Judaism has a very positive view of sex, referring to it as knowledge," he said. "Sex in Judaism is the essence of marriage because it brings forth our deepest emotions. God designed for us to be lovers. But God's intention is for people to be monogamous, that's why he created Adam and Eve."