Personal Lubricants Now Kosher Certified
Image by Thinkstock
By Simi Lichtman July 16, 2013
When the Oreo became kosher 15 years ago, the kosher-keeping world may have thought the milestone would be the climax of kosherization. As of yesterday, they would be wrong.
Trigg Labs, the vanilla-sounding brand behind Wet sexual wellness products, has apparently spent the last two years undergoing a koshering process, according to the Herald Online, and has now received official kosher certification. In other words, the United States finally has kosher “personal lubricants,” pushing any demands for kosher Skittles out of the spotlight. Under the supervision of the Rabbinical Council of California (RCC), almost all Wet products are now kosher certified — just don’t look for the kosher symbol on your bedside bottle of lube.
“We don’t put the symbol on the bottle,” explained Rabbi Yosef Caplan, Assistant Director of Kashrut Services at the RCC, in a phone call. “The product has a back-up letter.”
The rabbi didn’t clarify the reasoning for that bit of stealth, but it may have something to do with the touchy subject of oral sex in the Orthodox community, the main market interested in using kosher products. As with almost anything in Jewish law, the question of fellatio depends largely on whom you ask, though many in the more right-wing community would reject it out of hand. But the rabbi gave a reason for why the lubricant would be kosher other than ingestion: absorption through the skin.
Apparently, there is a popular halachic opinion in Israel that anything absorbed through the skin must have a kosher certification as well. This would explain Trigg founder Michael Trigg’s statement that the brand now plans to launch in Israel.
For those wondering, the OU Kosher hotline stated that lube does not have to be kosher. The question of whether it has to be kosher if it’s ingested was not raised — though the RCC says it should be kosher if ingested.
If you keep kosher, you know the excitement in discovering a popular brand has received kosher certification. Explore your excitement — for free and with rabbinical approval!
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
