Well, I certainly hope that I left an impression on all of you and that you learned as much as I have!
I hope that you all have also gained a new lens on how you view life. I know that sounded kind of hippie-ish but honestly, I really wanted you all to read this blog and take on a different view on food, gender, and sex. Remember, next time you see a food ad or commercial (think beyond the pictures and visuals and think about what the ad implies). And next time you go on a date and your date buys you oysters……THINK ABOUT WHAT THEIR INTENTIONS ARE!
Like I said in my first post in this blog, this blog was for class. But hey, does this mean that I’m going to stop writing in this blog? NO WAY! My passion for food is constantly growing and I will keep on posting things that I think are really interesting. Now that I am completely done, I’m also going to say that this blog is going to change slightly. I will still be posting interesting things but this blog is going to be more of a food blog. I’ll be sharing my restaurant experiences/reviews and my adventures in the kitchen!
I hope that you all continue to follow me because this is really fun and I sincerely hope you enjoy reading my blog.
So, what can be said in terms of sex, gender, and food?
As we have seen throughout this bog, everything can be examined with multiple lenses and it can be fun and sometimes really shocking.
By looking at gender in this blog, we can see that gender is all around us and there is no escaping it. Gender is a social construct and is location specific, which means that how we view gender in our country is completely different to how we view gender in other countries. When I said that there is no escaping gender, there really is no escape. Gender is appears everywhere and we perform it every day as well. Gender shows up in our food, commercials, ads, toys, clothes, etc.
So what can be said about sex and food?
Well, we now know that food is more than just the scrumptious stuff we eat off of our plates. Food has many faces to it and has much more meaning to it than we have ever imagined. We have also learned about the various relationships food has with people and our culture. How the tiniest thing in food advertisements can mean so much.
And in terms of sex, we have learned that sex is also very complicated and there are many things that affect it. Sex is no longer that simple pleasure that we enjoy.
However, to examine all of these together, the most important thing to note is that all of these are shaped by culture. Culture is what shapes everything and become part of our society. What we deem is acceptable food choices, or what is acceptable ways to present products through commercials is all based off of our culture. This is why the world is so interesting. Wherever you go, you will inevitably run into a different culture that will challenge you to think in other ways and to try new things.
Now that we’ve looked at western forms of aphrodisiacs, why don’t we look at something a little out of our comfort zone……….aphrodisiacs from other countries!
Not only do I think this is some of the most interesting stuff to read about and look at but the way these foods work as an aphrodisiac is extremely interesting as well. For some of these cultures, food does more than just give us nutrients. In Chinese culture, food is cooked the way it is and consumed in order to keep an equal balance of yin and yang.
To give you a taste of what some of these aphrodisiacs include, just read down the list (Festa):
– Balut (Southeast Asia)
– Snake essence in wine (meaning an entire snake is pickled in wine jars) (China/Vietnam)
This may just seem like a list of foods that people can eat in order to increase their sexual performance and such but there is so much more to the process. For example, unlike in American culture, you can eat chocolate and increase your sexual performance because it has nutrients in it. However, when you eat testicles in some countries, not only does is it believed that it gives you nutrients, but it is believed also believed that you gain the potency of the sperm inside the testicle. This may seem weird in our culture but in many cultures; this is completely normal and is something that we must respect for its tradition and cultural value. But once again, are these foods something that actually gives us energy? Or is it a placebo effect again? From my personal experience with Bird’s Nest, I honestly have to say that I just felt the same after having it.
Also, I just wanted to give you something else to think about before I end this post. There is a lot of truth in that many of these aphrodisiacs have actual nutrients that can help increase our sexual pleasure/drive. For example, going back to chocolate, it has been found that chocolate actually helps release serotonin which is responsible for us feeling happy and relaxed (Ciampa). However, at the same time, you have to eat a lot of chocolate before anything like heightened sexual pleasure occurs. So, let’s really think about it, is it a placebo or real?
