Sex and food
There's only one thing that should be eaten during sex and it's not food, says Dorothy Black
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There are three things that should never be considered fair game when one is drunk. The first is your body, the second is every number on your mobile phone and the third is column space. Messing with any of these three things will give you a belly ache.
I know this.
Quaffing enormous amounts of shellfish and champers at a media gig recently, I declared to the world and the maitre d’ that what I really needed to do was write a column about sex and food. There was a gap in the world of literature that needed to be filled, I announced, and I was willing to fill it.
It would be a sort of 9½ weeks meets Sex and the City. It would be investigative journalism meets BBC Food in bed. It would be sexy food; foody sex. It would be funny, light, touching but hard-hitting, it would be witty but sensual. It would draw on Isabel Allende and DH Lawrence. It would say what every human has been trying to say about the sensuality of food from the beginning of time. It would be all of this and more. It was inspired. Every glass of champers told me so.
I promptly projectile vomited.
(Just a little public service announcement: Shellfish is never a good idea for a tummy that’s been vegetarian for over a decade.)
Not sexy. But then, neither is mixing food and coitus IMHO. Nevertheless, what could I do? I’d made wild proclamations to all and sundry - including my editor - and would have to follow through.
I blame the liquor that addled my brain, because this whole food and sex thing was always going to be a bad idea. If it was a good idea, I’d be whipping out the cream along with the condoms every time I jumped into bed. As it is, I’m a purist when it comes to satisfying my primal instincts - love food, love sex, but never the twain should meet.
As Bean so quaintly puts it: 'I love the taste of pussy; I love the taste of chocolate. But I'm down there to taste pussy, not chocolate.' I love Bean. He's so poetic. But that's really what it's all about. I'm licking, sucking and fucking because I enjoy my partner's body and the way it tastes and smells – I don't need condiments to confuse my palate. Besides, throwing food into the mix becomes too much like multitasking. And you have to shower after.
I know this. I know this because I eventually had to get down to business and give the foody sex a bash.
It was never something that could be spontaneous. Not in my house. Being single, female, vegetarian and somewhat health conscious doesn't make for a very sexy fridge. One doesn't walk into my kitchen and think, 'Ahh, hmm, garlic humus, now THAT's something I'd like to lick off a body'. Ditto tsatsiki, rye bread, quinoa, brown rice and tofu.
So I had to plan to be all wild and wicked in my foody sexperience.
It was an ordeal. It was fraught with indecision. There was an underlying hum of disquiet that manifested as a gag reflex every time I considered the usual suspects – chocolate (on skin? No thanks. Too many visual references to skat.), honey/syrup (my sweet tooth would only manage a nipple's worth), mousse (been warned about that one) … I considered savoury but, really, what is there? Marmite? Peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)? Carrots? Oysters? Um. No. See above.
After an hour of aimless wondering I eventually went home with a very uninspired goody bag: cream, strawberries, ice, wine, Amarula and M&Ms. Because, you know, if all else failed we could get drunk and balance M&Ms on our body parts.
Suffice to say, apart from the sick-sweet, faintly off smell from the cream and the fact that I had to stop myself feeling like one of those freaky feeders, the evening didn't turn out all that badly.
Though I imagine it had more to do with the ice and blindfolds and wine, I'm happy to say that I can tick the whole food and sex thing off my list. There. Ticked. Food and sex? Done and dusted my plums. Done and dusted.
It's a small consolation for the failure of attaining my grand ideals for breaking literary ground on the subject of food and sex.
But hey, at least there was no projectile vomiting after, n'est pas?
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