Food porn 2.0? Definitions, challenges, and potentials of an elusive concept

ABSTRACT

Food porn emerged in the 1970s as an academic concept and has since become integrated into everyday social media use. The aim of this article is to analyse the concept of food porn through a critical discussion of the existing literature in cultural and media studies focusing on the definitions of food porn, its uses as an analytical and theoretical lens to explore food aesthetics, and its current relevance. The authors show that the definitions and interpretations vary a great deal and argue that three overarching themes dominate the literature: 1) formal aesthetics; 2) gender, body, and sexuality; 3) excess and transgression. Finally, it is argued that future uses of the concept should either focus on a) an empirically founded approach focusing on the actual use of the concept; or b) a theoretically founded approach with a formal typology focusing on hierarchies and power dynamics.

KEYWORDS:

• Food porn
• aesthetics
• gender
• excess
• sexuality
• social media

The concept of food porn can be traced back to the 1970s (Cockburn 1977). Initially, it was an academic and intellectual concept, but it has increasingly been adapted to popular culture, media, and everyday language (Krogager and Leer 2021). Notably, with the rise of social media, the concept of food porn has become an extremely popular hashtag. For instance, Instagram has 250,000,000+ users of #foodporn (May 2023). On this platform, the concept of food porn is used in multiple ways, accompanying all kinds of photos from close-ups of eating to sophisticated cakes, half-naked people cooking, and many other motifs. Thus, the current mundane use of food porn is highly elusive.

The concept of food porn has also been highly controversial. Some have criticized it for being overtly loaded and imposing a negative view on food aesthetics as morally obscene (Ray quoted in McBride 2010). Others have found that the superficial use of the concept was a way to make food research “sexier”, but without any clear link to pornography (Madison quoted in McBride 2010). Yet, several studies with very distinct perspectives and agendas find the concept useful. These include formal analyses of the connection between pornography and food aesthetics, as well as more critical studies exploring how the sexualization of food can work as an instrument for normalizing power structures in relation to hegemonic orders of gender, sexuality, and bodies in a broader perspective. In some cases, it is also argued that it becomes a site for resistance to such hegemonic orders, and even for transgression, excess, and a creative circulation of desires.

At this point, it is probably important to address the relationship between food porn and sex porn. There are some evident differences and similarities. The most evident difference relates to content and the focus on food activities (cooking, serving, eating) in food porn and sexual activities in sex pornography. To explore the latter, a field has emerged recently called “porn studies” (Attwood and Smith 2014) which include a variety of perspectives from aesthetics to gender and moral as well as the economics of the big business of pornography. Studies of sex pornography are thus much more established than those of food porn, and it might be argued that food porn has been seen as more “innocent” while sex pornography has been seen as a more important and controversial topic in academia as well as society. One way to think about the relationship between sex porn and food porn might be to see food porn as an example of pornofication: “the notion of mainstream cultural products being imbued with the aesthetics of porn” (Krijnen and Van Bauwel 2021). If we accept this logic, food porn is thus the food being imbued with the aesthetics of porn.

When it comes to digitalization, sex and food porn also have parallels. The development of sex porn as digital technology has changed production, distribution, and consumption (Ashton, McDonald, and Kirkman 2019)for instance, more amateurs have been able to produce content, and this can be parallelized to food porn which has witnessed a similar democratization. Hereby, the genres have also diversified. Ashton et al. (2019) suggests that it might be important to consider porn as an umbrella term covering a series of very different phenomena and be specific about subgenres not to inaccurately compare and unify very different phenomenon (146). As we shall see, this also seems a relevant reflection considering food porn in a digital age.

The goal of this article is to assess the potential of the concept of food porn today in relation to understanding the role of food aesthetics in a digital food culture. We do so, leaning on the classical origin of the concept of aesthetics representing “[…] the form of knowledge that takes mankind’s concrete, sensuous relation to the world in a broad sense as its starting point […]” (Nielsen 2005, 61). In modern everyday use of “aesthetic”, the term refers equally to this broad definition related to the sensuous experience and a narrower understanding of the term that refers to high arts and artistic beauty. Our focus on food aesthetics in the digital age is an example of the extraordinarily prominent role, which Nielsen states that aesthetics play in contemporary societies: “[…] not just art, but also popular cultural expressions and forms of everyday life are increasingly becoming the object of an awareness whose focus is on the sensuously rooted formation of meaning” (Nielsen 2005, 61).

