Flashback Friday.
We are a species that reproduces sexually and has a penchant for power hierarchies. One thing that we’ve eroticized, then, is inequality. In other words, we have sexualized power asymmetry. I’m not necessarily talking about BDSM, though that may very well be part of it; I’m talking about the everyday gentle or not-so-gentle eroticization of power difference. If you’ve ever been turned on by the idea of overpowering or being overpowered, that’s what I’m talking about.
An image of a pear next to and curving over an apple, used to illustrate a New York Times article about the sexual partners of vegans, is a striking example of eroticized inequality.
The image, apparently, was chosen because it was a story about sexual relationships between vegans, or “fruity” types. But in order to make fruit look sexual, they positioned them asymmetrically with the pear not just standing next to the apple, or even taller than the apple, but towering over it. It’s the implication of power difference (and the satin sheets) that make this seem like a sexual image instead of, say, a sleepy one.
This post originally appeared in 2007.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 13
Gwen — December 10, 2007
Also the pear is terribly phallic.
Anonymous — December 14, 2007
Umm. sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Yes it implies sexual relations, but unless I'm missing something about copulation, the male has a protrusion and the female takes that protrusion into her. This is just sexual mechanics. You know this. That is why you assumed that the pear represented the male and the apple the female. WHy not the other way around?
But, yes, sexuality has all sorts of power-meaning attributed to it. I think your interpretation tells us more about the cultural stereotypes that you (the observer) bring to this picture than anything the picture conveys in and of itself.
Sex and Power » Sociological Images — November 25, 2009
[...] conflations of sex and power here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and [...]
Elena — May 2, 2014
Now, if they had used a peach instead of the apple and positioned it so it looked like a butt...
Bill R — May 3, 2014
I see a pear caring for or protecting an apple.
Ryan David — May 3, 2014
This is ludicrous. You have tenure? What do you teach in classes?
mograph — May 9, 2014
This article would have more power if it showed more than one example. As it is, it just shows the preferences of the NYT's photographer, art director and editor.
Of course, although those individuals may have been influenced by the patriarchal culture, if we could be shown a pattern of eroticized fruit with a power imbalance, then we'd really have something.
lemon — May 10, 2014
I think you guys risk obscuring the real problems of sexism with this trivial garbage.
km — May 10, 2014
All the people who are commenting about how there's nothing to criticize here are just exposing their own heteronormative bias.