Flashback Friday.
In her now-classic books The Sexual Politics of Meat and The Pornography of Meat, Carol Adams analyzes similarities in the presentation of meat products (or the animals they come from) and women’s bodies.
She particularly draws attention to sexualized fragmentation — the presentation of body parts of animals in ways similar to sexualized poses of women — and what she terms “anthropornography,” or connecting the eating of animals to the sex industry. For an example of anthropornography, Adams presents this “turkey hooker” cooking utensil:

Adams also discusses the conflation of meat/animals and women–while women are often treated as “pieces of meat,” meat products are often posed in sexualized ways or in clothing associated with women. The next eleven images come from Adams’s website:






For a more in-depth, theoretical discussion of the connections between patriarchy, gender inequality, and literal consumption of meat and symbolic consumption of women, we highly encourage you to check out Adams’s website.
This type of imagery has by no means disappeared, so we’ve amassed quite a collection of our own here at Sociological Images.
Blanca pointed us to Skinny Cow ice cream, which uses this sexualized image of a cow (who also has a measuring tape around her waist to emphasize that she’s skinny):
For reasons I cannot comprehend, there are Skinny Cow scrapbooking events.
Denia sent in this image of “Frankfurters” with sexy ladies on them. The text says “Undress me!” in Czech.
Finally, Teresa C. of Moment of Choice brought our attention to Lavazza coffee company’s 2009 calendar, shot by Annie Liebowitz (originally found in the Telegraph).
Spanish-language ads for Doritos (here, via Copyranter):


Amanda C. sent in this sign seen at Taste of Chicago:

Dmitiriy T.M. sent us this perplexing Hardee’s French Dip “commercial.” It’s basically three minutes of models pretending like dressing up as French maids for Hardees and pouting at the camera while holding a sandwich is a good gig:
Dmitriy also sent us this photo of Sweet Taters in New Orleans:

Jacqueline R. sent in this commercial for Birds Eye salmon fish sticks:
Crystal J. pointed out that a Vegas restaurant is using these images from the 1968 No More Miss America protest in advertisements currently running in the UNLV campus newspaper, the Rebel Yell. Here’s a photo from the protest:

Edward S. drew our attention to this doozy:
Dmitriy T.M. sent us this example from Louisiana:
Haven’t had enough? See this post, this post, and this post, too.
Originally posted in 2008.
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.



Comments 49
Evan Harper — August 5, 2009
I wonder how http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbKRSYAuSNg fits into this business.
Nia — October 6, 2009
The first Doritos ad is a reference to a soap opera, "Sin tetas no hay paraíso" (no boobs, no paradise). The odd title means that a girl who wants to be the lover of a drug dealer must get silicon implants and the show denounced, rather than condoned, that lifestyle. So, "No Doritos, No Paradise" is a very weird thing to say.
karinova — November 2, 2009
Obviously, most of these barely even make sense, but the the Kenneth Cole ad in particular stands out. Seriously. None of the elements relate to each other... or to shoes.
Let's see, we've got:
- A pun on "raise some hell" (wouldn't you expect a party scene? or hell? or horns on the shoes or something?)
- Sushi (I'm going to assume that's meant to be visual code for "sophisticated" or "cosmopolitan"?)
- A man's hand holding chopsticks (so... men will want to eat your feet? also, why does the hand have to be there at all?)
- Shoes/feet on a plate right next to food (an instinctively gross image for most people.)
- I'm sorry, I have to go back to that pun: what does it have to do with the image??
I don't get it.
They Skyy ad is similarly stupid, but at least the random not-related-to-naturalness shoe is lemon yellow!
Ike — December 8, 2009
What about the Green M&M?
Autumn — January 26, 2010
Unfortunately, I know where Quickie Burger is- it's in the next town over and I used to see it all the time when I bussed out of work. It always bothered me, for reasons I can't seem to articulate.
But the whole collection of pics definitely puts me off meat.
Becki Iverson — February 14, 2010
Can you tell me where you found that 1960's advertisement of the woman quartered into meat cuts? I'd love to try to find an original copy for a project.
Tina Russell — June 10, 2010
Wow. I have something of a food fetish, so I thought I’d be turned on by these. Instead, I’m horrified and disturbed! Good job on collecting all these!
Anonymous — July 20, 2010
Re: the fast food ads: it's kind of nice to see women enjoying heavy, greasy food portrayed in a positive light. It would be nicer if it wasn't necessary to connect said food with male genitalia and/or bodily fluids to make it acceptable.
Tom M. — September 1, 2010
When my sister was in high school, she had to do a presentation for English class on metaphor. Twin Peaks was on at the time, so she did 45 minutes of "food is sex", using a VHS "reel" edited to show some 20 examples from that series. Some examples were: "damn fine coffee", cherry pie, and a smoked cheese pig. It was hilarious, because it made so much sense.
All this to say that while many of the above examples are tasteless, the conflation of hunger and lust is pretty fundamental.
fergal hunter — September 2, 2010
I think you need to get out more.
Congratulations, you have wasted your time.
munchy — September 15, 2010
Also, this clip from Sweet November from 1:36 to 3:30:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58H69cxdrlc&feature=related
And this Black Books clip seems to be parodying the whole thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJqWjMNAeGs
belly — May 14, 2011
Here's another near my hometown in cape breton, nova scotia canada
http://www.foundshit.com/lick-a-chick-restaurant-sign/
Girl — May 17, 2011
You know, all those sausage ads should have a man in them. The shape sort of somes comes naturally to them..
Plop — January 14, 2012
I love the girl/map drinking. She's actually doing what you're supposed to do with a drink (and showing her breasts, yeah).
Anon Mouse — January 30, 2012
if someone hasn't already posted this:
http://rageagainstthemanchine.com/2009/12/09/burger-king-to-customers/
it's great!
Mel — February 18, 2012
In Australia there is a similar sexualised campaign for us to consume lamb/baby sheep
Mel — February 18, 2012
An example of one of the lamb ads
mizizzle — June 22, 2013
These images made me nauseous.