NOTE: This week explores topics of gender and sexuality as presented through historical texts and religious mythos. Many of these sources do not have the understanding or contexts to provide narratives on the complexity of gender-based issues as they apply to the LGBT+ community or modern-day feminism. Please consume the following as a review of the ideas in an academic and philosophical sense rather than a discussion of gender politics.
The Sex Life of Food by Bunny Crumpacker
Chapter 2- “The Sex Life of Food”
“Our perceptions of the sex of food- from bananas to beer- have very little to do with our political or social attitudes toward men and women or their roles. Eggs are female and bacon is male, not because of stereotypical visions of male and female roles, at breakfast or at work or in the bedroom, but because of more subliminal associations- a kind of frontier psychology of the soul.” (pg.26)
What makes food sexual? In this chapter, the author explores sexual reactions and associations with foods based on their physical form, specifically the masculine and feminine distinctions we make within these discussions. She opens with a comparison, between sausages and oysters. The shape of these two foods are akin to that of human genitalia and therefore has a societal “gender” associated with them, one that is both subtle yet also traceable throughout history and mythos.
The first example of this is shown through the separation between fruits and vegetables, the first being feminine and the second masculine (although as with all rules, there are exceptions). Crumpacker points out the use of the term “losing your cherry” as a way to describe the loss of ones virginity, the term “peach house” as a common European term for “whore house”, and many other phrases and metaphors that utilize fruits to disguise overt sexuality. She references Christian mythos, starting with the garden of Eden. The original sin stemming from the apple revealed to Adam and Eve that they were naked, causing them to be embarrassed and cover up, using fig leaves to preserve their modesty. Despite their application to tone down sexuality, time has shifted them to a more scandalous association. There is also a discussion of the Song of Solomon (sometimes known as the Song of Songs depending on the translation), a piece of Christian religious text found in the twenty-second book of the Old Testament, often highlighted for its erotic nature.
“Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices. You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon. Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.” (Song of Solomon 4:13-16 NIV)
“As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention toward me was love. Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love. O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!” (Song of Solomon 2:3-6 NIV)
While I intend to do further study of the Song of Solomon this week, reading these two quotes in tandem with the knowledge Crumpacker shares in this chapter highlights the intersections of food and sexuality that can be found within Christian mythos, as well as further proving her point about the gendered sexuality within food groups. The use of fruits as a symbol of sexuality do not end at Christian mythos, Crumpacker brings Dionysus into the conversation to highlight another use of fruit; grapes and wine. As the god of fertility, wine, religious ecstasy, and vegetation (among other various niches and progressive adaptations of his believed responsibilities) he is already a character whose eroticism matches his absurdity, but within his collective imagery of the grapes comes another avenue in which to explore the fruits sexual nature, that which makes the grape the feminine presence that which he consumes.
Throughout the chapter we also see notes relating to the texture and performance of the foods in question, the way they smush, pop, burst, run with juices or in any other way act in a sensual nature. Whilst there are many many foods that are categorized in this masculine/feminine manner, fruits are in my opinion, so frequently highlighted due to their sensual performance in the mouth.
“Our perceptions of the sex of food- from bananas to beer- have very little to do with our political or social attitudes towards men and women and their roles, at breakfast at work or in the bedroom, but because of more subliminal associations – a kind of frontier psychology of the soul.” (p.27)
Chapter 4 – “Sex in the Kitchen”
“That’s kitchen sex: steamy and lusty and joyful and for all that, still somewhere innocent. It’s based on the recognition that food and sex satisfy twin appetites- hungers that began before we were born.” (p.44)
This chapter explores experiences of sexuality in the kitchen as opposed to strictly in the food. It too highlights the presence of gender roles within the sexuality of consumption, both historically and in the ways we presently act as people. The author discusses the connotations of “womanliness in the kitchen”, and the way femininity has gone through phases of popularity in the kitchen as the role of preparing meals has changed hands.