Methodologically, the paper is based on a critical discussion of existing literature in cultural and media studies of food porn. The definitions of food porn and its uses in academic literature are explored from the birth of the concept until today. This study has been guided by the following research questions: 1) what are the definitions of food porn in academic literature and how has it been used as an analytical and theoretical lens to explore food aesthetics in cultural and media studies of food? 2) is the term still relevant as a concept today? And if so, how?

The contribution of the paper is fourfold. Firstly, we show that the definitions and interpretations are rather varied, and this might be one of the major points of confusion concerning the concept. Secondly, we identify three major thematic lines in the literature with distinct use of the concept and the literature is grouped accordingly: a) aesthetic studies of sensualized food aesthetics with focus on formal aspects; b) critical studies using the term to analyse how sexualized food aesthetics relate to issues of gender, bodies, and sexuality; c) studies of food porn as a form of excess and transgression. There are obviously overlaps in this division, but they nevertheless constitute three major perspectives and uses of the term. Also, the fact that there are significant disagreements within each group of texts is highlighted, notably in the corpus of texts on gender, bodies, and sexuality.

Thirdly, we argue that, despite some pitfalls concerning vague definitions, the concept of food porn contains potential. It can help us understand the distinct strategies for reproducing the sensuality of food experiences in the media, where sensory features (smell, texture, taste, context, etc.) of food are missing. Particularly at a time when everyday food practices are interwoven with digital media, it can be used to emphasize that food aesthetics is more than mere differences in visual compositions, it is also increasingly part of everyday practices and involves social struggles of identity, power, and social distinction.

Lastly, in relation to future use in food culture and media studies, we make the point that we need to clarify the use of the concept and avoid vague definitions. More concretely, two approaches to the concept are proposed: 1) an empirically founded approach taking as its point of departure the actual use of the concept and how this use changes over time across media platforms; 2) a theoretically founded approach with a formal typology as its starting point where motifs, styles, and affects are defined and discussed in relation to the hierarchies and power dynamics inherent in these motifs.

Selection of texts

The ambition of this article is to approach the concept of food porn within a media and cultural studies tradition, and thus, only studies within media and cultural studies are included. The studies selected should contain the term “food porn” or very similar terms such as gastro-porn or “pornography of meat”.¹ Studies from other academic fields involving “food porn” are not included in this study, for instance, cognitive neuroscientific, psychological, and psychophysiological studies. An example is the studies that have tried to prove or explore a correlation between the obesity epidemic and representations of unhealthy food (Andersen, Byrne, and Wang 2021; Petit, Cheok, and Oullier 2016; Spence et al. 2016; Versace et al. 2018). Also omitted are a series of more philosophical studies discussing the morals and ethics and normative aspects of how food porn promotes unhealthy relationships with food (Mejova, Abbar, and Haddadi 2016; Nguyen and Williams 2020).

Based on repeated readings, mapping, and discussions, we analysed the distinct definitions and interpretations of “food porn”. The material has been categorised thematically and the three major themes mentioned in the introduction identified, namely, a) aesthetic studies of sensualized food aesthetics with focus on formal aspects; b) critical studies using the term to analyse how sexualized food aesthetics relate to issues of gender, bodies, and sexuality; c) how food porn can be expressed via excess and transgression.

These three themes are not mutually exclusive. They overlap but offer some important distinctions in relation to understanding the specific uses of the concept. Before we explore the three themes further, we will turn to the question of definitions of food porn.

Definitions in the food porn literature

The term food porn has been used in many contexts since the 1970s. However, a clear and univocal definition has never materialized. Rather, we find numerous vague descriptions. In 1977, Cockburn describes the function of gastro porn as something that “heightens the excitement and also the sense of the unattainable by proffering colored photographs of various completed recipes” (quoted in McBride 2010). Cockburn was inspired by Roland Barthes’ Mythologies (Barthes 1957). In this book, Barthes examined food-related content in the women's magazine Elle and without using the term food porn, he described magazine food as something “meant for the eye alone, since sight is a genteel sense” (Barthes 1957, 78). In 1979, health researcher Michael Jacobson used the specific term food porn for the first time to describe glossy art images of high-end food, “that was so sensationally out of bounds of what a food should be that it deserved to be considered pornographic” (quoted in McBride 2010).

With the rise of the Internet in the 1990s and especially social media throughout the past decade, a vibrant set of platforms offer new opportunities for representations of food—and for the user to create and share food content (Lupton 2020). This development has transformed the food porn concept from an academic notion to an everyday term—and hashtag—frequently used in digital media “(…) to describe aestheticized visual or verbal representations of food that focus intensely on its desire-inducing qualities” (Lupton 2020, 4).

