0:03

Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told

0:05

you. From House top works dot com.

0:12

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline

0:14

and I'm Kristen, and uh today

0:17

we're talking about a favorite topic

0:19

of mine and I was preparing for

0:22

the topic of chocolate last night,

0:24

Kristen by shoving

0:26

chocolate Easter eggs one after

0:28

another into my face because every

0:31

year my mother, I'm thirty,

0:33

my mother makes Easter baskets.

0:36

She may one for Kristen as well, don't worry, but

0:39

I I feel like I was doing some

0:41

really good, hard hitting chocolate

0:43

research. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's

0:46

important to get a little meadow with things

0:48

and fuel your chocolate research with

0:50

chocolate. I myself have also been enjoying

0:53

the chocolate Easter eggs your mother so

0:55

generously gave to me in my own Easter basket.

0:57

I don't know the last time my mom gave me

1:00

an Easter basket. So if

1:02

I tell her that another person's mom

1:05

gave me an Easter basket, it might cause a little

1:07

friction, Yeah, a little mom friction. So

1:09

I don't know if I'll if I'll film my mom in on that.

1:12

But I'm a little surprised

1:14

that it's taken us this long to get around

1:17

to women in chocolate, because is

1:19

there a more stereotypically

1:22

women woman

1:24

good than chocolate? Yeah,

1:26

other than shoes, I don't think so. Yeah.

1:29

I mean it's like shoes, Kathy comics,

1:31

chocolate. There we go, and the last

1:33

two are basically one and the same exactly.

1:36

So we got to talk about women

1:38

in chocolate because the question I

1:40

wanted to know was what's up

1:43

with the stereotype that women

1:45

are just these chocolate craving

1:48

monsters who, according to commercials,

1:51

also really want to have sex

1:53

with chocolate. Interesting? Yeah,

1:56

that I don't think that's been

1:58

quite proven yet that we do want to

2:00

have sex with chocolate, or that we would rather

2:02

have chocolate van sex.

2:07

Interesting. Yeah. I would like to kick

2:09

this off though, with a quote from Kathleen

2:12

Banks Nutter, who wrote an

2:14

essay on sort of the history of

2:16

women in chocolate in the book Edible

2:18

Ideologies Representing Food and Meaning.

2:21

She wrote, what food is more easily

2:24

gendered and eroticized than

2:26

chocolate. So, ladies

2:28

and gentlemen, you're in for quite a treat

2:30

with this podcast. Yeah, I um,

2:33

you know, the based on the amount

2:35

of chocolate that I crave. You

2:38

know, if you were. If you were to tell me in this

2:40

podcast, Kristen, that's something

2:43

in women's body is whether

2:45

it's their brain or their uterus, is

2:47

programming them to eat more chocolate. I'd

2:49

be kind of prone to believe you, because

2:52

I feel like I don't know too many dudes who

2:54

are like super into chocolate who have to have

2:56

chocolate on hand. Um.

2:59

But I don't think that's we're going to tell you

3:01

know because also Caroline, I'm going to go ahead

3:03

and put it out there. I'm more of a salty

3:05

tooth than a sweet tooth. If you were

3:08

to offer me a bag of potato chips

3:10

and a bag of chocolate chips, I

3:13

would take the potato

3:15

the potato product. See,

3:17

I have a weird, a weird thing

3:20

that I would love to get rid of, which is that after

3:23

every meal that you know, typically

3:25

include something savory, I have to

3:27

have something chocolate to finish it off. Either

3:29

that I've got to like shove a bunch of gum into my face

3:31

so that I don't go after whatever's chocolate

3:34

around me. I've been known to like go through

3:36

the office just like lifting up people's bags,

3:38

like do you have any I need? So well,

3:41

this podcast, this is kind of especially for

3:43

you, Caroline. It's yeah,

3:45

it's sounding that way. So let's

3:47

go over just a few chocolate

3:49

statistics to get an idea of what we're

3:52

dealing with, because the thing is,

3:54

when it comes to women in chocolate

3:56

and our desires for it,

3:59

it seems like a lot of it is perhaps

4:02

cultural, because it's a lot more popular,

4:04

for instance, in Europe than it is in

4:06

Asia. So if we look just in the UK,

4:10

of women say that they eat it regularly.

4:13

But at the same time, seven

4:16

percent of British men say that

4:18

they fancy chocolate. Yeah,

4:20

so they're over there shoving cadberry stuff

4:22

into their face. But it's not it's not a massive

4:24

gender gap. Now maybe

4:27

maybe women. Could it be that women

4:29

are just made out to be crazy for chocolate

4:31

more so than men, we'll find out, Caroline.

4:34

Um. But over in Germany

4:36

they're the ones eating the most chocolate, And can I

4:38

blame them when they have things like kinder eggs?

