Tongue-tied: A look inside the weird world of Japanese doorknob licking

Over the past three years or so, I have written a number of articles on various aspects and practices of Japanese sexual culture. These have included Oshouji (i.e., a calligraphy fetish where the decorative writing is done on a person’s – usually naked – body), Hentai (i.e., Japanese hardcore Manga cartoon pornography), Nyotaimori (i.e., eating a variety of foods or a whole meal off somebody’s naked body), Tamakeri (i.e., the masochistic practice of getting sexual pleasure and arousal from being kicked in the testicles), Burusera (i.e., Japanese shops that sell [amongst other things] soiled female undergarments and fetishist school uniforms), Omorashi (i.e., deriving sexual pleasure from having a full bladder or a sexual attraction to someone else experiencing the discomfort of a full bladder) and Shokushu Goukan (i.e., tentacle rape).

About 18 months ago, I came across the Art-Sheep website featuring loads of photographs of young Japanese women licking doorknobs. At first I thought it was some kind of spoof website but after a few hours of online research I realised that it was not a joke, and that there were a fair few articles examining the behaviour. For instance, an article on the Cracked website (‘The 6 Most Bizarre Safe For Work Fetishes’) claimed that the explanation for such sites was “straightforward” and that the Japanese pornography censorship laws are so draconian that it forces Japanese “to be more creative about what they masturbate to”. The article claimed:

“Anybody with a porn addiction can tell you, in order to keep things fresh, you have to get a bit weird. Japan, always on the cutting edge of innovation, simply took this idea and ran with it all the way to Planet Dick Tentacle, which brings us to these images of girls licking doorknobs…Men (and presumably some women) get turned on by the sight of females licking anything. The curse of being a woman is knowing that you can’t eat an ice cream cone or a banana in public without several nearby males achieving a state of semi-arousal”.

A number of online articles claim that because of the strict censorship laws in Japan, the country is “infamous for using a wide variety of stand-ins” for penises as there is a “crackdown on the depiction of genitalia” (so swords, fish, vegetables, and – as mentioned briefly above – tentacles, have been used as substitute phallic images). It has also meant that Japanese manga animators and videogame artists have become more innovative in displaying acts of sexuality. The Cracked article also claimed the doorknob licking trend “is a fairly big deal in Japan, even getting featured on national television”. But what is the attraction of seeing women specifically lick doorknobs (beyond the obvious phallic symbolism)? The Cracked article implies that it could be a masochistic act in that the women is typically viewed on her knees seen licking something that arguably has more bacteria on it than most other household items (bar the toilet), and that the act is therefore degrading and humiliating. Of all the images I have seen myself on various websites, all of the Japanese women were fully clothed (although some did appear to pander to clothing and uniform fetishes, such as the young women being dressed in schoolgirl uniforms, or for those with a fetish for spectacles).

A number of articles (such as those in the ‘Further reading’ list below) report that doorknob licking originated from the self-taught Japanese artist Ryuko Azuma renowned for his sexually provocative illustrations (you can check out some of his work here). More bizarrely, the impetus was (according to Azuma) “a drunken tweet…I tweeted that a collection of photos of a girl licking a doorknob [and thought it] would be a big hit”. The tweeted photographs went viral and subsequently featured on a Japanese television show. Azuma collaborated with a young photographer Ai Ehara, and ‘Doorknob Shojo’ (i.e., the ‘Doorknob Girl’) took on a life of its’ own. An article on the Kotaku website noted:

“The settings vary as much as the doorknobs, from nondescript apartments to crumbling Showa-era dwellings. The doors are typically closed, and the rooms are shut. The other side cannot be penetrated by the viewer, making the pictures, even when they are outside, closed. Some models play to the camera, other don’t. These are private moments, though, and the viewer is a fly on the wall – or door. Tropes that commonly appear in anime, manga, and video games populate the pictures. Some of the girls are wearing schoolbags or carrying phallic recorders and school notebooks. Some of the girls are in school uniforms. Others are dressed like female office workers and even have wear worker name badges around their necks. In Japan, where clothes were traditionally used to mark class and status, these are all identifiers and are used to provide enough information for the viewer to finish the story, making them as an essential part of the narrative. All of these items are meaningless alone. It’s the viewer, informed by popular culture like anime, TV, and games as well as real life, that gives them meaning”.

