Women’s Conflicts About Eating and Sexuality: The Relationship Between Food and Sex

210 Pages·1992·8.479 MB·English

by  Lillie Weiss, Rosalyn M. Meadow

Women's Conflicts
About Eating
and Sexuality
The Relationship
Between Food and Sex
This page intentionally left blank
Women's Conflicts
About Eating
and Sexuality
The Relationship
Between Food and Sex
Rosalyn M. Meadow, PhD
Lillie Weiss, PhD
I
~ ~~o~~~;n~~;up ~~o~~~;n~~;up
NEW YORK AND LONDON
First published by
The Haworth Press, Inc.
lO Alice Street
Binghamton, N Y 13904-1580
This edition published 2012 by Routledge
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
711 Third Avenue 27 Church Road, Hove
New York, NY 10017 East Sussex, BN3 2F A
ISBN 0-918393-98-1
© 1992 by the Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm
and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Meadow, Rosalyn M.
Women's conflicts about eating and sexuality: the relationship between food and sex / Rosalyn
M. Meadow, Lillie Weiss.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-91S393-9S-1 (alk. paper)
1. Eating disorders-United States-History-2Oth century. 2. Psychosexual disorders-United
States-History-2Oth century. 3. Women-Mental health-United States-History-2Oth century.
I. Weiss, Lillie. II. Title.
RC552.E1SM43 1992b
616.S5'2600S2-dc20 91-19205
elP
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Chapter 1: Good Girls Don't Eat Dessert ....... ... .... 1
Chapter 2: The Love Affair with Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 13
Cathy: "I Just Can't Control My Eating" ............ 15
Food: The Consuming Passion ...... .... ........... 16
The Sexualization of Food: The Eating Orgy .. .. . . . .. 19
Jane: The Very Good Girl .. .......... .. ........... 21
Fran: The Big Bad Girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Staggering Statistics . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Chapter 3: Eat and Be Thin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Diet Madness ........... ......... .... ........ .. . 25
Fat Farms and Other Fat Fighters ........ ........... 29
The Quest for the Perfect Body .................. . . 31
Extreme Measures ............................... 35
The Double Message ............................. 37
An Age-Old Dilemma .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Chapter 4: To Do It or Not To Do It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Sex Is Only for Mothers .......................... 43
Don't Touch "Down There" ..... .... .......... .. . 46
Sexual Ignorance ... .. ........ .. ................. 47
Faking Orgasms ......... ... ......... .. .......... 49
The Sweet Mystery of Love ....................... 51
Keeping the Hymen Intact at all Costs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Petting: The Agony and the Ecstasy ........ ... ...... 54
Sex Is Always on My Mind ....................... 55
Shared Secrets ................................ . . , 56
Good Girls Don't Go "All the Way" ............... 59
Anything for Love ...... ............ ........ .... , 61
Chapter 5: The Sexual Revolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 63
It's O.K. to Touch "Down There" ................. 64
Debunking Sexuru .......................... 66
~yths
Liberating Orgasm ............ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 67
The Sexuru Liberty Bell Is Ringing ................. 68
Casuru Sex and One Night Stands .................. 70
Chapter 6: Sex: More Trouble Than It's Worth ......... 73
The Number One Complaint: Lack of Sexual
Desire ....................................... 74
Sex: One Demand .......................... 75
~ore
The Single Woman: "Where Do 1 Fit Sex
into ~y Life?" ................................ 78
A Good Is Rard to Find. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 81
~an
The ~echanization of Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 82
Is It Worth Dying For? ........................... 84
Chapter 7: The Flight from Feeling and the Lack
of Intimacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 87
Chapter 8: When Eating Was Okay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 93
The Way to a Reart ........................ 94
~an's
The Name of the Game: A Perfect Size Twelve ....... 95
From Goddesses to Svelte
~ammary
Superwomen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 97
Chapter 9: Consuming Passions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 101
Compulsive Cravings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 103
Getting in the ~ood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 105
The Double Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 107
The "Food" Response Cyde ..................... 108
Excesses of the Flesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 11 0
Controlling the Appetites ......................... 112
Sexual Anorexia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 115
It's Dangerous to Tamper with Normru
Appetites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 117
Chapter 10: Food, Sex, Love and Power . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 119