4:41

Kind Sally, you know, speaking

4:43

of my mother. Sally is a flight attendant.

4:46

She flies to Germany. She smuggles

4:49

back kinder eggs for me and has ever

4:51

since I was little kids, So I have all those little

4:54

toys that you put together that are a severe choking

4:56

hazard. Basically, your mom gives you

4:58

the best candies, Caroline, my mom is the Easter

5:00

Bunny. Yeah. But

5:03

moving away from Eastern looking, just at Valentine's

5:06

Day, Americans purchased more than

5:08

sixty million pounds

5:10

of chocolate for February fourteenth

5:12

alone, and more than sevent of

5:15

that chocolate will be given by

5:17

men to women. So with

5:19

that, you're starting to see what we'll talk about a lot

5:22

more in terms of this gendered

5:24

economy of chocolate buying

5:26

and bestowing. And

5:29

as far as cravings go, like the cravings

5:32

I have on like a ten minute

5:34

by ten minute basis throughout the day, women

5:37

tend to report craving chocolate more

5:39

than men do. But again this

5:41

is mainly focused on Western women. All

5:44

those studies like the one that Kristen sided earlier

5:46

about showing that there was such a small gender

5:49

gap between men and women in the UK eating

5:51

chocolate, most surveys do

5:53

show that there is a negligible gender

5:55

difference, but there is a difference

5:58

in the guilt we feel. Women report more

6:00

post chocolate guilt after eating it compared

6:02

to men, which I

6:05

also kind of would own up to like, after

6:07

I shove a bunch of well, okay, maybe way after

6:09

I shove a bunch of chocolate, Once the glow has

6:11

faded, after I've shoved

6:13

a whole bunch of sugary chocolate in my face, then I'm

6:15

like, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Maybe it's

6:17

just you coming down from a sugar high. Yeah, and

6:19

I start like twitching and itching. Oh

6:22

no. But speaking of

6:24

those chocolate cravings, just one more

6:26

aside on that. Looking at the

6:28

Western women's chocolate cravings, you'll

6:31

see a lot of reports

6:33

that chocolate is the most widely

6:35

craved food. But

6:38

again, if you that's probably focused

6:40

on Westerners,

6:43

because if you look at a place like Egypt, for instance,

6:45

there was a study finding that women

6:47

and men both preferred savory

6:49

and had more savory cravings because it was

6:52

more related to their local cuisine,

6:54

right, And and kind of along those same lines,

6:56

I mean, I would argue you know that that, I

6:58

mean that makes sense that, uh, based

7:01

on what you typically eat, you're going

7:03

to crave certain things. And you know, I've

7:05

noticed the more I eat chocolate, the more I crave

7:07

it, and the less I eat chocolate, the less I crave it. Yeah,

7:10

and the more I eat potatoes, the

7:12

more potato chips just raw,

7:15

Chris, It's so weird. She has this whole

7:17

drawer full of potatoes and she's rip one out like

7:19

an apple and bite into it. My podcasting

7:21

secret car bloating, constant

7:24

car bloating. Um. But before

7:26

we get into where this

7:28

women and chocolate connection really

7:30

comes from, let's go back in time

7:34

and see where chocolate comes from.

7:36

Because within the history of chocolate,

7:38

we start to see how it becomes more

7:40

gendered as it moves from

7:42

its origin in Mesoamerica to

7:45

Europe. Right. Yeah, they actually

7:47

found they I mean, you

7:49

know, the people who look for these things, chocolate

7:51

pirates. Chocolate pirates actually

7:53

found cacao residue

7:56

in pottery in Honduras that dates

7:58

back as far as fourteen hundred BC.

8:00

And just side note, um, in case

8:02

you're wondering throughout this podcast, anytime we say kacao,

8:05

I'm just going to think of the Portlandia sketch

8:08

where cacao is the safe word. But

8:12

anyway, so, yeah, it dates back a

8:14

long time in Mesoamerica and the

8:16

Mayans were drinking it by three

8:18

a d. And when the Aztecs,

8:21

you know, like they did conquered

8:23

the Mayans, they started taking up

8:25

the drinking of chocolate as well, and

8:28

not only did they drink it, as

8:30

tech, supposedly ate it off each other's bodies

8:33

during sex. They considered The

8:35

word for chocolate in their language is something

8:38

along the lines of like choco lattle.

8:41

It's there's a lot of consonants next to each other,

8:43

but that basically translates to a holy fetish.