More recent accounts include McBride (2010, 38) where food porn is described as “(…) portrayals of food have been so transformed by food styling, lighting, and the actions of comely media stars that food does seem increasingly out of reach to the average cook or consumer. As with sex porn, we enjoy watching what we ourselves presumably cannot do. In 2016, Dejmanee (429–430) introduced the excessive aspect of food porn, “(…)’Food porn’ strives to be mouth-watering (…)”. And “porn” indicates “(…) an aesthetic of excess (…)” (429). Also, she highlights the fact that “porn” has been attached to various topics underlining the capacity of inducing strong responses in the viewer: a generative use of porn—“(…) applicable to a diverse group of topics that seek to disassociate from pornography’s explicit sexual associations while alluding to its production qualities and focus on vivid details to evoke strong reactions in the viewer” (429). Like Dejmanee, McDonnell (2016, 239) emphasizes the satisfying quality of food porn, “(…) food porn is a set of visual aesthetics that emphasizes the pleasurable, sensual dimensions of food, derived from (but not actually employed in) human sexuality.” Taylor and Keating (2018, 308) proclaim an expansion of previous descriptions, underlining that “(…) ‘pornographic’ tropes are much broader than the erotic. These include triggers that are underpinned by visceral responses but accommodate nuanced desires of novelty, sincerity, frivolity, and empowerment, as well as vicarious entertainment.”

Rousseau (2013) adds that food porn can also include textual descriptions of food and adds that the popularity of the term suggests that food porn is less stigmatized than pornography, which remains more tabued. Also, she highlights that many laypersons and researchers have a kind of “know-it-when-I-see-it” approach to the concept. This comment aptly sums up the vague and elastic definitions mentioned above. We are not left with a definitive definition in any of the above attempts to coin a concept.

However, a few aspects seem to return in several of the definitions. Firstly, several of these touch upon the unattainability of food porn imagery. Secondly, food porn is often characterized as particularly sensualized and stimulating representations of food, and these might even borrow motifs and techniques from the aesthetics of sex porn. Yet, both of these points seem very elastic. Concerning the question of inaccessibility, it seems pertinent to ask when something is inaccessible? And for whom? This is highly relative to and dependent on context, motive, and viewer. Similarly, it seems very vague when something is sensual or stimulating enough to be classified as food porn and not just food aesthetics. The various definitions discussed above seem to agree on the fact that not all food representations can be classified as “food porn”, yet the line between food aesthetics and food porn is not really drawn by any of these. In a way, it is understandable because such boundaries change over time, not least in the past decade where new digital tools like smartphones have facilitated user-generated versions of food porn, thus ending up with a variety of classifications of this.

Furthermore, this means that we are not left with clear definitions or limitations of the concept. Rather, the literature suggests directions and vague characteristics, notably a certain unattainableness and sensualization. We argue that the elusiveness in the characteristics makes sense in contemporary food culture, where digitalization and globalization repeatedly disrupt the boundaries of food aesthetics, and the platforms for food aesthetics are distributed to change at an accelerating pace. We also want to underline that a phenomenon like food porn needs to be understood in context and as a dynamic phenomenon just as various researchers in porn studies have argued that definitions of sex porn should be contextual.² Particularly in a digital landscape that does not call for fixed classifications. However, the concept and its usage should be explored at a deeper level. In the following, three overarching themes and approaches will be developed that re-emerge in the food porn literature.

Aesthetic studies of sensualized food aesthetics with focus on formal aspects

The first theme that we delve into is the very diverse corpus of literature dealing with sensualized food aesthetics. Different typologies and motifs are used and the definitions in this field are quite ambiguous. In a recent contribution, Tooming (2021, 129) argues that watching food porn is an aesthetic experience, since the genre enables “constructive gustatory imaginings”. The viewer imagines flavours when exposed to food porn, and these fantasy flavours make people enjoy things they may not even appreciate in real life. Tooming does not further unfold his notion of the aesthetic experience as gustatory imaginings, and thus the connection between the “aesthetic experience” and food porn remains unclear. In another recent article from 2020, Dawkins applies Peirce’s semiotics and Deleuze’s theories to food porn on Instagram. However, the article remains contemplative and contributes no concrete empirical or theoretical findings that inform our narrowing down of sensualized food aesthetics. The two contributions are not applicable in this context as they do not offer specific empirical or analytical approaches to defining food porn.

