Pornography. There’s an awful lot of it about. Just go on the internet, and the sheer volume of it will burn out your laptop if you aren’t careful. I’ve seen it all, or at least I thought I had…
Then the other day I came upon something called ‘pantry porn’. Now before any of you lot start, let me quickly point out that this doesn’t involve getting your other half into a cupboard and slowly rubbing her down with warm olive oil (not that this of itself lacks appeal). No, it’s something far more outlandish and kinky than that. Pantry porn is a name that’s been given to the shocking fad of *gasp* posting pictures of your well stocked and ordered larder on social media for others to see.
By now some of you may have guessed that pantry porn is yet another loony contruct stemming from America’s deranged culture wars, and you’d be bang on the money. It’s the thesis of a giant of American academia, one Dr Jenna Drenten, who lectures in marketing or some such useless shit at Loyola University, Chicago. I’ll let Dr Drenten spell it out in her own words;
“Cleanliness has historically been used as a cultural gatekeeping mechanism to reinforce status distinctions based on a vague understanding of ‘niceness’; nice people with nice yards in nice houses make for nice neighbourhoods. What lies beneath the surface of this pro-niceness stance is a history of classist, racist and sexist social structures”.
According to Drenten, looking at pictures of a clean, nicely organised pantry thereby equate with viewing pornography. She calls these images ‘pantry porn’. Struth, who’d have thought it? A sexist and racist pantry. And who’d have thought that people can actually get themselves a tidy little sinecure in cloistered academia in order to come up with this piffle?
Meanwhile out in the real world, people are doing real jobs like collecting refuse and driving buses and trains, nursing the sick, producing food to feed us, and energy to light and heat homes and businesses; you know, the sorts of essential tasks that enable academics to sit in ivory towers and churn out worthless shit.
Here’s an idea Dr Drenten. Why don’t you get a real job and contribute something of actual value to the world? Just a thought…
Nominated by Ron Knee.
A racist Pantry, whatever next? CA.