As mentioned at the end of a previous post, we are now going to be looking at REAL situations where people ingest food in order to fulfill their gender role or where food becomes a placebo for sexual performance.
Firstly, to make this a little bit more relatable and to not push people off of their comfort zone too quickly, I will be discussing foods found in western culture that do this. In many cultures, even ours, there is something known as aphrodisiacs. Aphrodisiacs are foods (which can range from meats to vegetables to herbs) that are supposed to have the nutrients and powers to give men and women whatever they need to be able to perform sexually.
Have you ever heard that chocolate is supposed to improve sex a person’ sex life (5 Best Aphrodisiacs For Men)? Or that oysters can jumpstart a person’s sex drive?
I certainly have and you can even see it within our culture. For example, in the movie Easy A, Olive Pendergast is taken to a seafood restaurant by a boy because the boy believes that her eating seafood will increase her sex drive.
But really, isn’t eating chocolate and oysters just something that we tell ourselves in order to feel more confident and therefore be able to increase our sex drive/sexual performance? (aka the placebo effect)
Also, before I get into my example I should probably put out this disclaimer: I did not use my ex boyfriend as a social experiment, I played a joke on him to prove how gullible he was.
For example, when I was dating my ex (he-who-must-not-be-named), I once told him that if he ate an entire bowl of sautéed onions (which he absolutely detested) it would act as an aphrodisiac and increase his sex drive. With my ex being super gullible, he ate the entire bowl and within half an hour he said that his sexual appetite was crazier than it had ever been. Now last time I checked/researched, sautéed onions were not an aphrodisiac anywhere. So how the heck did his sexual appetite increase exponentially? I believe it to be the placebo effect. Also, because he believed in the effects of the sautéed onions, it also boosted his confidence in his sexual performance.
However, regardless of whether or not food is a REAL aphrodisiac or not, I have come to another conclusion. Food can turn people on simply by how it is used which has created a new relationship with food and sex. For example, some foods can make us think of erotic symbols which can us on. I mean, how many times have we seen men get turned on in movies because a woman is seductively eating a banana or popsicle (which can be a phallic symbol for a penis)? Also, food can turn us on by how it is used during sex and foreplay. For example, when a person puts whip cream on someone else and licks it off, it’s not the whip cream that is turning us on…….it’s the sensual feeling we get from doing so (Fisher).
With all of this presented information, we can conclude that food can be used to turn us on by ingesting it (either with real scientific properties or through the placebo effect) or by how we use food.
So I recently just looked at an episode of Popeye and how he eats spinach to become stronger and more masculine. Let’s seriously think about this concept though. Is food always used for satisfying our taste buds and keeping us healthy? Or is it more? Is food also a way for us to perform our gender and to fulfill our masculinity or femininity?
To proceed with this discussion, let’s look at this video that I found online that is another is also Popeye related:
So we have seen this video and quite frankly I have to say it was ridiculously corny and lame. But let’s look at what it has taught us about fulfilling our gender (masculinity/femininity). In the video we can see that this guy is trying to be like role playing as Popeye and is pretending as though he is going to sleep with Olive Oyl. He goes to the drawer to take some Viagra (which is for sexual performance) but he soon realizes that it is all gone. Instead, this real life Popeye eats some spinach which results in bulking biceps (which I personally found to be unattractive) and is ready to have sex.
Let’s think about this now. Is the spinach he took really going to keep his erection hard? Or is it a placebo effect that boosted his confidence (and masculinity) which is now going to make him perform better in bed? To my knowledge and research, spinach does not keep a man’s erection hard. But I do know that a little self-confidence can make a man’s penis work again. Even Viagra has had some studies that shown that the tiny blue pill can physically work for some men but it has also shown that some men aren’t affected by it at all and some men just gain the placebo effect after intake (Loe).
Another way that we can tell this man is going through the placebo effect is because after eating the spinach, his biceps became huge……we do not see if his penis becomes hard, but we see his biceps. Last time I checked, biceps have nothing to do with sexual performance.