The photos appeared on Tumblr and featured Ehara herself. (You can have a look at the Tumblr photographs here). Following the viral success of the original photographs, Azuma and Ehara hired and photographed a number of models with their mouths on doorknobs and licking them. As the article in Kotaku noted:

“The photos depict a variety of young girls (shojo) with their mouths and tongues touching doorknobs. The imagery is sexually charged. Doorknobs are ubiquitous and common, bland and banal. Intrinsically, doorknobs are not sexual objects in the same way that, say, a banana is. Yet, their position on a door, require the girls to kneel and by placing their mouths on the knobs. It’s undeniably submissive. A doorknob is not necessarily a sexual object. Its purpose is to open doors. Licking is not only a sexual act. Its purpose is to taste. The juxtaposition comes across as titillation and provocative, designed to elicit a response. The photos might look submissive, or exploitive, but they confront the viewer, asking the question, ‘What do you see?’ The pictures can dominate and even exploit the viewer’s notions of foreplay. The photos are psychosexual, with the viewer, if he or she so chooses, filling in the blanks and replacing the boring with the sensual. For such a commonplace object, the doorknob is a perfect phallic symbol. Like [penises], doorknobs come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from short and fat to long and thin. And like [penises], doorknobs can transmit diseases”.

It’s hard to assess who accesses and enjoys such photos and I know of no non-Japanese sites that have featured such models. I’ll leave you with a quote from Azuma himself who claims that it is up to the person viewing to interpret his art:

“Basically, we shot whatever doorknobs were at the location. But just in case, I always carried a backup knob with me to switch out. I always think a work is completed by the viewer. So whatever the viewer brings to the work is sufficient…Many people feel like the photos are a metaphor for oral sex, but we’re not especially taking the photos with that in mind. See whatever you want to see”.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Art-Sheep (2015). “Doorknob girl”: Japan and the trend of girls licking doorknobs. August 17. Located at: http://art-sheep.com/doorknob-girl-japan-and-the-trend-of-girls-licking-doorknobs/

Ashcraft, B. (2011). The art of girls licking doorknobs. Kotaku, August 9. Located at: http://kotaku.com/5838276/the-art-of-girls-licking-doorknobs/

The Chive (2015). Leave it to Japan to create the weirdest trend EVER. May 1. Located at: http://thechive.com/2012/01/05/leave-it-to-japan-to-create-the-weirdest-trend-ever-35-photos/

Ntumy, E.K. (2013). The 6 most bizarre safe for work fetishes. Cracked, November 2. Located at: http://www.cracked.com/article_20691_the-6-most-bizarre-safe-work-fetishes.html

Pam (2012). Crazy Japanese trends – Hard to resist? Imperfect Women, March 1. Located at: http://imperfectwomen.com/crazy-japanese-trends-–-hard-to-resist/

Sumitra (2012). Girls licking doorknobs – more madness from Japan. Oddity Central, January 13. Located at: http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/girls-licking-doorknobs-more-madness-from-japan.html

Totally bananas for an apple source: A brief look at fruit fetishism

In a previous blog I briefly examined sitophilia, a sexual paraphilia in which the individual has an erotic attraction to (and derives sexual arousal from) food. In that blog I noted that there has long been an association between eating and sexual behaviour on many different levels. More specifically, I noted:

“Eating and sex are both basic human needs and sometimes interact more directly. Many would also agree that eating (in and of itself) can be a sensual activity. There are also some foods that are considered to be aphrodisiacs. For example, foodstuffs such as oysters and chocolate are considered to have aphrodisiac properties (even if there is a lack of empirical evidence). The important factor is that if people believe the food in question has such arousing properties then there is likely to be some kind of a placebo effect”.

