Sweet post (giggity giggity).

What is the takeaway of this post?

I'm surprised you don't mention race in your post -- it's an important aspect of much imagery involving white female sexual transgression, and seems relevant here.

Honestly commercials like that turn me away from chocolate. They're just a reminder of how orgasms are way better than candy.

For an amazing parody of the first video, watch this one by a feminist art student: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-lFVpZBlRA

I think the point about 'enhancing femininity' is important. The blunt association of chocolate with femininity, girliness, sexiness, etc, turns it into a gendered activity; proclaiming your love for chocolates is a way to proclaim yourself as feminine. You also then can in conversations berate yourself for being 'bad', which is much nicer than a discussion about why you earn less than your male counterparts I suppose.
It is incredibly symbolic. Whilst waiting for an extremely dreaded and anxiety-causing phone call on day, I ate half a family block (and all my nails) because the idea of chocolate as a 'comfort food' or a 'stress relieving food' was so entrenched in my mind, even though I *knew* it was just propaganda. If I were male, would I have reached for the chocolate? I'm not sure.

Okay, I'll bite...:o)

I don't like that sceen shot of the man being licked by those women because he looked like he was in blackface to me.

And one interpretation of that video could be "white girls love chocolate men" (as a person wrote on that YouTube video's comment thread).

Yeah I know-people are gonna think what they want to think. But given the racial realities of the USA (and elsewhere), it seems to me that the producers of this video would have been more culturally competent if one of the models licking that black man-excuse me, that chocolate man had been a Woman of color.

Firstly, I wonder if the "don't eat chocolate because it makes you fat" fits into this in a way more than just as a taboo. That is, to some extent you are supposed to be beautiful to achieve satisfying sexual relationships (though of course this isn't the only reason). So is saying "you can be satisfied by chocolate so you don't need to watch your weight" part of it?

Secondly, I think gendering chocolate is interesting because it could turn the male consumers away. Chocolate is seen as a feminine food, so perhaps boys are less likely to eat it. Have marketers attempted to make chocolate masculine in advertising? You know: "This is a MAN'S CHOCOLATE" the way they do with other things? I can't think of any examples, which surprises me.

Nice. Another good reading in this vein is Hunger as Ideology by Susan Bordo.

I don't know about you all, but after seeing those ads, now I just feel like having some luscious, creamy, decadent chocolate. : )

Reminds me of how there is Pocky, in japan, and then there is also a "men's pocky".

What's really weird about this, is that all the real chocoholics I've known have been men!

My boyfriend always (always!) has a bar of chocolate in one of the butter-holders in the refrigerator. He restocks when running low.

Though I think the whole chocolate craze has to do more with the seven deadly sins than "weight gain." Lust and gluttony go hand-in-hand.

The idea that chocolate contains chemicals that are similar to the mild-altering components found in ecstasy and marijuana, and evoke a feeling similar to falling in love, is now widespread. In actuality, studies have found that the amounts of these mood-enhancing chemicals are at such a low level that it is unlikely they lead to the euphoria that some feel when they consume chocolate.

There's a little more to it than that, or at least it's not an established fact that the effects widely associated with eating chocolate are placebo.

Some of the drugs/chemicals in chocolate inhibit the metabolization of others, acting as de facto potentiators of those chemicals; for example the anandamide in chocolate is also an endogenous cannabanoid naturally produced in our brains and the source of the claim that chocolate is like marijuana, but someone has to to eat 6-8 pounds of chocolate in a short time to gain a noticeable effect. However, two other chemicals in chocolate (couldn't find their names just now) are known to inhibit the breakdown of anandamide, allowing it to remain in the bloodstream much longer than it would remain by itself. So, there is a strong possibility that the anandamide in chocolate actually does exhibit noticeable effects to a consumer of a reasonably sized portio thanks to the effects of other chemicals present.

And like with any mood altering chemical, people's sensitivities vary considerably. The phenylethylamine in chocolate may not affect most people's moods as the majority of it obtained from chocolate is metabolized before reaching our central nervous system, but a small percentage of people are very sensitive to even small amounts of it (it's one of the chemicals naturally produced in our brains, is associated with feelings of being in love, and our natural level of it peaks during orgasm). Differing sensitivities might be why some people seem to be such chocolate fiends.

Also, the amount of chocolate most people eat when they're getting their fix is high enough in theobromine for most people to notice it's mood elevating and stimulating effect. It's also good for lowering blood pressure.

I'd like to know if the studies downplaying chocolate's mood altering effects studied chocolate the way it's consumed by most people or if each constituent chemical was tested on subjects individually since it's well known in pharmacology that many drugs inhibit, alter, or potentiate the activity of other drugs. Since chocolate is such a complex mix of chemicals it seems likely that at least some of the reported effects are due to synergistic interactions and others are likely sue to widely varying sensitivities among consumers.

And finally there's the whole issue of what constitutes "real" chocolate. My sister runs a chocolate shop and only uses high-grade dark chocolate, all natural ingredients and no preservatives, and since opening the shop her cholesterol and blood pressure have dropped to well within safe levels (they both used to be too high). I don't think that would've happened had she eaten the same amount of Hershey's or some other god-awful milk chocolate variety that's mostly fat, sugar, and milk so the question remains for me as to what type of chocolate the researchers used in their studies.

Truly dark chocolate (cocoa content above ~60% or so) has relatively little fat and sugar and may contain no dairy at all, and with it's high bioflavonoid content could arguably be labeled a health food. Sickly-sweet and high-fat milk chocolate (the kind generally preferred by the American palette) is a different beast entirely and in all probability merely gives consumers a brief sugar rush and then turns into body fat, at best.

Sarah Haskins of the brilliant segment Target Women does a funny send-up of this sort of advertising. Users in the USA can find it here:
http://current.com/shows/infomania/89789741_sarah-haskins-in-target-women-chocolate.htm

This is so true! I'm so over the decadent indulgences which, being a guy, alienates me from chocolate.. Which is why you'll see the non-mass market chocolatiers taking a more grassroots approach, plus tying in this whole green/organic/raw ingredients story to create quite a commendable story, which I covered on my recent visit to the Chocolate Show 2010.

http://sssourabh.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/chocolate-devotion/

Thanks for a great article!