You might ask and say, “Damn it Josh, this is just you being really analytical. We all know that this video was an exaggeration of Popeye and not actually real.” But you know what? This type of stuff is extremely REAL as you will find out when you continue with my next posts.
References:
Loe, Meika . The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America. New York : NYU Press, 2011. Print.
When I was a little kid, I would remember watching Popeye all the time when it played late at night.
As a kid, I remember loving Popeye and staying up super late at night just to watch it all the time. Some would say that was pretty irresponsible of my parents’ right? Wrong. My parents thought that Popeye was great. They thought he was the type of man I should be like one day and he even influenced me to eat a lot of spinach as a kid. However, did they let my sister watch Popeye when she was a kid? The answer would be no. My sister was told by my parents that she was supposed to watch tv shows for girls.
Now, let’s watch a brief episode from Popeye and see what it says about gender and food.
First and foremost, it is important to note that this episode of Popeye is an adaptation of the famous bedtime story, Jack and the Beanstalk. In the episode, we can see that Popeye is trying to get three young boys to eat their spinach by telling them the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and replacing the character Jack with himself. Instead of tricking the giant like in the original story, Popeye saves the golden hen by eating some spinach (which gives him incredible strength) and beats the pulp out of the giant.
Ok, so what does this tell us about gender and food?
It is basically telling children that if they want to become big and strong like Popeye and be able to beat up bigger opponents than you, you should eat a lot of spinach. Also, in terms of examining gender and food, it is also important to see that this episode/show specifically targets boys. As we see in this episode, Popeye is telling the story to boys only. There are no girls in this episode. This episode and show also tells us a lot about expected gender roles. In the show, Popeye always has to eat spinach in order to save the female characters. What this tells us about gender roles is that men must eat healthy foods like spinach in order to become tough and strong. While on the other hand, women must wait for strong masculine men to come and save the day.
However, let’s think about it rationally.
Does eating spinach really make someone into a tough person? The answer is yes and no. Although spinach is high in fiber, has vitamins to strengthen your bones, and great for your health, it will not turn you into a super tough macho man (Poulos). And if women REALLY need a good rescue, couldn’t they just eat some spinach too?
I know, Popeye may seem a little outdated for our time but I challenge you to watch children’s movies and televisions today and tell me that these ideals don’t still exist. And you know what? This type of mentality totally existed in my family, so who is to say that it doesn’t exist in other families.
Now that we’re done with ads and commercials, let’s look at something more interesting and something that many of us do by choice…………..watch television (TV)!
In this post, I’m going to look at a TV show that I currently watch that is short and sweet. That’s right, this TV show is about 10 min per episode.
Here’s the show:
In this episode, we see that Mordecai (the blue jay) and Rigby (the raccoon) knocked out their boss, Bensen (the gumball machine) by not holding the ladder. After knocking Benson out, Mordecai and Rigby precede to take him to a party that he was supposed to. At the party, the ex-boyfriend of the girl that Benson likes is taunting him and eventually challenges him to a contest where they have to see who can last the longest in eating chili peppers. After the three characters win, they have the champion drink called the “Mississippi Queen” and after taking it, their worlds just spin out of control.
The next few descriptions/POINTS of the episode are pertinent to my argument:
1) After drinking the “Mississippi Queen” their life becomes super fun and just like a rock n roll song.
2) They leave the party and their vision becomes blurry.
3) The friends end up at a coffee shop and order some food but when the food comes the servers are worried and friends end up in a cab.
4) During the ride, the cab door opens up to the curb as the cab is still driving.
5) The three friends end up back at the park, and the next morning they are found to be in front of the house and feeling like poo.
My point in this post is…………the chili peppers in this episode were actually supposed to be booze (which implies many other things). I mean let’s think about, does eating a lot of chili peppers really make you do/feel all those things that I listed earlier? No, but you know what does? Alcohol. Alcohol can impair vision (POINT 2), make people throw up (POINT 4), and even blackout (POINT 5), much like the three characters in this episode.