One (arguable) sub-type of sitophilia relates to those individuals that have fruit fetishes and/or specifically use fruit as part of their day-to-day sexual activity. Fruit fetishism also has overlapping behavioural and psychological characteristics with other fetishes that I have written about previously including ‘wet and messy’ fetishism and Nyotaimori (i.e., eating a variety of foods or a whole meal off somebody’s naked body). Almost every article about fruit fetishes on the Internet mentions the fact that some types of fruit (most noticeably bananas) can be used as a dildo substitute for both men and women (and used both anally and vaginally). For instance, the Wikipedia entry on ‘food play’ notes:

“Certain fruits (e.g., bananas), vegetables (e.g., cucumbers and zucchinis) and processed meat (e.g., sausages and hot dogs), if used safely, may be fetish objects because they have a phallic shape, and can be substitutes for dildos, useful for vaginal or anal penetration. Other foods are so constituted that they can be sexually penetrated by a male…Francesco Morackini, an Austrian designer and artist, designed and created the first home Dildo Maker. It allows phallic food to be sculpted into an even more phallic shape for easier insertion…Other fruits are so constituted that they can be sexually penetrated by a male, if an appropriate hole is drilled in them. In the novel Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth, the main character, Alexander Portnoy, masturbates using a cored-out apple”.

There are numerous references to sexual experiences involving fruit in popular culture. The most infamous is the scene in 9½ Weeks where John Gray (played by Mickey Rourke) feeds food erotically to his blindfolded lover Elizabeth McGraw (played by Kim Basinger) during foreplay. Sex with fruit is discussed in the 1991 Jim Jarmusch film Night On Earth. In the scene set in Rome, the taxicab driver Gino (played by Roberto Benigni) confesses to his passenger who happens to be a priest (played by Paolo Bonacelli) of having had sex with a pumpkin as a child (and before you all email me at once, pumpkins are fruits not vegetables). In the film, Gino confesses:

“I lived in the country, where there weren’t many women, and though you’re still a kid, inside you feel a man’s feeling, and there was no way to relieve this feeling. So the idea, not mine but a real intelligent friend of mine’s, of relieving ourselves with, to make love with…how do I say this? With pumpkins. Pumpkins. Warm, soft, damp, with seeds inside, so round – and we would – toom ta toom – help me find the words, Father – we relieved ourselves with these pumpkins”.

As you can probably guess, there is almost nothing in the academic literature on fruit fetishism. In a small article on ‘phallic fruit fetish’ in the online Urban Dictionary by Daniel Gonzales, he wrote that:

“[Phallic fruit fetish is a ‘disorder’ popularized by gay Quaker performing artist Peterson Toscano in his play ‘Time In The Homo No Mo Halfway House’ about his time spent as a patient in a Christian residential program to ‘cure’ gay people. Another resident in the program suffered from Phallic Fruit Fetish (or PFF) and had a persistent desire to commit sexual acts with phallic shaped fruits. The problem was alleviated when all phallic shaped fruits were removed from the facility. Rev. Smid ordered all bananas removed from the house upon learning of a patient’s phallic fruit fetish”.

Academically there are well over 100 papers and chapters on the topic of rectal foreign bodies and the list of objects and items that have been removed by doctors is almost as long as the number of papers. Many of these report the removal of fruit stuck in rectums (bananas and apples). Other papers report cucumbers as rectal foreign bodies (but reported as vegetables, but like pumpkins are actually fruits). My previous blog on rectal foreign bodies also provided a long list of items that had been medically removed from the rectum including drink containers (e.g., glass bottles, plastic bottles, peanut butter jars, glass tumblers), sporting items (e.g., baseballs, tennis balls), household and kitchen objects (e.g., candles, light bulbs, broomstick handle, spatulas, mortar pestle), sex toys (e.g., vibrators, dildos), and improvised objects (e.g., a sand-filled bicycle inner tubing, plastic fist and forearm, shoehorn, axe handles, aluminium money tube, whip handles, soldering irons, glass tubes, and frozen pigs tails). In a 2010 review by Dr. Joel Goldberg and Dr. Scott Steele published in Surgical Clinics of North America, the authors noted:

“Smooth objects, such as bottles, fruits and vegetables, dildos, and vibrators, cannot always be grasped, and caution should be taken to ensure that they are not broken inside the patient. In the cases of fruits and vegetables, however, either grasping or breaking apart the object is a well-described technique that aids in the removal of the foreign body”.

