Fourteen: The Effects of Food on Sex
Eating can bind a pair together more effectively than sex, simply because people eat more often and predictably than they have sexual relations.
— Peter Farb and George Armelagos,
Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating
LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE The connection between food and sex is pervasive and intimate. The language and metaphors of love and erotica are heavily dependent on food-related words: cheesecake, beefcake, I could eat you up, She’ s a dish, melons, nuts, and many others with denser second meanings. Sex in some ways entails the incorporating or partaking of a partner’ s energy; when we eat, we also incorporate an external entity, and so the parallel exists in literal fact as well. This is particularly true for women. Perhaps that is why women who don’ t have an active or satisfying sex life turn to overeating, thus replacing one type of input with another. Eating can also be a sociable precursor to sex, as introductory ceremony, or a ritual signifying agreement. It may often be a biological necessity afterward, as people need to replenish the expended calories. Food relates to sex, then, on several different levels. They are:
• SENSORY: texture, color, taste, aroma, moisture content
• ROMANTIC, SENTIMENTAL: defined by surroundings and memories
• CHEMICAL: nutrients and other chemical substances in foods that have an effect on the reproductive system
• SOCIAL: foods that social beliefs, rituals, and customs decree to be preparatory to, suggestive of, enhancing, or inhibiting sex
• ENERGETIC: foods that relax the body or firm it up, expand or contract it A distinction can also be made between foods that affect the sex act itself and those that have an effect on reproduction. Let’ s examine each of these in turn. THE SENSORY Foods can affect sexuality when their appearance or texture are suggestive of the physical aspects of sex. These foods include bananas, carrots, asparagus, fresh ripe figs, and raw foods that drip. Anything eaten with the fingers can be sexy— movies such as Tom Jones and Flashdance showed scenes in which the act of eating itself was intensely eroticized. Seafoods such as sea urchins, raw oysters, and clams, especially when freshly dug up and immediately eaten, are also highly sensuous and suggestive.( Please note that the levels intersect: Sensuous foods can also have a chemical effect on sexual behavior, or a social meaning that relates them to sex.) SENTIMENTAL OR ROMANTIC A special person, a special place, soft lighting, pleasing music and aromas, can all imbue a meal with the connotations that lead to sex. Any one of the foodstuffs eaten at that time, when encountered at a later date, can have a similar effect simply by remembrance and association. CHEMICAL Scientific studies have found that individual foodstuffs have an effect on sexuality via their chemical constituents. Zinc, the most popularly known of these elements, is an important component of the male ejaculate; its deficiency in men has been associated with infantilism of the sex organs and the loss of sexual potency. Casanova’ s purported habit of eating fifty oysters as his daily dinner may well have been one of the secrets of his success, for oysters are very rich in zinc. 1 Other sources are the germ and bran of grains, oatmeal, onions, seeds( pumpkin, sesame, sunflower), eggs, herring, liver, and beef. The refining and processing of foods removes this mineral; white flour, polished rice, and sugar all are zinc-deficient. Consuming such refined foods can create a zinc deficiency in the body, which can cause a variety of symptoms, including whitening of the hair and nails, loss of hair, poor circulation, impotence, lack of ovulation or menstruation, psychotic symptoms, slow wound healing, and hyperactivity in children. It must be noted that a habitual diet high in whole grains and low in animal products may also cause, in some cases, eventual signs of zinc deficiency. 2 This is because whole grains contain phytates, a substance that inhibits the absorption of zinc. Certain foods, such as ginseng and sarsparilla, are known to stimulate the adrenal cortex, which is involved in the production of male sexual hormones. These foods contain elements similar to cortisone. Apparently, in the minuscule quantities in which they appear in these foods, cortisone-like elements stimulate the adrenal cortex.( In larger quantities, as when used as medicine, cortisone has the opposite effect, suppressing the adrenals.)