I wanted to discuss this episode specifically for this scene. This scene reflective of many men in real life…..or at least in college. In my experience, men always challenge each other to drinking contests at parties and all it is to show who is “more of a man”. In other words, drinking challenges are a way for men to prove their masculinity/worth as a man. However, as both participants will usually drink an excessive amount in such a short amount of time, they usually get to POINT 2,4, and 5. Also, when reflecting back on what they did, they simply think that it was a funny experience, but what they don’t realize is how this relationship with alcohol can affect them in the long term. Sure, alcohol can make someone vomit, impair their vision and even blackout, however, there can be many long terms effects as well. Improper alcohol consumption can lead to a messed up REM sleep cycle, liver damage, brain development, and even sexual performance (Effects of Alcohol on the Body). When we compare the negatives of overconsumption of alcohol and the pros to proving one’s masculinity, is it really worth it to do this? I think another question to ask and maybe just for self-reflection is, why do we binge drink in the first place?
As I was doing research on commercials and deciding which ones would be good to critique, I just happened to find this one that I think is really interesting. It is a commercial from Thailand, but even so, I think that it can be applied to our country as well.
Here is the commercial:
First impressions? I don’t know about you, but I thought this commercial was really disturbing. Before I start, let’s recap what we just saw in this commercial. In the commercial, we can see that this ultra-thin woman wants to eat food but is really limited to what she thinks she can eat. Due to the fact that she is limiting her food choices and quantities, she is also starving her stomach which is why her stomach is making such a desperate attempt to eat food. Whenever her stomach is denied food, her stomach cries and the advertisers’ solution is to eat low fat tuna (which is obviously the product that is being sold).
Now that we’ve recapped everything, let’s deconstruct this video and examine the messages within this video. First off, this commercial is socializing women to think that they are supposed to be ultra-thin like this woman. This commercial doesn’t tell them that they can be whatever sized body they want to, it tells them that this body type is something that has to be achieved and alternate choice to starving yourself is to eat light tuna.
Is this the type of relationship we want people to be having with food?
Food shouldn’t be something we eat in order to be pretty or sexy. Food should be something that we eat in order to be healthy and to satisfy our taste buds! It is due to this type of relationship that we as a society have created with food that we see so many health related issues that are linked to food (ex. Anorexia, bulimia, etc). Also, this is a very real problem within our society. According to Duke Medicine, about 10 million people are suffering from eating disorders (Eating Disorders). That is nuts! To make this even worse, a large portion of the affected population is between the ages of 15-24 (which is a really important time for our development) (Eating Disorders).
Wondering what makes this an even more real issue? What makes this even more of an issue is that people don’t find this commercial disturbing or wrong, it’s actually titled, “Funny Diet Commercial” on youtube.
As I was writing many of these posts, I’ve come to realize that I have been highly critical of the society we live in. But you know what? I don’t want to come off completely as a Debbie-downer so this next post is to show that there ARE some positive things in our society that we should be proud of too.
To keep it short and simple, women have been oppressed and treated unequally in our society for as long as history has been written and they still are to this day. For example, within the workplace, the average woman makes less than the average man. To learn more about gender inequality in the workplace, click here to read an interesting article that I found on this topic (Fitzpatrick). Women have always been on a lower playing field than men but I really like this commercial from Pepsi because it shows women in a more positive light than many other food advertisements we have already looked at.
Here is the video (once again this is another Super Bowl Ad, and from the 2012 game):
So, what does this ad tell us about food and gender equality?
First of all, what it tells us about food is that this ruler (Elton John), views Pepsi as something only fit for royalty and those who deserve it. In other words, it is a privilege to have good food and drink. But due to Melanie Amaro’s bravery and courage to defy the king, she gives all people the opportunity to have Pepsi. What parallels can be made about food? Well, believe it or not, FOOD IS A PRIVILEGE. I mean seriously, think about it. Not all people can afford to eat in really expensive restaurants. For example, what DC college student (aka me) is going to be able to eat at Citronelle? This restaurant’s average menu price can range anywhere from $14-35 for a small plate of food (Cooper). Is a college student like me really going to be able to afford this? Hell no! I’d probably stick to 2Amy’s where I can get an entire pizza for $12. But let’s think about it some more, I’m privileged in that I can sometimes treat myself to good food. Some people can’t afford to eat out at all and are actually going day to day trying to put food on the table. Also, keeping in mind that there is so much gender inequality in the workplace, how are women and “non-normative” gendered people supposed to achieve such simple privileges with no equal pay or job opportunities?