Breaking up the fruit appears to be an obvious method for retrieving rectal foreign bodies but a 2014 paper by Dr. Abbas Aras and colleagues in the journal Surgical Techniques Development claimed they had a new method outlined on their paper ‘A new and simple extraction technique for rectal foreign bodies: removing by cutting into small pieces’. They wrote about the case of a radish being stuck inside the rectum of a 53-year old male. They reported:

“The purposes of insertion and types of foreign bodies in rectum show great variation. Rectal foreign bodies need to be removed without giving damage to intestinal wall and this should be done in the easiest possible way. We have reported a new and a simple technique. It is easy to apply and safe. A patient was admitted to our clinic with a rectal foreign body (radish) which was successfully removed by cutting it into small pieces. We conclude that different kinds of rectal foreign bodies, especially fruit and vegetables, can be removed by this technique”.

Fruit fetishism and/or engaging in sexual practices with fruit are probably more widespread than might be initially imagined and there appears to be few problems from a psychological perspective. However, as the medical literature has frequently reported, help is sought when fruit is used in sexual practices (most commonly masturbation) and gets stuck inside a person’s rectal passage.

Dr. Mark Griffiths, Professor of Behavioural Addiction, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Aras, A., Karabulut, M., Kones, O., Temizgonul, K. B., & Alis, H. (2014). A new and simple extraction technique for rectal foreign bodies: removing by cutting into small pieces. Surgical Techniques Development, 4(1), 6-7.

Barone, J. E., Sohn, N., & Nealon Jr, T. F. (1976). Perforations and foreign bodies of the rectum: report of 28 cases. Annals of Surgery, 184(5), 601-604.

Goldberg, J. E., & Steele, S. R. (2010). Rectal foreign bodies. Surgical Clinics of North America, 90(1), 173-184.

Memon, J. M., Memon, N. A., Solangi, R. A., & Khatri, M. K. (2004). Rectal foreign bodies. Gomal Journal of Medical Sciences, 6(1), 1-3.

Wikipedia (2015). Food play. Located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_play

Write back: A brief look at Oshouji and sexual calligraphy

Anyone that has followed my blogs will know that I have more than a passing interest in Japanese sexual culture. For instance, in previous blogs I have briefly examined various Japanese sexual practices and sex-related topics including Tamakeri (i.e., the masochistic practice of getting sexual pleasure and arousal from being kicked in the testicles), Hentai (i.e., Japanese hardcore Manga cartoon pornography), Shokushu Goukan (i.e., tentacle rape), Nyotaimori (i.e., eating a variety of foods or a whole meal off somebody’s naked body), Omorashi (i.e., deriving sexual pleasure from having a full bladder or a sexual attraction to someone else experiencing the discomfort of a full bladder), and Burusera (i.e., Japanese shops that sell [amongst other things] soiled female undergarments and fetishist school uniforms). There are also some sexually paraphilic behaviours that have their own names within the Japanese sexual culture (such as frotteurism being known as chikan)

While reading an online article on ‘[Ten] sex fetishes you won’t believe exist’ I spotted one on the list that I had not written about before – Oshouji – the other nine being: dendrophilia (sexual arousal from trees), exophilia (sexual attraction for aliens and non-human life forms), objectum sexuality (sexual attraction to inanimate objects), eproctophilia (sexual arousal from flatulence), hybristophilia (sexual arousal from criminals), menophilia (sexual arousal from menstruation), acrotomophilia (sexual arousal from amputees), dacryphilia (sexual arousal from crying), and lactophilia (sexual arousal from breast feeding). In fact, not only had I not written about oshouji in a previous blog but I had never even heard of it before.

Oshouji is a calligraphy fetish (calligraphy being the art of producing decorative handwriting or lettering with a pen or brush). Oshouji specifically involves calligraphy where the decorative writing is done on a person’s (usually naked) body. According to many online websites (that all basically use the same defintion), oshouji is “an ancient tradition and refers to the writing of degrading words in calligraphy on your partner [and is] one of the more artistic fetishes Japan has to offer”. As sex blog writer Coco La More notes: “I am intrigued. Such rich beauty and absolute pleasure. The artistic passion the calligrapher must be feeling. I can just imagine the intense emotion felt by both. I will be adding this one to my list”

According to the Exapamicron website, oshouji dates back to the Edo period of feudal Japan (the Edo period – sometimes referred to as the Tokugawa period – being the period between 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan). Like other Edo forms of eroticism (such as Shunga, a Japanese term for erotic art) oshouji is considered traditional, rich and decadent. The website also claims that oshouji is “not a fetish in the sense that the painted person becomes aroused by the paint, it’s more about the thrill of degrading someone”.

