Does Keeping Kosher Mean Having Less Sex?

Image by iStock

Image by iStock
The grass always seems greener on the other side, doesn’t it? Especially for a particular segment of neurotic, anxious Jews with an abundance of hang ups about sex.
But as a new Harvard study recently revealed, couples who eat a lot of seafood may have more sex and get pregnant faster than folk who don’t. And guess who doesn’t eat seafood? Jews! Is it possible that, as we have always suspected, other people really are having a better time at the party of existence than we are?
In Michigan and Texas, researchers asked 500 couples to log their sexual activity and seafood consumption. Now, we all know that correlation does not equal causation, but couples were 39% more likely to get laid on days when seafood was eaten. An association between seafood consumption twice a week and successful conception was found, with 92% of sardine-lovers getting pregnant, compared to the 72% of shellfish-less couples.
Suspicious! What magical aphrodisiac could be in seafood that can’t found in, say, a pickle or a bowl of cholent?
“[It] could be driven by improvements in semen quality, menstrual cycle function (e.g. increasing the likelihood of ovulation and levels of progesterone), and embryo quality as previous studies have observed these benefits with higher seafood and (omega-3) fatty acid intake,” lead study author Audrey Gaskins told Reuters.
More fish equals more sex. Are Jews just having less, or worse, sex because we’ve eschewed oysters? Maybe!
Luckily, there are plenty of other fish in the sea, or aphrodisiacs on the table. Cocoa, watermelon and avocado are all still available to any Jew who hasn’t sworn off sex but has sworn off shellfish. So hold the lobster and pass the chili peppers and the condoms! Or the pregnancy tests! Zei gezunt!
Shira Feder is not big on oysters. She can be reached at [email protected] or @shirafeder
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Make a Passover Gift Today!
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
- 4
Opinion Yes, the attack on Gov. Shapiro was antisemitic. Here’s what the left should learn from it
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish פֿילאַנטראָפּ אלי הירשפֿעלד שענקט פֿאָרווערטס די אינטערנעץ־אַדרעסן Yiddish.com און Yiddish.orgPhilanthropist Eli Hirschfeld donates domains Yiddish.com and Yiddish.org to the Forward
די מתּנה וועט דערמעגלעכן מער אָנהענגערס פֿון ייִדיש צו געפֿינען די ייִדישע ווידעאָס, אַרטיקלען און שפּילן פֿונעם פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Fast Forward Antisemitic incidents on college campuses rose over 80 percent last year, says the ADL
-
Fast Forward As the last generation of Holocaust survivors ages, advocates call for their testimonies to be heard
-
Fast Forward Jewish Federations CEO privately opposed a Jewish open letter criticizing Trump’s campus arrests
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.