Gastropornography

Gastronpornography refers to the 'representation of food in a highly sensual manner' (Collins English Dictionary) We all know it: those saucy food adverts that just make your mouth water (think M&S). The way that food is visually presented contributes to its sexiness.

Nigella Lucy Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster, television personality, gourmet, and food writer. (Wikipedia)

Here is Nigella Lawson, the 'gastroporn queen' (The Independent). Nigella is often talked about for her appealing curvaceous figure. She makes calorific food look good, hence the meme below:

 Below is a clip from one of Nigella's cooking shows:

Nigella has a very professional manner. She is relaxed and presents cooking as easy and doable, which is part of her performance to encourage others to cook. The sexual behaviour, appears at the end of the clip, which has specifically been edited in slow motion to show the intensity of Nigella's eating. Nigella picks up the prawn, dips her head back and when biting, closes her eyes which represents a sense of pleasure gaining. It is this subtle sexual innuendo that represents the pornography of food. 

So what is it about food, that causes such sensual emotions to be felt from it, as Nigella displays? I read the chapter "Eating Sex" within Elspeth Probyn's Carnal Appetities: Food Sex Identities which asked the question: 'Is food better than sex?' (60) 

This chapter presented food as an emotional healer. We all know that famous Hollywood trope, with a woman bawling over a large tub of ice cream as she has just been dumped. 'When a love affair has gone wrong [people] console themselves, with the notion that food is a substitute for love or sex' (Smith Joan, 87).  

Google image

Another argument for food porn suggests that: 'sex on its own is no longer terribly interesting' (Probyn, 72) Therefore, food and sex are needed together.

Gif taken from google 

Linda Jaivan's Novel Eat Me (1995) encapsulates this idea. The first chapter opens with a very seedy, graphically sexual scene in a supermarket:

An abundance of erotic lexis is used here. The fruit heightens and excites Ava's sexual pleasure, as the 'burst[ing]' of the fig influences her rash behaviour of 'suck[ing]' the remains of the fruit 'dry'. The reader learns that a security guard is watching Ava: 'He'd seen everything. He knew he ought to have apprehended her when she performed that act with the fig, but he found himself paralysed with.. what?' (2). The verb 'paralysed' shows the security guard to be aroused by Ava.

Jaivan informs the reader, once both characters have engaged in sexual acts using fruit, that this is a regular practice. Although this bizarre scene is indeed very unnatural, and in our local supermarkets would get you arrested, it reveals how both these characters spice up their sex life through food.

Food is used to enhance sex, for example with flavoured lubrication gels and condoms, and the same occurs with food, like with the advertisements below: 

Google image

Below is a  Carl's Jr Burger advert. It was banned from TV for being too sexual. Doesn't it just make you want a burger?

In some cases food replaces sex , so sexual emotions towards food are adopted. Some disagree and believe that food and sex are equally as important, which encourages a fusing of the two. Overall, this idea of food being portrayed pornographically comes as a result of the interdependence of food and sex. Sex and food are needed in unison to make either more exciting. Therefore, where food is made sexy, it is made more interesting. We all know the saying: "sex sells!"




Works Cited:

• Jaivan, Linda. Eat Me. United Kingdom: Vintage, 1995. Print.
• Probyn, Elspeth. Cardinal Appetites: Food Sex Identities. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.
• Smith, Joan. Hungry For You: From Cannibalism to Seduction- A Book of Food. London: Vintage, 1997. Print.
• The Independent. "Britain embraces 'gastroporn' but stays shy in kitchen". January 2011. Web. Date Accessed: 07th March 2015. <http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/britain-embraces-gastroporn-but-stays-shy-in-kitchen-2194948.html>