As far as I am aware there is no academic writing or research on the topic (although there are academics with the surname ‘Oshouji’ which was annoying having to wade through paper after paper to see if there was anything written on the practice). Like me, someone else (Zichao) was researching into this topic and was finding the same things as me online. His research questioned whether the word ‘oshouji’ even existed (although he did admit that the act of sexual calligraphy existed):

“I’m writing a catalogue/book for an exhibition on modern Chinese calligraphy, including references to work by Zhang Qiang…This got me interested in trying to work out the history of writing on girls in Chinese, Japanese [and] Korean culture. On various non-Japanese language sites it’s referred to as ‘oshouji’ and described as something that goes back to Edo times, but these all seem to be cribbing the information from the [Tokyo Damage Report] Hentai Dictionary…Making the idea look even more dubious is the fact that typing　おしょうじ,　オショウジ or even (last-ditch attempt)　お書字 into Japanese Google brings up nothing helpful as far as I can see. This makes me suspect that if there’s a name for the practice it’s something else…Obviously it’s something that people do – not just Zhang Qiang, but also the characters in rape and S&M manga (though in magic marker) and there’s even a film about it [The Pillow Book]. It doesn’t help that I know very little about classical Chinese [and] Japanese porn/erotica. Does the writing-on-girls-fetish have a name and a history, or is it just something that crops up spontaneously now and then?”

Another online Hentai dictionary (the Yuribou Hentai Dictionary) noted that the

“Oshouji ‘calligraphy character’ fetish [is] fairly commonly seen in Domination-submissive play in which the Dominant writes characters on the submissive’s body in order to inflict shame and embarrassment to heighten the submissive role. Commonly seen is the writing of “niku” (“meat”) on the forehead”.

As noted in the extract from Zichao above, the most high profile example of oshouji body calligraphy is the 1996 film The Pillow Book film (directed by Peter Greenaway) in which a Japanese model (Nagiko) “goes in search of pleasure and new cultural experience from various lovers. The film is a rich and artistic melding of dark modern drama with idealised Chinese and Japanese cultural themes and settings, and centres on body painting” (Wikipedia entry on The Pillow Book)

Sexual calligraphy has also crept into the world of modern art via the work of Pokras Lampas. Lampras has a background in graffiti and street art. As an online Wide Walls profile piece on him notes:

“Lampas works in various spaces and using different mediums, from canvas and walls to the naked body. To a certain extent, the artist is involved in the art of tattoo, providing council and creating sketches when it comes to calligraphy work. However, the aspect of the artist’s practice which is most interesting, resonates the new possibilities of calligraphy within the world of digital urban art. This notion is part of one of his biggest projects…Recently, the artist became involved in a project called Calligraphy on Girls, which aims to show his calligraphy skills to a wider audience through sessions of body painting and photography. The project is an exploration of the female human form, executed with a particular aesthetics and a unique visual language of the artist”.

Whether Lampas’ work can be called an example of oshouji is debatable because it doesn’t appear to involve the use of degrading words (in fact there are few words at all as far as I can see). Oshouji (if it really exists) appears to be a much less prevalent activity than some of the other Japanese sexual practices I have written about although in the absence of any research papers on most forms of Japanese sexual subculture no-one can be really sure how widespread any of these activities are.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Aggrawal A. (2009). Forensic and Medico-legal Aspects of Sexual Crimes and Unusual Sexual Practices. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Tokyo Damage Report (2009). Hentai dictionary. February 27. Located at: http://www.hellodamage.com/top/2009/02/27/hentai-dictionary/

Wide Walls (2014). Calligraphy on girls, February 1. Located at: http://www.widewalls.ch/body-and-language-calligraphy-on-girls-provoke-article-2014/2-biology-or-culture/

Wikipedia (2015). Shunga. Located at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunga

Yuribou Hentai Dictionary (2008). Welcome to the Yuribou Hentai Dictionary! July 11. Located at: http://fezeve868.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/welcome-to-yuribou-hentai-dictionary.html

Rude food? A beginner’s guide to sitophilia

There has long been an association between eating and sexual behaviour on many different levels. Eating and sex are both basic human needs and sometimes interact more directly. Many would also agree that eating (in and of itself) can be a sensual activity. There are also some foods that are considered to be aphrodisiacs. For example, foodstuffs such as oysters and chocolate are considered to have aphrodisiac properties (even if there is a lack of empirical evidence). The important factor is that if people believe the food in question has such arousing properties then there is likely to be some kind of a placebo effect.