Thus, discarding Tooming and Dawkins in our attempt to characterise sensualized food aesthetics, the field can be approached by primarily discussing two perspectives: one emphasizing the formal and stylistic aspects (McDonnell 2016) and one emphasizing analytical and content-focused representations (Taylor and Keating 2018). The formal approach represented by McDonnell (2016) defines and delineates food porn through aesthetic techniques and practices, accentuating the sensual and carnal dimensions of food. Based on an analysis of still photos from more than hundred different popular food blogs, McDonnell outlines four photographic characteristics applied in the production of food porn: zoom, framing, orientation, and depth of field (McDonnell 2016, 257–262). Zoom as the extreme close-up is “the most obvious visual hallmark of the pornographic aesthetic” (257) and often used to exaggerate motifs and make people notice overlooked features of everyday foods. Furthermore, the closeness to objects in a close-up photo expresses intimacy, or breaking boundaries of intimacy in relation to people and food materiality. Framing refers to the way a photo can be framed from an entirely different perspective than the food consumer’s normal gaze, thus challenging us to understand food objects in unconventional ways. Orientation offers an unacquainted viewpoint of something familiar, for instance, displaying the insides of a food object. The last photographic characteristic that McDonnell defines is depth of field, which is the use of light and a short depth of field that directs and holds our attention to the food object. These four aesthetic characteristics encompass a distinct “gaze” or schema that tantalizes the viewer and induces fascination, desire, or actual embodied hunger. So, for a photo to be labelled food porn, it needs to include food and then one or several of the four characteristics.

The other perspective outlined within this field is analytical and content-focused representations of food and is presented by Taylor and Keating (2018). They expand McDonnell’s definition and suggest a broader meaning of food porn underpinning the exaggerated visual characteristics aspiring to ideals of perfection, mastery, and virtuosity. Like McDonnell’s analysis, this study focuses on still images, which are chosen from an archive of over 700 images from popular websites, blogs, various social media platforms, magazines, cookbooks, and stock images. These images are analysed and tagged with keywords identifying visual tropes, styling, and photographic strategies. Through this process, four main stylistic frameworks—not mutually exclusive—are identified: innovation, entertainment, mastery, and authenticity (Taylor and Keating 2018, 315–319). They analyse one still image (stock photo) for in-depth analysis to represent each of these frameworks.

The first framework, innovation, is described as unusual with traits of uniqueness and exclusivity. To some degree, innovative images have creative forms, textures, shapes, and colours and some of these are familiar, whereas others challenge our expectations. Entertainment-images portray indulgence in terms of quantity: huge quantities of food implying lifestyles of abundance and excess courting and seducing the viewer as a dinner party guest. Mastery shows professional culinary expertise via perfection and control and personal investment through time and labour. Mastery-compositions are clean, controlled, and balanced and work as a fantasy of unachievable excellence for the viewer. The last stylistic framework, authenticity, focuses on everyday, homely props like enamel cutlery and wooden tabletops, insinuating ethics and functionality. Images within this framework suggest human engagement and intimacy through rustic and pastoral aesthetics. Based on their stylistic frameworks, Taylor and Keating propose that a standardization of styling has occurred, usually linked with food porn across digital food media and thus, food porn is no longer easily delimited.

It is worth noting that the difference between McDonnell’s four characteristics and Taylor and Keating’s four frameworks is that the frameworks seem to refer to specific thematic styles of expression, whereas the characteristics refer to technical composition. Hence, these are rather different approaches to narrowing down what identifies food porn, but both are limited and do not allow us to fully grasp what turns an image into food porn. McDonnell’s characteristics are too narrow and Taylor and Keating’s frameworks too expansive. However, when combined—the theme plus composition—we may be closing in on a more viable way to define food porn.

In recent years, the perspective on aesthetics and food has developed to include studies of the relationship between media and sustainability. Närvänen et al. (2018, 13) have examined how the sociocultural meanings of household food waste reduction are negotiated in social media campaigns. They conclude that social media are clear-cut platforms for framing sustainability issues positively because “the various applications and sites allow for a range of visual presentation

opportunities, enabling the aestheticization of food waste (…)”, and, in some cases, this aestheticization is similar to food porn. Hence, food aesthetics is not merely about pleasing visuals but has also become a platform that can be used to change food practices, hierarchies, and consumption ethics of food and everyday life.

Sexualized food aesthetics in relation to gender, bodies, and sexuality

In the food porn literature, a number of works address how the phenomenon relates to gender, body, and sexuality. Roughly speaking, these works can be divided into two groups. One that is very critical and sees food porn as a way of maintaining gender inequalities and male dominance via everyday practices and communication—and another that also points to the playful potential in food porn which might work to ironically comment on the sexualization of female bodies and challenge the contradictions of contemporary postfeminist female subjects’ identities.

