There is an implication to the term “porn.” It suggests something inherently sexual. Because of this, William Taylor, Kansas State communication studies professor, said scholars should not use the term in connection with food.
Taylor will be making his argument by presenting a paper in front of an international audience of food studies scholars.
“The paper itself looks at the moniker ‘porn’ as it relates to things like posting on Instagram or taking a picture of a meal you just made,” Taylor said.
Taylor defines “food porn” as the act of taking or looking at high-quality pictures of food. This phenomenon can be found all over the internet.
His argument is that the terms “food voyeurism,” being the act of watching another person’s life, or “food exhibitionism,” the act of showing the public something, would be more accurate.
Taylor has been selected by the Seventh International Conference on Food Studies to present his paper on the moniker of food porn. The conference is in Rome this October.
Taylor’s application process for the conference included providing the abstract for his paper well in advance.
“It’s odd that I got a rhetoric paper in there, I’m hoping that means they liked it,” Taylor said.
He said he believes inclusion in this food conference is an accomplishment for his self-funded research efforts.
“While (the food conference is) not typically attended by our department, we do strive for international engagement and this is an excellent opportunity to broaden the scope of communication studies research as a field of study,” Natalie Pennington, assistant communication studies professor, said.
This year, the conferences goals aligned with Taylor’s research.
“Taylor’s work is pertinent to the thematic goals of the conference, which includes a focus on food politics, policies and culture,” Pennington said.
Taylor’s method for research is different from that of a lot of traditional research papers.
“It’s more rhetorical in nature, especially the metaphoric analysis,” Taylor said.
Taylor said a lot of his research was reading scholarly papers and forming arguments around those ideas.
“As a researcher, or a communications scholar, it’s important to have a basis for the claims that we’re making and the things that we’re studying,” Taylor said.
Taylor said he hopes that his arguments can help provide that basis and give people a framework to study “food porn.”
“This (food porn) phenomenon is accessed on a daily basis by hundreds of thousands of people,” Taylor said.
Taylor said his paper is targeted more at the scholarship community than it is at Twitter or Instagram pages that specialize in photographs of food.
Nolen Yapp, avid food photographer, said it is likely it will not catch on with the online food porn community.
“When I say ‘food voyeurism,’ it’s like I’m going to a five-star restaurant where my food costs more than my shoes,” Yapp said.
