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As anyone who's ever admitted to "lusting" over a "luscious" and "sinful" piece of chocolate cake knows, there's some heavy crossover between the vocabulary of food and the vocabulary of sex. In this fascinating Policy Review piece, public intellectual Mary Eberstadt asks whether we have actually replaced sex with food as the subject of popular public moralizing. In the affluent West, the fears of disease, unwanted pregnancy and social stigma that may have prevented pre-marital sex have been substantially lessened by condoms, birth control and increasingly liberal secular attitudes. In the same countries, fears of starvation have been almost erased by mechanized farming and its resulting cheap food.
"What happens when, for the first time in history - at least in theory, and at least in the advanced nations - adult human beings are more or less free to have all the sex and food they want?" Eberstadt wonders.
As it turns out, Eberstadt says, as our attitudes about sex have become much more relaxed, our attitudes about food have become much more strict and moralistic. While Americans in the 1950s may have felt that certain sexual acts were "wrong" or "sinful," they would never have applied those words to food. Now, in a time where many of us have a "live and let live" attitude about sexual practices, words like "evil" and "immoral" are commonly applied to things like agribusiness, packaged junk foods, etc. and words like "virtuous," "honest," and "pure" are often used to describe organic or local food.
Our moralizing about food is part of a larger societal obsession with eating - Top Chef, Anthony Bourdain's racy kitchen memoirs, books like Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter - which Eberstadt argues are rather voyeuristic. Which I guess makes this blog "gastroporn" - a term which perfectly encapsulates the essay's point!
Ebertstadt's conclusion? That perhaps, all this moralizing and rule-making about food suggests that people are uncomfortable with how far the sexual revolution has changed society.
What do you think? Why do so many of us apply moral attitudes towards food but not towards sex? Is this a good thing? A bad thing?
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3-03-2009 @10:15AM Laurel said... Well, if you don't have to worry about your children starving or being stoned for promiscuity; if bloodlines no longer matter and you don't have to worry about disease, gee. The only thing that would hold you back would be self-respect and THAT is something most Americans lost a long time ago thanks in big part to Hollywood. Say what they will they have helped to shape the morals of a nation. It's why the rest of world think of us as abominations. And the whole food is sexy thing? Yes, I suppose you can lust after food, starving people do. I suppose if something can be craved it can be described as sexy especially if the real word you're looking for is lust. I seriously doubt most people want to procreate with their food.
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3-03-2009 @11:21AM Brad said... Very though-provoking, thanks for posting this article.
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3-03-2009 @1:02PM tyaddow said... Interesting post. It seems likely that any kind of cultural revolution would eventually strike some kind of balance between indulgent and health-conscious. Just like the sexual revolution eventually embraced the responsibility that comes along with such freedom, so has the exploding food culture slowly incorporated such virtues as moderation and ethical farming practices- and hopefully passions tempered by greater awareness. Hopefully.
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3-03-2009 @1:03PM B said... What rest of the world aside from ultra strict Islamic countries are you talking about?
Most of the people outside the US I speak to think of it as a place full of fat people, insane christians, and gun wielding cowboys.
Before you go yammering on about the sky that's falling, please look at the facts. Keep your misinformation to your bible study groups please.
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3-03-2009 @1:17PM tyaddow said... B: What rest of the world are you talking about? Maybe you should read the article before commenting. Also, in addition to your incendiary remarks maybe you can offer some of the "facts" you speak of. Or you can just take your concern-trolling elsewhere.
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3-03-2009 @7:15PM Brad said... I'm not sure that I agree with the article's thesis, that the morality of food is due to a lack of morality (or a shift into moral neutrality, to be specific) in sex. I think that's a bit of a leap; they've taken the concept that food and sex use similar descriptive terms, combined with some cultural shifts that seem to be happening at the same time, and use that happenstance as an indicator of causality. There are other possible explanations, none of which are explored by the author.
That being said, the article did make a fair point in contrasting views between generations, and showing their almost complete role reversal. The morality that surrounds food now does have some hints of some of the morality that has surrounded sex. That was thought-provoking, and made me reflect on my own attitudes - if I mapped my attitudes from one to another, would it seem ridiculous, and why?
I would also argue though that certain segments of society throughout history have had what the author talks about - access to all the food they could eat, and all the sex they could want. Aristocracies in Europe, various classes in the early Greek and Roman cultures all spring to mind. I'm surprised she didn't comment on that.
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3-03-2009 @9:20PM baralong said... I agree with Brad, in that I don't agree with the statement "...it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the rules being drawn around food receive some force from the fact that people are uncomfortable with how far the sexual revolution has gone..."
Just because the changes in views are coincident in time doesn't mean that there is a causal link... doesn't mean that there isn't though, I just don't think the link was established.
I'd really think that we now moralise about food because we can afford to; it is relatively plentiful and cheap so we can be more to
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