Chocolate Food Porn

By Tarn Morrow.

Stirred slowly like an egregious lover, melting, slathered and dipped… molten cascades over fluffy, white cream… a sweet seduction that won’t take no for an answer. Errr, is this NSFW?

The words mentioned in the above highlight the fantasies created and facilitated by food. The familiar sight of chocolate in visual art is an indication of its position as one of the most recognizable food items in food porn.

Is chocolate sexy? Does it’s image stir the loins or just arouse appetite?

Chocolate represents love and happiness. It rarely disappoints. Chocolate is portrayed as having the power to reward and satisfy, and visually, chocolate creates an anticipation of pleasure.

Studies of chocolate have found it to contain phenethylamine and serotonin, which are both “feel good” chemicals. These chemicals are released by our brains when we are happy or feeling amorous. So the suggestion is that because you have eaten chocolate previously, when you see it in these visual images, similar feelings occur…the same pleasurable heightened buzz.

In the marketing and advertising world, chocolate is quite often linked to sexual pleasure and presented as an alternative to love and sex, especially to females. Chocolate images continue to portray having the ability to satisfy sexual desires. Any taboo issues associated with the consumption of chocolate are therefore lost in the representation of sexual desire and enhanced by self-indulgent desires.

There is no doubt that chocolate is a strong advocate for food porn which enhances passion and celebrates the joy of life.

“’Twill make old women young and fresh; create new motions of the flesh, and cause them to long for you know what, if they but taste of chocolate” – James Wadsworth

Is old Wadsworth right? At least the media thinks so.