Food Is My Lover .............................. 119
Sex and Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 125
Narcissisrn and the Quest for the Perfect
Body ....................................... 127
"Lean and Mean" .............................. 129
Wornen, Weight and Power ....................... 132
The Need to Belong ............................. 134
Unhe~thy Dependency ........................... 136
on ...................
What Are Little Girls Made 137
"She' s So Pretty ... " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 139
Still Trying To Be Good Girls .................... 141
Chapter 11: Breaking Free . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 143
Ch~lenging the Rules: Why Should My
Happiness Depend on a Nurnber on the Sc~e? . . . .. 144
Exploding the Myth: Does Thinness Bring
Etem~ Love and Happiness? ................... 146
Examining the Costs: Is It W orth Dying For? . . . . . . .. 148
Accepting the Body as It Is ....................... 151
Thinking He~thy Instead of Thin .................. 157
Becorning Persons Instead of Products .............. 159
N ourishing the Self ............................. 161
Developing a "He~thy Selfishness" ............... 163
Chapter 12: Toward a New Consciousness. . . . . . . . . . . .. 167
Fat Is Just a Size ............................... 167
Fighting Fat Discrirnination .... ' ................... 170
Creating New Resources for Fat Wornen ............ 172
Creating New Images, New Role Models
and a New Vocabulary ........................ 175
Onward to the 1990s ............................ 176
References ........................................ 179
Index ....... , ................. , ................... 185
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Rosalyn M. Meadow, PhD, and Lillie Weiss, PhD, are psycholo
ogists in private practice who each have over 20 years of experience
working with women with eating disorders and sexual problems. They
have collaborated on a variety of projects, including many papers
and several narrated slide presentations. Drs. Meadow and Weiss
have run numerous workshops and classes on sexuality and eating
disorders, trained physicians and clinicians, and spoken at national
and international conferences.
Dr. Meadow is a certified sex therapist, specializing in sexual
dysfunctions. Previously, she was Professor of Sociology at Scotts
dale Community College where she introduced Human Sexuality
courses into the curriculum. In her doctoral dissertation, she examined
the relationship between women's weight and their sexual respon
siveness. Dr. Meadow is a member of the American Psychological
Association.
Dr. Weiss is Director of the Clinical Psychology Center at Arizona
State University. A member of the Arizona State Psychological
Association and the Maricopa Psychological Society, she is the author
of three books, including Treating Bulimia: A Psychoeducational
Approach (Pergamon Press, 1985), and You Can't Have Your Cake
and Eat It Too: A Program for Controlling Bulimia (R. & E.
Publishers, 1986).
Preface
We wrote this book for every woman who steps on the scale with
fear and trepidation, anxiously awaiting the verdict. It is a book for
every woman who believes she is too fat and is never happy with
her weight. It is a book for the young single woman who finds com
fort from a soothing scoop of ice cream, the career woman who
squeezes daily aerobic classes into her already busy schedule, and
for all the women who know the caloric content of every morsel that
crosses their lips.
The seeds for our book germinated several years ago as we were
eating lunch and discussing the food madness pervading our culture.
We noted that some women were starving themselves, others threw
up their food or tortured their bodies through exercise, and some
even submitted to surgery to be thin. Our lunchtime conversation
extended into more conversation about the lengths to which women
would go in their pursuit of thinness. As psychologists who have
each worked with women for over 20 years, we wanted to under
stand this strange preoccupation with food. We knew that for a
phenomenon to be so pervasive, it had to tap into a universal need
for women. We felt that this was not a passing fad or fancy but an
obsession that had at its core issues of major significance for women.
We tried to really understand this strange state of affairs, not only
on an intellectual level, but to get under women's skins and empathize
with what was going on. We explored our own feelings, we listened
to our clients, we talked to our friends, we read the popular and
professional literature, and we observed the culture. Slowly we came
to understand that food and eating were a metaphor for what is
required for survival as a woman in today' s society.
The more we explored this phenomenon, the more we could see
a striking resemblance between the current conflict-to eat or not
to eat-and the dilemma for women 30 years ago-to do "it" or
not to do "it." Having grown up in the 1950s and 1960s ourselves
ix