Pleasures of the flesh

I'm a priestess of carnal delights. A herald of hedonism. A dedicated follower of sense and sensory delights. I play on the palate of my lovers. I'm a domestic goddess.

I like food, no, that's not true. I love food. I love cooking, eating, everything that surrounds it. I think that people who don't like food are strange, bland and sterile types, who probably aren't that good in bed. And it's not just about liking food - it might be a truism, but I've yet to meet a pervert who isn't also into food in some way, sexuality and saity go hand in hand, perhaps. It is no surprise that some of my favourite cookbooks have titles that would be perfectly at home on my kinky bookshelf: Tender, In Search of Total Perfection, Tarts with Tops On. The frankly filthy Nigel Slater has a recipe that advises licking hot, salty butter off someone else's fingers and includes in his timings for the perfect banger going back to bed (with a friend) until the cooking smell rouses you from other types of pleasure. One type of sensory indulgence is perhaps easily mapped onto another, and any marketing agent will tell you that sex sells. Yet there is more to it than that.

Aphrodisiacs (from the Greek goddess Aphrodite, herself born on a scallop shell - seafood being a common aphrodisiac) are foods thought to inspire lust such as the phallic and lewd to consume asparagus and bananas - no prizes for guessing how that associates with sex in people's minds. Less obvious, though only just, are foods that remind us of delicate parts of bodies: oysters, rare steak, figs, cream. Then there are the stimulants like chill, ginger, coffee and chocolate, and the disinhibitors such as alcohol, with champagne or deep red wine top on that list. Finally, there are foods that have become sexualised by their appearance in literature or the social consciousness, most famously perhaps apples as wonderfully chaotic signifiers of beauty or temptation, leaving a string of drama in their wake, exactly like an intoxicating love affair.

The greatest aphrodisiacs in my opinion are those created by our own experiences because they will be unique to us and to the situation in which they occurred. Fresh, homemade bread will remind me of Ten, Krispe Kreme donuts are a standard tribute when visiting Captain (as is John Smith's bitter, but that's not sexually stimulating for me at any rate) whilst sushi and sashimi make me think of Hedwig. The cup of tea is as much a part of post-kink activity as the cup of coffee is a precursor. I bookend my perversions with hot caffeinated beverages, clearly.

Moving on from food that inspires sex, there is sex that is described using the same language as food. Motifs such as unpeeling for removing clothing, the idea of consuming and devouring, the natural paralells of mouth on flesh between eating and oral sex from the direct "eat out" or "eat/suck pussy/cock" to the slightly more poetic "take a bite of peach". The metaphor spreads out beyond the act itself. Our desire for sex is a hunger, which needs to be satisfied. We might also describe ourselves as empty and wanting to be full. Even in terms of finding a partner we could reference hunting or stalking our prey in the same way as we might catch a meal.

Then naturally, comes, sex with food from the vanilla drips of Haagen Dazs onto the chest of one's lover (in my case, it was Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia which has unfortunately large chunks of chocolate, but it set the tone for my love life) to the world of splosh fetishists. Cucumbers seem to have been purpoe made to insert into people and the 90s debacle over "mars bar parties" - I wonder if the decline in such references is linked to the belief that such chocolate bars are now smaller?

Cooking has a lot of parallels with kink. Preparation, concentration on the balance of sensory inputs, taking note of particular tastes and desires (or revulsion), indulgence, satisfaction, physicality. The range of different ways to tempt and ultimately satisfy are deeply, often unashamedly sexual. Swapping recipes like swapping new forms of torture for our partners. Then there's the kit, of course, which all perverts love: getting new tools or new toys and using them for the first time, or bemoaning the loss of an old favourite. Knives, for example sit neatly in both worlds - I personally favour Global, but that's partly my love of all things Japanese as much as the joy in the blades themselves.

For me cooking sits with my D/s desires, because of how it meshes with control. I manage my kitchen with the same level of concern as I would a play space, probably more to be honest. Woe betide the person who steps foot unbidden within my kitchen for they will suffer greater than if they had interrupted a scene, and probably won't get fed either. There's another side to it too, which is about providing for, about seeing people smiling and happy, satisfied with something amazing, exciting and enriching that I have created - like delivering a good session, you can see their eyes glaze over with pleasure. Combine the two, and you have the perfect afternoon in: playing, fucking, eating and dozing until ready to do it again.