In previous blogs I have looked at both feederism (in which sexual arousal and gratification is stimulated through a person gaining body fat) and vorarephilia (in which people are sexually aroused by the idea of being eaten, eating another person, or observing this process for sexual gratification). Another eating-related sexual behaviour is sitophilia. This is a sexual paraphilia in which the individual has an erotic attraction to (and derives sexual arousal from) food. Sitophilia can also include sexual arousal caused by erotic situations involving food. This may comprise many different types of activity including those who:

• Eat one particular foodstuff from the body of another (e.g., licking chocolate mousse off the breasts of a naked partner).
• Eat a variety of foods or a whole meal off somebody’s naked body (such as the Japanese practice of nyotaimori – see below).
• Use a foodstuff to enhance a particular sexual act (e.g., sucking on a lime before engaging in oral sex to swell the taste buds and create more sensitivity when licking genital tissue). This could also technically involve the use of a foodstuff to enhance genital lubrication (e.g., use of olive oil).
• Use food as a method of control and/or flagellation in sadomasochistic activity (e.g., the throwing of oranges at the buttocks as a from of sexual humiliation or punishment). Dominant partners can also choose to control their submissive partner’s eating habits and food intake as a regular part of their sex play. Some dominant individuals will restrain their submissive partner’s hands, and order them to eat from a dish on the floor. This can be a highly sexually charged situation for those into erotic humiliation.
• Use food as a masturbatory aid. This may include males hollowing out foodstuffs (such as a pumpkin) into which they simulate intercourse, and females using phallic shaped foods as a penis substitute (e.g., cucumbers).
• Drink bodily fluids (such as semen) after it has been blended into other foods (e.g., mashed potato) following masturbation.
• Drink bodily fluids as part of another drink (e.g., adding ice cubes made of semen to a pina colada where the saltiness of the semen counteracts the sweetness of pineapple).
• Use food as an enhancement to sexual intercourse (e.g., the use of a slitted plum placed over an erect penis and then inserted into a partner’s vagina to add volume and pressure to the sexual act for both partners.
• Use food to aid sexual stimulation and erotic pleasure (e.g., the insertion of grapes into the rectum). This latter type of act also includes particular foodstuffs such as the insertion of ginger into the rectum (called ‘figging’ – check it out on Wikipedia if you find this hard to believe). The use of ginger has also been documented as being inserted into the vagina and urethral opening.

There are also various sub-types of sitophilia (such as botulinonia that involves the sexual use of sausages). Similarly, as mentioned in the list above, those who use various foods as dildo substitute masturbatory aids (e.g., cucumbers, aubergines, carved out melons, butternet squash, etc.) may also be sitophiles.

Sitophilic acts have appeared in popular films and books. The most infamous are probably (i) the lead character Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs) in the film American Pie is caught masturbating into a pie after being told that third base (i.e., fellatio) feels like “warm apple pie”, (ii) the sex scene in the film 9½ Weeks where John Gray (Micky Rourke) spoon feeds Elizabeth McGraw (Kim Basinger) various kinds of food while blindfolded, and (iii) the Philip Roth book Portnoy’s Complaint that features detailed depictions of masturbation – the most infamous being the use of a piece of liver steak by the male protagonist (Alexander Portnoy) to masturbate into and which is later served at a family dinner. However, one of the weirdest sitophilic acts I have come across is in Seijun Suzuki’s film Branded to Kill (1967) where the leading man Goro Hanada (Joe Shishido) has a food fetish where he has to sniff boiling rice in order to become sexually excited.

I have also come across descriptions of food orgy parties. These are:

“Organized by individuals where friends bring either an erotic arrangement of food on a dish to share, or food that feels sensuous when rubbed onto a partner and licked off. Afterwards, everyone soaks in a hot tub. There are also all-male games such as ‘Shoot the Cookie’ and ‘Soggy Biscuit’ where males stand in a circle around a cookie and masturbate. The rule dictates that the last one who ejaculates on the cookie has to eat it”.

