Time to Play with Food: Let’s Spice Things Up!

Do you ever feel sexually aroused when you smell fresh coffee in the morning?

Maybe you’ve felt a little electricity between your legs when you’ve walked by a massive cucumber in the grocery store or taken a bite of delicious silky chocolate and felt it melt on your tongue. Even if you haven’t, most of us can agree that food and sex make a great couple.

I love food fetishism (or sitophilia) because everyone can enjoy it to some degree. Even though kinks have become quite normalized, taboo kink and fetishism are not everyone’s cup of tea. However, making food sexy is considered very normal behavior.

I would say ‘close your eyes and imagine…’ but that might make this exercise a bit complicated, so just breathe deep and focus. Read this list very slowly… like it’s erotica.

A sweet, ripe peach dripping juice.

Sticky, silky, thick caramel.

Scrumptious, crispy, umami bacon.

Creamy, rich, airy chocolate soufflé melting in your mouth…

Is it just me? Or is there something naturally sexy about some foods? Considering there are 289 million posts with the #foodporn, 4 million posts with the #foodpornshare, and 2.2 million posts with the #foodpornography on Instagram, it’s safe to say it’s not just me. Food porn is glamourized photography and visual representations of food. The food is purposely presented provocatively, like in glamour and pornographic photography.

There is some fascinating history to this glamorization and sexualization of food. Alexander Cockburn, political journalist and writer, shed some light on the ‘food porn/ gastro porn’ metaphor. He liked to use the words excitement and unattainable to imply a fantasy behind food porn and traditional porn. In the 1980s, there was a rise in exercise programs and fad diets which started a trend for food-related media. Because people were becoming more aware of calories and nutrition, just like with traditional porn, people wanted to see and fantasize about what they couldn’t have. There’s a voyeuristic indulgence associated with all kinds of porn.

Kelly Brownell, co-director of the University of Pennsylvania's Obesity Research Clinic, explains that food has ‘tremendous symbolic importance to people. It is used to express love, hatred, or any number of emotions; eating means a lot more to people than just nutrition.’ Smell and taste are some of the strongest triggers for memory, which explains the concept of ‘comfort food.’

If you get aroused by situations involving food, you might have a food fetish, and food play can be non-sexual or sexual. Non-sexual food play is when you get aroused by the texture of the food, like the temperature or the way it spreads. But many of us have seen people use vegetables and foods that are penis shaped sexually as a substitute for a sex toy.

Sploshing is a form of non-sexual food play, and it’s a subset of the “wet and messy (WAM)” fetish.  WAM also includes messy non-food substances like shaving cream, slime, paint, lotion, etc. At its most basic level, it refers to the act of incorporating food into your sex life. People who are into sploshing, sploshers, like to use food and drinks of different textures and temperatures to turn their partners on. Dr. Justin Lehmiller, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute, explains, ' Some people may enjoy being covered in the substances, while others may enjoy covering others or watching others get covered by them.’ These extremes are why sploshing can be seen as a form of BDSM with elements of submission and masochism. As children, we’re taught not to play with our food, so sploshing is ‘forbidden,’ and we all know how fun taboo can be.

Corey Levitan, a writer for New York Magazine, interviewed the fetish adult actress Olivia Rose and was able to star in one of her videos. He narrates his experience:

“I’m a reporter for a magazine seeking to interview Rose, who demands I get pied in the face first.

When the first pie hits, it feels more like being in a Three Stooges short than fetish porn. I laugh a little to myself. (Some WAM compilation videos, especially those on YouTube, include pie-in-the-face content from vintage slapstick films, since they’re not sexual in nature, and, therefore, permitted.) My laughter turns briefly to panic, however, when – after leaving the pie on my face for 30 seconds, as instructed – I take it off to breathe and draw wisps of lemony Barbasol into my lungs instead.

By my fourth face pie, having learned to quickly clear nostril holes into the foam, I begin enjoying the experience a little. Maybe more than I want to admit. In fact, I won’t lie – I notice myself chubbing up. By the double-whammy of pies No. 7 and 8, I resemble a slightly puffed Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. It hardly feels like punishment anymore.

I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s so arousing about it – being cackled at by a hot babe, being in my underwear while she and Jen are fully dressed, or being on camera. Or maybe it’s the memory of the cover of Herb Alpert’s ‘Whipped Cream & Other Delights’ in my parents’ record cabinet.”

Dominatrix Mistress Shae Flanigan explained sploshing in a little more detail:

When a freshly chilled cake first touches your behind, you can't help but let off a range of squeamish noises. Also, the surprisingly satisfying sound of a bum squashing a meringue is one sound I never thought I would come across, nor will I ever forget."

I just realized it’s time I seriously consider sitting on a cake… with meringue! It sounds like the kind of thing you shouldn’t ‘yuk’ before you try it.  If you’re also considering bringing some food into the bedroom, here’s some inspiration. You can suck on a breath mint before oral sex to give your partner a tingly sensation. Tons of chocolate body paint kits let you make some sexy, messy art, but you can also use whipped cream and honey.  I want to recommend you try all of these, but my personal favorites are letting my partner hold ice cubes over my neck and nipples until the cold water is dripping. Her favorite is when I pour champagne on her belly. It tickles me, but she loves the sensation of icy cold bubbles flowing over her. You can also have a Japanese-themed nyotaimori date and eat food off each other’s bodies.

The possibilities are endless… just make sure you lick chocolate off someone’s neck (with consent!) ASAP.