Crumpacker notes how in recent years chefs have become sexier, both in imagery and in practice. Pinups of women in the kitchen have gotten progressively more scandalous, and the T.V personalities have become more and more beautiful and sensual in their looks and movements. This rise of sexuality within the kitchen seems to have no source other than a rise in human sexuality overall, yet instances of sex and attraction within the kitchen can be traced back throughout history.
Crumpacker pulls quotes from chefs and food enthusiasts of many backgrounds that highlight the sensuality of cooking and the kitchen. Marabel Morgan, famed anti-feminist, compares a wife to butter, stating that “When a mans got butter in the refrigerator at home he won’t go out into the street for margarine.” Novelist Sue Gath wrote a scene about eating clams that contained many less-than-subtle innuendos. “She speared a tender button of clam flesh and placed it on her tongue her eyes closing in a near swoon as she swallowed…As she bit into it, she made a little sound low in her throat like something out of an X-rated video”
There is also the idea of cooking as foreplay, one that I have studied multiple times throughout the quarter so far. The movements of ones body, of their hands and hips and eyes, and the act of seduction, coming to an intersection that redefines hunger, pleasure, and satisfaction. One must keep in mind that pleasure and satisfaction are hand in hand, but not the same concept. Crumpacker explores this specific concept of cooking and seduction through The Golden Ass (originally titled The Metamorphoses of Apuleius) a late 2nd-century Roman novel, and in fact the only novel of its time written entirely in Latin to survive in its entirety. Whilst I am unfamiliar with the plot as a whole, Crumpacker focuses on a single scene of seduction. The main character Lucius (who shares the name of the author, Lucius Apuleius) watches a woman prepare dinner in the kitchen, noting the way her hips and chest move and the small mannerisms that turn the mundane into the erotic. The act of cooking and eating have so many physical overlaps with sex and erotic behavior, how does one separate the art from the artist when the aromas and sensations are so entwined?
The Song of Solomon or The Song of Songs – Food and Sex in Christian Mythos
Part of my exploration into food and sexuality involves looking at examples stemming from religion and mythos. As one of the major religions of the world Christianity has a heavy influence on societal opinions and behaviors surrounding sexuality and its attached morality, and historically the expressed opinions surrounding sexual activity have been more in the negative. Historical and recent events both in and out of religious communities lean heavily towards abstinence-based teaching, with sex being acceptable only within the bounds of marriage, and often only for the hope of procreation. As with all religious groups of that size there are many many sub-groups that hold varying opinions on the matter, going more and less extreme in their beliefs around so-called “purity”.
Perhaps that is why the Song of Solomon is not highly discussed by most Christian circles, often noted for its highly erotic and sensual nature, this section of the Old Testament speaks of love and intimacy in thinly veiled poetics. In particular, the pomegranate is highly featured in this piece as a stand-in or comparison to human anatomy. Pomegranates are known to raise testosterone levels, which in turn, raises ones sex drive.
“Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely. Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate.” (Song of Solomon 4:3 NIV)
This is the description of his bride-to-be, lustful and hungry Solomon describes her with joy and grandeur. Christianity makes use of their beliefs in an omnipotent god and the text of the Bible to implement thought crime surrounding sin, making lust in any way before you are married a means of clouding your connection with God. Why is it fine to lust over food but not over your lover? Which part is controllable by the religious institutions and which makes you an outlier?
“I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.” (Song of Solomon 8:2 KJV)
I mean. If you don’t think they’re talking about oral sex then I don’t know what to tell you.
“Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices.” (Song of Solomon 4:13-16 NIV)
It seems almost as though to get his writings accepted by Christian scholars, King Solomon used his other hunger, food, to portray his hunger for his lover(s?). This example of their intersection is often explained away as a metaphor for the love between oneself and Christ or the church, but let us be honest, when you read these poems in their entirety you cannot explain away the many references to performing oral sex as a simple godly devotion. Instead, why not turn to the idea that Solomon did not consider the act of desire to be the sin it is so often presented as. A King in the age of Christ, perhaps this is just the view of a man who had never known anything but to consume, collaborating both of the pleasures so often referenced in the bible as a means of understanding life.