Jewish Sex and Kosher Pizza

My elementary school teacher never ate pizza.

We ate pizza at school on every Wednesday, courtesy of the PTA, and yet he never even took a bite.

Not one bite.

No one noticed since we were mostly too busy devouring our own cheesy slices of pizza heaven. Until one day we noticed.

“Why don’t you eat pizza, Mr. G?” we asked him.

And so the story went.

He worked in a pizza shop during his post high school year in Israel. During that year he ate so much pizza while working in the pizza shop that he couldn’t eat another bite ever again. What was once considered an indulgence, a sensual pleasure of cheese and sauce and doughy goodness became mundane and boring to him and not much more enticing than a piece of stale bread.

It does not take us very long to feel that what was once a delicacy, soon becomes mundane. Our tastes change and so does our moods. Most of us can’t eat pizza for breakfast lunch and supper, and we usually can’t eat it when it’s cold or when it’s a day old. Most of us need variety. After all, variety is the spice of life. Or so they say.

So how is it that people continue to have ongoing, intimate relationships with the same partner after all these years. How is it that they have been eating the exact same slice of pizza at each and every meal and haven’t gone crazy or starved to death?

Let’s not fool ourselves as food and sex are oh so closely connected.

We all know that cravings come in many flavors shapes and sizes from the craving for a hot fudge sundae to the craving for a hot fudge….partner. But as we get older, can cravings also sprout up from good ol’ familiarity?

A blog post by Ariella Perry on TOI caught my eye a couple of months ago. It was all about two of my favorite topics: Jews and Sex. But what was unique about her article was that it forced me to stop and think about sex and Judaism in the same sentence, something that doesn’t happen very often.

Ariella is a certified sex therapist and couples counselor as well as a religious married woman with kids who runs a clinic out of Efrat, a largely Anglo community in the Gush Etzion region. I soon after started following her Sexual Health and Wellness Facebook page because I feel like there is someone out there who is making sense.

Long term partnership and intimacy is different than the Hollywood version of on screen hot and steamy and yet it doesn’t have to be. Did a steamy actress on screen ever yell out, “Oh my back!” in the heat of a passionate love scene?

So now tell me, how can you still enjoy sex with back problems? What if the one with the bigger libido happens to be the wife? And what happens if he just can’t get it up?

And so I turn to Ariella and say, we need you.

Because we all want someone like her to address issues that will help couples stay together to tell people what exactly is lacking today in the sex department and what needs to be changed to make things work? How is long term sexual health and well being surviving as people continue to grow, to experience and to inevitably change?

Yes Ariella, tell us how to relax and not be stressed.

Tell us what a good kiss is and why.

Tell us all, we are listening.