The underlying perspective in this first corpus is Adams’s (1990) classic The Sexual Politics of Meat. In this book, she connects meat-eating to the oppression of women and sees vegetarianism as a way to destabilize patriarchal and capitalist societies. In her subsequent book The Pornography of Meat, Adams analyses an impressive amount of material, including commercials and popular cultural texts, to demonstrate how animals and women’s bodies are juxtaposed, sexualized, and objectified systematically in contemporary society. The male-dominated capitalist culture depends on systematic symbolic (and physical) violence against women and animals, and veganism offers an alternative way to address the gender inequality embedded in these structures: ‘Pornography uses butchery to say something about women’s status as mass terms: women are as meat; not only that, women deserve to be treated as meat—butchered and consumed” (Adams 1990, 25). Adams’s work has been a significant point of reference in animal studies and vegan feminist studies but has also been challenged. Hamilton (2016) acknowledges that Adams’s work is important in highlighting the sexual politics of meat eating but is critical of what she sees is an unnuanced interpretation of violence while excluding the issue of sex workers.

Lapiņa and Leer (2016) explore the links between masculinity and meat on the Copenhagen restaurant scene. They do not find the same explicit relation between meat, violence, and sexualization as Adams does, but they find some more ironic and self-reflexive expressions of food porn as part of restaurant designs on the hipster food scene. In these examples, the female body is also sexualized and compared to meat. The restaurants link meat consumption, masculinity, and male sexuality. However, class is also considered a central part of the negotiations of traditional and modern forms of masculinity via sexualized meat consumption. Irony and nostalgia are used as strategies to distance the consumer and the food porn images in the restaurant.

The racial dimension of food porn is particularly explored in Cruz (2013). This is an intersectional analysis of the performances of gender, race, and sexuality in the food network production Gettin’ Down Home With the Neelys where we follow an Afro-American couple cooking Southern food. Cruz uses the concept of gastro-porn rather than food porn. Based on the analysis, Cruz (2013, 339) argues that the show “depicts a nouveau gastro-porn anchored in the perceived pornographic itself. (Re)producing a certain brand of black heterosexuality via gendered enactments of domesticity and space”. She continues by suggesting that the Neelys “(…) self-consciously employ a vernacular aesthetic performative of down home and exploit the phenomenon of gastro-porn in a highly lucrative performance that signals the entangled artifice of gender, race and sexuality”. Hence, Cruz sees a somewhat paradoxical (and maybe subversive) dimension in the performances of food porn.

Similar ambivalences between gendered performances and food porn are highlighted in Magee (2007). This study opposes food porn in relation to what the author coins “food puritanism”. The article showcases the two female chefs, Martha Stewart and Nigella Lawson, and Magee sees a subversive potential in Lawson’s performance. Lawson became a British food icon with her series Domestic Goddess around the turn of the twenty-first century. She emphasized the pleasurable aspects of cooking and could be considered a postfeminist icon (Hollows 2003). Magee (2007, 8) points out that she unashamedly emphasizes female desires of food and sex and concludes that “She [Lawson] rejects the patriarchal oppression of the kitchen while embracing domestic comforts in the same way that one may embrace the pleasure of sex while turning away from the essential falsity and potential oppression of pornography”. Here again, the combination of food porn cannot be reduced to a pure matter of patriarchal abuse.

In relation to social media, Dejmanee (2016) explores food porn on female food blogs. The examples include representations of food and often cakes or desserts, but they do not include representations of the female body. The focus is thus entirely on aesthetic techniques of sensualizing and sexualizing food, such as penetration of forms holding liquid, sexualized forms of food, and playing with glossy surfaces. The argument is that the highly aestheticized food blogs offer female bloggers a space to play with gendered and sexualized stereotypes and norms, “In a hypersexualized context in which the exploitation, regulation, and objectification of women’s bodies are predictably commonplace, ’food porn’ plays with the ideas of the pornification of the female body, while inversely generating attention toward individual and selective postfeminist subjects’ empowerment through creative labor” (Dejmanee 2016, 445). Again, food porn is seen as a tool for female agency in the current contradictory postfeminist period and even a form of “mild protest … against the conditions of hypersexuality and rigid body discipline in which postfeminist subjects are enmeshed”. Thus, Dejmanee is also very critical of the sexualization of female bodies, but she sees food porn as a potential site of resistance.

