This quarter I will be taking a dive into the intersections of food, consumption, pleasure, sex, and all things edible and taboo. My exploration will include a wide variety of mediums of expression both academic and artistic, in hopes of untangling the complicated web that entraps human sexuality with our desire to consume that which is edible.
When facing such a topic, we all must come to terms with the fact that we have been trained to feel a sense of shame or disgust when discussing our sexuality, and in doing so topics such as sex and food are pushed further away from the realm of academic inquiry, making their research possibilities limited and their chance of recovery from being deemed “gross” or “childish” even less likely.
Yet pleasure is the driving force of most human activities and in fact, most nonhuman activities. We seek and derive pleasure from so many sources, with our biological and psychological reactions differing based on circumstance. Behaviors such as biting, smelling, and licking illicit pleasure responses from most in both the kitchen and the bedroom, we have already coined the term “food porn”, how deeply are these two topics intertwined?
I hope you enjoy reading my findings as much as I enjoy experiencing them. Each weekly post will be slightly different in both content and structure as I change my process as I consume, but if you’d like to take a closer look at any of the sources I will be utilizing my bibliography will be updated weekly. Questions can be answered via MLH1@evergreen.edu