Anyways, I realize that may be another Debbie-downing point, but here is the good part!
The reason why I liked this commercial was because it shows women on an equal playing field as men (especially a man of power, the King). Through the commercial, we can see that the jester was trying to impress the King with his performance in order to be rewarded with a Pepsi drink. After the jester failed epically, a woman of color approaches the bench to give a shot in obtaining a Pepsi (Melanie Amaro). She sings the justice out of the song R-E-S-P-E-C-T by Aretha Franklin and is offered a drink from the approaching king. Next, she defies the king and liberates all the people from this Pepsi privilege.
This is a good representation of women because it represents a strong woman who defies an oppressive system. Here’s how the commercial does this:
When Melanie Amaro sings, she sings on a platform to a king on a throne (if you didn’t catch it the first time, watch it again). When she does a good enough job to deserve a drink, the King gets down from this thrown, crosses the floor, and steps onto the platform that Melanie performed on. What this tells us in terms of power is the King has the most power but as he offers to give Amaro a drink, he has to get on her level….meaning the power is equal. However, does Amaro just become another privileged Pepsi drinker like the king? Hell no! With the equal power distribution between Amaro and the King, she takes advantage of the opportunity and liberates all the people from this Pepsi privilege. This is why this is a great commercial.
Now that I’m done with looking at print ads, I’d say that commercials would definitely have to be next. Although I’m only going to be looking at a few examples, I do think that think that it is worth to examine commercials because they are a different form of advertising and have a different amount of viewers/consumers. It is because of this reason that the commercials I’m going to be examining in the next few posts are from recent Super Bowls.
My first television ad that I’m going to analyze is a Doritos commercial in 2011. First of all, the reason why I chose a food ad from the 2011 Super Bowl was because that Super Bowl had the biggest amount of viewers than any other game in the past. In 2011, there was an estimated 111 million people watching the Super Bowl (Bauder). That’s right, 111 MILLION PEOPLE!! That is a lot of people watching the same program. Keeping that number in mind, just think about how many people are seeing the same thing and how the media is influencing all of these people by the ads they post throughout the program.
With that in mind, let’s look at the ad:
As seen through the commercial and much like the print ads that I examined, there is a lot of phallic symbolism. However, something else I see that is much more apparent and prevalent within commercials are the uses of stereotypes.
Examples within the commercial:
1) What is the stereotype of black men and penis size? The stereotype is that black men are supposed to have ENORMOUS penises. During the commercial, we can see that the white man looks over to the black man’s crotch area and is shocked. When we see this, we think that the white man is shocked to see the black man’s huge penis, while in reality he was just surprised to see a bag of Doritos. Not only is this stereotype harmful because not all black men have big penises and such, but it also negatively affects the black community because they are going to be eroticized for their “big penises”.
2) At the same time as being shocked, the white man just can’t resist the temptation to grab the Doritos, which we already know represents the black man’s penis. Although many people may not catch on this stereotype/generalization in this action, there is a very real stereotype present. The white man’s irresistible temptation to grab an unsuspecting man’s junk/Doritos is parallel to the stereotype that gay men are hypersexual and can’t control their urge to have sex with someone else.
But to go back to food, how the heck do these stereotypes relate back to Doritos?
Answer: Consumers are like gay men, and Doritos are like black men’s penises. Doritos are so delicious and awesome that they are irresistible to consumers.
Now that I have presented all this information to you and shown you how this commercial can be negative, just remember 111 million people also saw this. Think about what percentage got as much out of the commercial as I did.
EatingOutGender 