David and Allard (2022) are equally divided in their analyses of food porn on Instagram, with a particular focus on the French context. They use media scholar Mulvey’s concept of the ’male gaze’ (Mulvey 1999) to develop an idea of the “meal gaze” and highlight the gender dimensions on how food is presented on this platform, “French food Instagram is still stamped with a strong male bias” (David and Allard 2022, 77–78). Nonetheless, they also highlight examples of resistance to this gendered aesthetic order. One example is the artist Stephanie Sarley with her photos of fruits and vegetables posed to resemble female reproductive parts in absurd, tabued, and humorous arrangements (for instance red jelly leaking from a doughnut to mimic menstruation). The authors argue that the artist’s work thus functions to “enhance and legitimize women to create their own self-representations and give more visibility to less sexual representations of female genitalia” (David and Allard 2022, 72).

As such, the literature on food porn focusing on gender, body, and sexuality seems divided. While Adams insists on solely describing food porn negatively as an exploitative and repressive practice, others, notably Dejmanee (2016) and David and Allard (2022), insist on a more subversive potential in food porn where it can offer a form of resistance and satiric commentary to conventions of how to represent and interpret gendered and sexualized bodies.

Food porn as excess and transgression

In the literature, we also find a corpus of texts dealing with food porn through excess and transgression. In particular, this type of food porn will be discussed from two different and relatively new angles within the food-porn landscape. Firstly, the phenomenon of Mukbangs, which comes in many different variants and secondly, examples of food and identity that are closely linked and excessively performed.

The Mukbang/Meokbang phenomenon emerged more than a decade ago in South Korea and it is now extensively circulated via platforms, such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, and Reddit. In Mukbangs, the host, a so-called BJ (broadcasting jockey) broadcasts her- or himself while eating—often—vast amounts of food (Donnar 2017; Nielsen and Petersen 2021). Previously, the Mukbang genre has been linked to food porn focusing on the high profile and attractive female hosts (Donnar 2017). The appeal of Mukbangs has been explained as an appeasement for loneliness (Kim 2018), the desire to participate in a commensality (Spence, Mancini, and Huisman 2019) and as vicarious satiation (Kirkaburun et al. 2021). In a more negative vein, Mukbangs have been linked to eating disorders (Donnar 2017; Strand and Gustafsson 2020), obesity (Spence, Mancini, and Huisman 2019), and addiction (Choe 2019, Kirkaburun et al. 2021). Mukbangs are associated with different types of food. Some promote dietary movements such as veganism, others focus on local foods or dishes and the exploration and sharing of cuisines, still others deal with one type of food, for instance, shellfish, and some Mukbangs apply colour schemes, such as only eating purple foods, while others focus specifically on autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR). Hence, Mukbangs are very diverse; nevertheless, the (often excessive) ingesting is central to all types of Mukbangs, and even though the genre is limited to the audiovisual, it makes use of the digital apparatus to induce taste, touch, and smell (Nielsen and Petersen 2021). The intimacy embedded in the (often close-up) lip and mouth movements while absorbing food and chewing and the accompanying sounds intensified by microphone is what connects the genre to the food porn concept: “The crunch of deep-fried foods, the chewing, the cutting into different consistencies. The almost-inevitable bodily reaction to the audiovisual material foregrounds the spectator’s own embodiment” (Fischer-Lichte 2008, cited in Nielsen and Petersen 2021). These bodily performances inducing cravings or disgust have caused Mukbang content to be labelled lowbrow, inappropriate, and vulgar (Kim 2021).

Although exploring another genre, Lupton (2020) finds similar points in her article. She analyses two food channels in which the value is embodied in the spectacle and ability to distribute “affective forces such as pleasure, greed, desire and self-indulgence but also bordering on inciting the responses of disgust and repulsion” (Lupton 2020, 36).

In one of these food videos, as in many Mukbangs, the viewer is offered the voyeuristic pleasure of extreme consumption of “cheat” food which is high-fat, high-sugar, and highly processed foods in close-ups of the fit female host’s devoted face and mouth that links to explicitly sexualized imagery of hyper-feminine embodied indulgence. In the other channel hosted by males, the food is often described as “giant”, “world record”, and “supersize” and, to top it all, swearing and sexualized references are frequently used. “Lad culture” is an underlying disposition of this channel which frames men as emotionally infantile and instinctual beings at the mercy of indulging their own needs. Their preference for meat is depicted as sexual desire and women as meat-like objects (Lupton 2020, 41–42).