There are also those who use foodstuffs to make the sexual act messier (i.e., “sploshing” – a form of salirophilia) that I briefly examined in a previous blog on salirophilia (in which individuals experience sexual arousal from soiling or disheveling the object of their desire). Sitophilia can also play a part in the activity of ‘food play’ (which doesn’t always have sexual connotations so should not be used synonymously). For instance, nyotaimori and nantaimori (the obscure Japanese practice of ‘female body presentation’ and ‘male body presentation’ respectively) is not usually seen as either fetishistic or paraphilic for those who participate. This practice is also known as “body sushi” and involves people eating food from the body of a naked person). Some websites (such as Muki’s Kitchen) have turned such behaviour into an art form.

Some reports claim that the person covered in food has to learn to withstand the coldness of the food and is trained to lie and keep still for hours while those around eat off their body. However, the Guardian journalist Julie Bindel who attended a nyotaimori platter in London says that the women she ate off were models with no prior training.

I have yet to read a single academic or clinical paper that has been published on the topic although there is a lot of online activity surrounding those who get sexually aroused by food (check out the links in the ‘Further reading’ section). For instance, here is one story I found from a homosexual man into both feederism and sitophilia.

“I love to eat. I am a chubby guy, 5’4″ and currently 200 lbs. I attempt to maintain around 200 lbs if I can manage it. Along with sitophilia I am also attracted to other chubby guys. Well I get extremely turned on by food. I love the look of food, the smell of food, the taste of food. The act of eating food also is such a turn on. Feeling food in my mouth, chewing it and the act of swallowing food and feeling it slide down to my stomach gets me totally aroused. I love to indulge in buffets. Going to a buffet is better than any porn I could ever watch. Usually there are lots of chubby men there for me to watch and satisfy my chubby guy fetish too. I have spent several hours at a buffet indulging. I usually walk around half hard the whole time. In private I love to include food in sex. Just earlier I had a piece of chocolate cheescake. It was a very rich, dense and decadent cheescake. I took it out of the fridge and took it into my bedroom. I got naked and laid on the bed. My cock was instantly hard. I took the slice of cheesecake in one hand and my cock in the other hand. I started to masturbate while slowly tasting the cake. I became so aroused that I began to furiously pound my cock and I just stuffed the whole piece of cheesecake into my mouth. It was a huge piece and I could almost not fit it all in. My mouth was stuffed and my cheeks puffed out totally filled with the cheesecake. As I chewed and felt the creamy chocolate cheesecake in my mouth, I felt my arousal build and that familiar sensation of being close to an orgasm. I pounded my cock even harder and then I took one swallow…feeling the bit of cheesecake sliding down my throat brought me just to the edge of orgasm. I could not stand it any longer. I began to chew and swallow all of the cheesecake and I erupted in a very powerful and intense orgasm”

Here are two confessions from female sitophiles. They wrote:

Extract 1: “Something about watching a man eat turns me on like crazy. I like to cook for men just so I can watch them eat my food. When men eat, they attack, and I find it incredibly sexy. If any professional might know the reason for this, I would greatly appreciate your insight. It is not getting in the way of my everyday life, it is just something that gets me going”.

Extract 2: “I used to be bulimic in high school (that’s when I realized I like sticking my fingers in food) and now I’m on a strict diet and my sitophilia is worse than ever! I love watching people eat fatty foods and I want to know what sploshing is like. I lay awake at night fantasizing about being covered in cake batter or spaghetti-o’s and rubbing it onto my skin. I’ve been weird about food since my eating disorder, but sitophilia was not in my vocabulary until very recently”.

Despite such online confessions, sitophilia appears to be one of many paraphilias that have passed the academic and clinical world by. This may be because food play is quite common among ‘normal’ and ‘experimental’ sex, and/or may be seen as academically and/or clinically trivial.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Bindel, J. (2009). ‘I am about to eat sushi off a naked woman’s body’. The Guardian, February 12. Located at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/12/nyotaimori-eating-sushi-naked-woman

Sense and Sensuality Website (Education and Discussion website). Located at: http://sensesensuality.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/sex-ed-paraphilia-sitophilia.html?zx=879c2fb6531ed60d

Spiritual BDSM (2011). What is sitophilia? December 6, Located at: http://www.spiritualbdsm.com/2011/12/what-is-sitophilia.html?zx=69b8151a4d2896e3