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Eat Your Words

Eat Your Words o r t s a n d s c a n t l i n g s | mark morton Eat Your Words It’s no secret that the language of food and the language of sex often tangle and interpenetrate, like the tongues of kissing cousins. More surprising, perhaps, is that often the offspring of the two is cannibalism. Sometimes that cannibalism is metaphorical and affectionate: “I could just eat you up!” squeals a smitten lover, flinging her arms around a sweetheart’s neck. Sometimes it’s sinister and allegorical: “The better to eat you with,” cries the Big Bad Wolf, jumping out of the bedclothes and onto a red-hooded girl. And sometimes it’s all too literal and horrifying: “I send you half the kidney I took from one woman,” writes Jack the Ripper about his prostitute victim. “T’other piece I fried and ate.” Medieval theologians linked food and sex by stressing that their corresponding sins, gluttony and lechery, are both sins of excess, of concupiscence. Even today we acknowledge that connection through words that apply equally to food and sex: “appetite,” “craving,” “hunger.” Likewise, Freud noted that food and sex are linked in the parallel taboos of cannibalism and http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture University of California Press

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Publisher
University of California Press
Copyright
Copyright © by the University of California Press
ISSN
1529-3262
eISSN
1533-8622
DOI
10.1525/gfc.2004.4.1.8
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

o r t s a n d s c a n t l i n g s | mark morton Eat Your Words It’s no secret that the language of food and the language of sex often tangle and interpenetrate, like the tongues of kissing cousins. More surprising, perhaps, is that often the offspring of the two is cannibalism. Sometimes that cannibalism is metaphorical and affectionate: “I could just eat you up!” squeals a smitten lover, flinging her arms around a sweetheart’s neck. Sometimes it’s sinister and allegorical: “The better to eat you with,” cries the Big Bad Wolf, jumping out of the bedclothes and onto a red-hooded girl. And sometimes it’s all too literal and horrifying: “I send you half the kidney I took from one woman,” writes Jack the Ripper about his prostitute victim. “T’other piece I fried and ate.” Medieval theologians linked food and sex by stressing that their corresponding sins, gluttony and lechery, are both sins of excess, of concupiscence. Even today we acknowledge that connection through words that apply equally to food and sex: “appetite,” “craving,” “hunger.” Likewise, Freud noted that food and sex are linked in the parallel taboos of cannibalism and

Journal

Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and CultureUniversity of California Press

Published: Jan 1, 2004

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