Lupton labels these examples of food porn “gonzo porn” because of their ugliness and transgressive and excessive nature, “(…) that disrupts and challenges conventional norms of how these things should look” (Lupton 2020, 45). This is also what is at stake in our piece on Transgressive Food Practices on Instagram (2022). The article analyses the Instagram profile of chef and restaurateur Umut Sakarya in Copenhagen. The profile differentiates itself from most profiles and material on Instagram because it does not adhere to the elaborate and highly aesthetized norms of Instagram (Contois and Kish 2022, Lewis and Phillipov 2018). Moreover, the profile is—as the case above—permeated by a “bro” or “lad” attitude drawing on extremely sexualized tropes, for instance, a video of a female waiter pouring Fernet Branca into her own mouth holding the decanter between her breasts, thus replicating a cum shot or a close-up photo of a raw chicken from an angle coarsely suggesting a vagina (Leer and Krogager 2022, 216). Sakarya also frequently stages himself in sexualized, homo-erotic, and sexist ways. Often, these are grotesque paraphrases of motifs from popular culture. For instance, a picture of him in a bathtub filled with brown gravy up to his navel and most of his hairy overweight upper body covered with thick brown liquid grotesquely mimicking Cleopatra’s legendary milk baths. Or Sakarya on his back on a table wearing only underpants and covered in different foods: caviar, pork belly, and schnitzel parodying the fad of serving sushi on nude female bodies. In these examples, Sakarya performs an “embodied immersion in the materiality of food” (Leer and Krogager 2022, 212), drawing on clichéd allusions to a popular culture in which women pose nude in similar settings as objects for the male gaze, covered, however, in different and more sophisticated types of food.

The transgressive approach to norms of food aesthetics on Instagram is also essential in Santamaria (2022), who similarly adds a political layer. She demonstrates the political potential of food photos that transgress the unspoken ideals of Instagram. Santamaria explores how populist politicians, the Italian Matteo Salvini and the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro, do not adhere to the generally neatly curated food imagery of food porn on Instagram. Rather, their food photos lack any form of curating and are inelegantly focused on substantial shots of comfort food with little or no considerations for filters, colours, or lighting, often central to advanced food-porn compositions.

Santamaria (2022, 224) interprets this as a direct comment to and repudiation of the Instagram food aesthetic, “In a rebellion against ‘food porn’, ‘food populism’ evokes authenticity and puritanism against the curated millennial aesthetic. In a way, Salvini and Bolsonaro’s appeals to tradition, familiarity, and austerity bring ‘food populism’ closer to ‘food puritanism’”. According to Santamaria, this also works to evoke a collective identity rooted in national tradition. In the texts accompanying the photos, one can even detect a ressentiment against those seen as leftist female progressives.³ The Instagram aesthetic is transgressed to develop and support a clear political idea. Here, the case differs from that of Sakarya. His “anti-Instagram” aesthetics tended towards anarchistic rebellion against the curated Instagram style, which arguably seems a way of promoting his own brand, positioning him against the new Nordic restaurant scene in Copenhagen. In Santamaria’s interpretation, Salvini and Bolsonaro had a much clearer political project by using anti-Instagram aesthetics to promote their populist agendas and attack the aesthetics of what they perceived as the élite.

So, linking these examples—across digital platforms—shows the embodied interactions with food emphasizing excessiveness and transgression. The repellant staging of indulgence opposes aesthetized standards of what sexualized embodiment should look like. Here it is nonetheless important to understand that these transgressive dimensions of food porn have very different agendas, from provocative entertainment and branding to digital sociality and political populism.

Moving forward: food porn 2.0

As our discussion of the literature on food porn indicates, the definitions and interpretations of the concept of food porn are far from unanimous. This diversity in interpretations and approaches to the concept is obviously confusing and makes one question the utility of the concept. Bearing this in mind, there is a case for arguing in favour of discarding the concept of food porn altogether, particularly because of its use in everyday language and on digital media platforms where #foodporn appears rather randomly. However, there also seems to be a continued fascination and interest in linking certain kinds of food representations with pornography to emphasize the sensory, affective, and bodily effects of sensualized representations of food experiences in visual and audiovisual media. Based on our discussion, we have identified three of the above themes in the literature, where the first focused more on aesthetics and formal typologies, whereas the second and third increasingly hinged on political, bodily, and transgressive aspects of a sensualized and sexualized visual food culture. It is noticeable that human and animal bodies play a more predominant role in the last two categories, and here food porn has fueled political debate and issues of identity.

In the light of this literature, we argue that despite some pitfalls concerning the vague definitions, there is potential in the concept of food porn. However, if we are going to continue to use the concept as an analytical lens and concept, we need to rethink the ways we employ the concept and be more precise in how we operationalize it as a lens to critical analysis and discussion.

