Sex and food, arguably what many would cite as the best things in life. They are undeniably fundamental aspects of what it is to be a human being and they occupy a similar importance in both the private and public realms of humanity. My interest is in seeing how our intentional understandings, (i.e. the power of our minds to be about something, to constitute meanings) are ever present in how we approach both sex and food. Finding a parallel between both, and in bonding them together in such a way, positing an appreciation of what human life is through sensual pleasure, and how sensual pleasure is as much mental as it is physical. We view sex and food as base and ‘animalistic’ but we also attach higher order concepts such as trust, hospitality, creativity and love to such practises: ideals which help to shape our world and attach meanings to it. So through sex and food and all the mess that comes with it (both figuratively and literally) we have an understanding of ourselves as embodied minds. Our connection – as almost a first person boundary – between the material world and the mental world is realised when we eat and cook, when we desire and have sex.

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Just something to think about next time you’re post-coital and eating pizza in bed.

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Illustration: Jess Baxter