I went to a play last night and next to me up in front was a sexy, young and well dressed couple, man and woman, which I did not know. They both looked like they had just stepped out of a fashion magazine. She, in particular, was dressed very elegantly, but sexy, and they both looked like they exuded confidence.
If all of that wasn’t enough to get my attention, before the play started, the young lady pulled a package of string cheese and a package of pretzels out of her purse and started eating away as if this was the thing one does at the theater.
This was something I had never seen before and was fascinated by it all, so much so that she caught me attentively looking at her. She stopped eating and proceeded to explain to me that she didn’t have time to eat dinner before the play so she picked up the healthiest thing she could at a liquor store a couple blocks from the theater and just had to eat. I smiled while she was telling me her story and let out a couple chuckles, and wished her, “Buon Appetitto.”
Evidently I didn’t cause I couldn’t stop looking at her, and she caught me again, and politely asked me if I was hungry and gestured as if she was going to offer me her food. I apologized for starring and told her I was not hungry but that I was enjoying watching her eat. She laughed and agreed with me saying she enjoyed watching people eat as well. And then the following came out of my mouth… “It’s like Food Porn.”
She luckily got a kick out of what I said, and laughed and seemed to agree. As for me, I wondered exactly what I might have meant by that. Was I referring to her sexiness? Maybe, but I knew there had to be more. Luckily, the play started late and I had time to analyze my words, “Food Porn.”
I broke down the two words. “Food.” In Maslow’s “Motivation and Personality,” food was ne of the seven physiological human needs. It is one of the literal requirements for human survival. Then I remembered that sex was one of those seven also, a “literal requirement for human survival.” The sex part, was related to the second word in my simple yet poignant phrase, “Porn.”
I thought to myself, “What is porn?” In my mind, growing up, I was taught that porn, hands down, no questions asked, was a bad thing, a sin, etc. I never stopped to think of what it really meant. I quickly looked it up and Wikipedia offered me this explanation, “the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter… the term applies to the depiction of the act…”
I further analyzed. People watch porn, but do other people, other than this lady sitting next to me, and I, watch people eat? Hell ya, all the time. We have 24/7 Food Channels, Cooking Channels, Books, Magazines, with recipes for better “Food,” “How to Do Food, Right,” “The Best Food…” They have live demonstrations, taste tests, people are shown eating in commercials on TV and in films all the time.
My mind was going a mile a minute. Had I just discovered something I had never thought about and we don’t think about as a society, or have been made to think about in a certain way?
“Food” is one of the seven requirements for human survival. SURVIVAL! I got to thinking, what happened to sex, of all those other six, that sex became the one that was “excommunicated?”
And then my mind went here… If “Food” were to be illegal, or immoral, or considered obscene, what then? Sound ridiculous? What if someone had told us that we couldn’t eat lobster bisque, that it was a sin? What if Chocolate cake was forbidden, not because of a diet but because it was a sin against God? What if Champagne and Strawberries was an abomination?
What if our society had mores that dictated that eating in public was immoral and considered lewd and was punishable by law? What if? Sound ridiculous? Stranger things have happened and it might have happened to sex.
But, if that were to be the law of the land, then all the magazines and books, TV Show and Films depicting people growing, making, eating food, would be illegal and would have to be sold in XXX stores. Those people who went to the stores and who ate certain foods outside the ruling belief would be considered deviant, and those who just couldn’t get enough of life’s beautiful and delicious food would be drawn to watch “Food Porn,” whenever possible.
Wives would be calling the pseudo-psychologists on talk radio shows telling the host of their woes that they caught their husband “eating out” or “looking at a food magazine” when she wasn’t looking, even though she feeds him grub. “What is wrong with him? Should I leave him?”
The play started, and it was interesting enough to take my minds off my current musings about “Food Porn,” and get me to focus on the issues that the play write was bring up through the enactment of his work. I hadn’t reached any conclusions and still haven’t, but after the play was over, I decided that I wasn’t done with this. I would write a blog about it, and then we shall see w