The main argument for holding on to the concept is that it can help us understand the distinct strategies for reproducing the sensuality of food experiences in media texts, where sensory features (smell, texture, taste, context, etc.) of food are missing. In an increasingly visual culture, the link between image and body seems ever more relevant and a topic that needs exploring to understand contemporary food culture, food consumption, and food media. The ubiquitousness of food images and food videos (often with sexualized and sensualized elements) poses the question of how—or to which extent—these images mirror modern subjects’ sensory, bodily, and mental relation to food. Particularly as many consumers themselves have become producers of food porn.

Another argument in favour of the continued use of the concept of food porn is that it can serve to emphasize that food aesthetics is not just about differences in visual compositions and food appreciation. Food aesthetics involves social struggles of identity, bodies, power, and social distinction. This was particularly evident in the studies about food porn and gender. Although the studies discussed in this section disagreed concerning the repressive or subversive potential of food porn, all studies agreed that food porn contains political potential.

Thus, our ambition is to propose new directions in the study of food porn. Two directions will be outlined, which would be productive in moving forward. Firstly, an empirically founded approach taking its point of departure in the actual use of the concept of food porn. This could include historical and present examinations across platforms. Here, it seems relevant to involve new forms of digital methods that can handle and classify various large sets of data to generate typologies and visualizations of the actual use of the concept. This quantitative approach should—and this is important—be combined with qualitative analyses to provide an in-depth understanding of contexts, variations, and meanings. Another path might be to explore how food porn is performed and debated online via netnographical methods (Kent 2021; Kozinets 2015; Mann 2021). A very fruitful path could also be non-media-centric ethnography (Krogager and Leer 2021, Pink et al. 2015) to explore how professional and amateur producers and consumers of food porn relate to and evaluate various forms of food porn in their everyday lives. Contrary to netnography the focus in a non-media-centric approach is not on media platforms or texts. Rather, it would focus on how media practices and food practices intersect and amalgamate in everyday life (Krogager et al. 2019). It could also be relevant following Adams (2010) and Lapiņa and Leer (2016) to explore food porn as a feature in mediatized cityscapes, foodscapes, and restaurants of various kinds.

A second approach could be to use a theoretically founded approach which develops a formal typology where motifs, styles, and affects are defined and discussed in relation to the hierarchies and power dynamics inherent in these motifs. Here, it might be worth taking inspiration from the diverse universes of pornography like Lupton’s (2020) discussion of the “gonzo porn” attributes of certain transgressive and grotesque food channels on YouTube. Similarly, it might be relevant to distinguish between this kind of videos and ’softer’ versions of food porn like the postfeminist cakes discussed by Dejmanee (2016). These two works explore very different food universes with distinct logics, atmospheres, tones, languages, etc. and need to be addressed differently. This also echoes debates in porn studies where it has been suggested to see porn as an umbrella term for very different materials and practices (Ashton et al. 2018).

Finally, it is argued that when moving forward, it might also be worth thinking about definitions and interpretations of food porn that are less about the unattainability of the food porn which, in particular, characterize some of the earlier definitions. The emphasis on the unobtainability of food porn seems incompatible with contemporary food and media culture. This critique is based on two arguments. Firstly, it seems to imply a naïve distinction between the image as a ’false’ representation of reality and the material food as ’true’ reality. This distinction does not make sense if we accept Hepp’s (2020) diagnosis of our present digitalized society as deeply mediatized. Secondly, to insist on food porn as something “out of reach” seems to rely on a media logic from a pre-social-media culture. In the present digitalized food culture, the boundaries between producer and consumer of food porn are blurred (Bruns 2007) and there is an increasing diversity of food aesthetics with different degrees of being ’out-of-reach’. In this perspective, it seems simplistic to include unobtainability as a defining and essential element of ’food porn’. Future interpretations should also explore the diversity of the phenomenon and ask questions like: what does food porn actually do in different mediatized contexts? How is food porn integrated into contemporary food culture, practices, and consumption?

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Within the field of media and cultural studies, several papers have been omitted because of their essayistic nature. These are: Cutler-Brittner (2019); Chan (2003); Koh (2015); Lavis (2017); Marrone (2019); Tormey (2019), and Soitu (2019).

2. Ashton et al. (2019) ends their review of definitions of pornography in a digital age by proposing this definition: Material deemed sexual, given the context, that has the primary intention of sexually arousing the consumer and is produced and distributed with the consent of all persons involved’.

3. Concerning the masculinity, politics, and food porn and particularly Salvini’s food porn and the tradition of strong male leaders in Italy see Stagi et al. (2022).