Watermelon Sugar: Why Food Related Sexual Innuendos In The Media Are Brilliant
The world is sexual. Sensuality and sexuality saturate into the very core of our society. It is exhibited in our adverts, music, and media. Sexual innuendos have often permeated the lyrics of songs, copies in advertisements, and visuals in music videos. In the music scene, artists like Katy Perry have been known to produce creative material that heavily uses such themes. Most recently, Harry Styles went this route with his newly released “Watermelon Sugar” music video.
Watermelon Sugar was released as the fourth single on Harry Styles’ second studio album; Fine line. The song boasts of a few lines that suggest it’s not just a song about a fruit obsession.
“I just wanna taste it, I just wanna taste it. Watermelon sugar high. Tastes like strawberries on a summer evenin’. And it sounds just like a song. I want your belly and that summer feelin’. I don’t know if I could ever go without.”
What do you want to taste, Mr. Harry Styles? Eyebrow fully raised, the ushering in of the hippie-like music video pushed our eyebrows to further impossible heights. In an orgy-like explosion, the video shows Harry Styles and a plethora of girls ravishing watermelons. With the hook of the pop bop stuck in my mind, I went to my Instagram to ask people what they think the music video means. I got many answers, but not one consensus. Answers ranged from juicy butts, punani to just…stuff. What stuff? I ask. This, I believe, is the genius of sexual innuendos in the media.
Food and art have always gone hand in hand through history. Early Roman paintings of regal, sensual women dressed in cascading linen and laying on plump cushions usually had a lot of fruits… like fresh grapes and an occasional cup of wine. Don’t let anyone deceive you, the sexualization of food did not just spring up in this century. The combination has long since gone as far back as Ancient Greece, where fruits were established as aphrodisiacs and inculcated in paintings and literature.
Both food and sex share a definite similarity. In Ruggles Media’s Romancing the Scone: Social Media and the Sexualization of Food, Rachel Grozanick explains that food and sex are known to share the same part of the brain which is the orbitofrontal cortex. This part of the brain gets triggered during the tasting of food and orgasms. In fact, certain kinds of food like chocolate are known to give off an amount of dopamine; a hormone in the human body. This is also released during an orgasm.
Food is also pleasurable. Flashback to when you put a favorite freshly baked goodies in your mouth, took a bite and let the flavor fill your mouth; a deep moan escaping your lips. If you read that sentence back, I could as well have been talking about something sexual. Seeing as they share similar terms of description, it is no surprise both concepts are continuously interlinked and used heavily in the media.
At what age did you realize that Lil Wayne’s popular song “Lollipop’’ was not talking about hard candy? Grown years old (if your parents were doing their job right). We were all innocently singing this at a young age, thinking of our favorite candy. This I believe is the genius of sexual innuendos. It takes knowing the context. It is a coded message in which the receiver needs to have a file of specific knowledge to decode it.
There’s a deep-set worry raised every other weekend about how much sex is being showcased in the media and how it can corrupt the minds of the younglings. Sexual innuendos using fruits and candy seems like a brilliant way to circumvent that. Because — children don’t have the necessary context. Or what is usually jokingly said- they don’t have a “dirty mind”. It’s not a dirty mind, it’s just having context. If a child sees such, all he or she sees is watermelon, lollipops, and cherry pies and just that. A brilliant way of skipping over the minds of kids and directing the message to whom it was really meant for- grown-ups.
Harry Styles exploits this fully in his new music video. The pointed close-up shots of watermelons, the suggestive looks, the slow but intentional motions were enough to give us risque translations without actually giving us risque visuals. The video was an aesthetically beautiful yet simple one. Watching Harry Styles softly caress watermelons in painstakingly slow motions was enough to make my mouth water. Wink.