8:45

That's how much they liked it. That's so cosmo

8:48

of them. Yeah,

8:51

I can just I'm picturing like an ancient as

8:53

tech cosmopolitan. Hey, as tech

8:56

ladies, you wanna you wanna get

8:58

your man going, get some chocol you

9:00

want to avoid getting sacrificed this month,

9:03

it's so chocolate during sex. So

9:06

then in fifteen nineteen we

9:08

have Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez being

9:10

exposed to this magical sexy

9:13

chocolate for the first time in the court

9:15

of Montezuma the second and

9:17

then by five we

9:19

have chocolate being shipped to

9:21

Europe along with these ideas

9:24

of its connections to sex,

9:26

and very quickly from that it's connection

9:29

to women. By the sixteenth century,

9:32

you have chocolate in Europe being conceptualized

9:35

as an aphrodisiac. Right,

9:38

and one Spanish physician,

9:40

Antonio Culminero de

9:42

Laedisma, I'm sure I said

9:44

that wrong, wrote in the seventeenth century

9:46

that chocolate vehemently incites

9:49

to venus and causes conception in

9:51

women, hastens and facilitates their

9:53

delivery. And I

9:55

just have to that I I say, oh,

9:57

is that how babies are? Right? Yeah, if chocolate

10:00

cause of conception in women, thank god,

10:02

I'm on birth control. Um.

10:04

But yeah, in Europe, it's it's interesting to see that,

10:07

Um, they took this, this

10:09

this treat or this beverage or this

10:11

sexy time making item

10:14

and they ended up sweetening it to make it taste

10:16

better. Because back when there were

10:18

all these Spanish explorers in Mesoamerica

10:20

hanging out with the Aztecs, one of them

10:22

described it as a bitter drink for

10:25

pigs. But then when it's transported

10:27

over to Europe and it's sweetened, that's when it starts

10:29

to become kind of a luxury item. Yeah, it's

10:31

important to remember that chocolate way way back

10:33

in the day is not like the chocolate

10:36

Easter eggs that you might be eating. It's super

10:38

sweet and smooth. It was a pretty

10:40

intense food that was

10:43

often Yeah, I was often drunk. And Casanova

10:46

also side notes, supposedly ate it to

10:48

aid his virility. It was like

10:51

yield viagra. Or maybe

10:53

he just kept it on hand for all this chocolate loving

10:55

ladies that stopped by. Yeah, he just

10:57

had like a witness sampler that he could slide. Maybe

11:00

that was his secret. And so

11:02

when it comes though to the gendering

11:05

of chocolate, this happens pretty soon after

11:07

it's imported to Europe. According to more

11:10

Rosen Bloom, for instance, who wrote a

11:12

book all about the history of chocolate. He

11:14

says that once chocolate

11:17

arrived in Spain pretty quickly you

11:19

have men drinking coffee

11:21

and stronger stuff and women drinking

11:23

the chocolate. And this was something too

11:26

that reminded me of our research for our

11:28

episode on gender and coffee.

11:31

Was how with the old coffee houses in

11:34

England it was mostly men and the women

11:37

were at home drinking chocolate, right

11:40

or how even now if you walk into a Starbucks, you

11:42

know, hearing from all of our listeners who work

11:44

at coffee shops saying that, oh, the men walk

11:46

in and they order espresso or black coffee and

11:48

the women are ordering mochas. Exactly

11:51

interesting. Well, not only was it

11:53

a gender drink, but it was also sort of an elitist

11:56

thing too. When it made its way to Europe

11:58

from the New World, it was pretty

12:00

much solely reserved for the nobility of Spain,

12:03

Italy, and France. It basically became

12:05

a luxury where dainty ladies

12:08

enjoyed it, and they transformed the enjoyment

12:10

of chocolate into a highly refined social

12:12

event. And this is coming from Jamal Fahim's

12:15

thesis Beyond Craving, and

12:17

he points out that this is sort of the beginning of chocolate

12:20

as a fetish that communicates social

12:22

status and upper class femininity,

12:25

and that upper class femininity is

12:27

going to continue to

12:30

broaden its reach within the growing

12:32

chocolate industry. As you see in the

12:34

eighteen hundreds, how chocolate is

12:36

transformed from this grittier drink

12:38

into the type of chocolate that we

12:40

think of today. That's a smooth bar

12:43

that's really sweet. It's a very

12:45

tantalizing for our senses.

12:48

And this happens through a number of

12:50

innovations, starting in eighty

12:53

eight with a Dutch entrepreneur named

12:55

Conrad Johannes van Houghton who

12:58

figures out how to press

13:00

those cocao safe

13:03

word cacao beans to separate

13:05

the dry cocoa from cocoa butter

13:07

that makes chocolate less bitter

13:10

and smooth. And

13:14

by eighteen fifty we have englishmen Joseph

13:16

Fry mixing sugar with cocoa butter

13:19

and making the first solid chocolate bar.

13:21

So he's like Joseph Frys, like

13:23

the patron saint of of all

13:25

that is good and happy in this world. For me,

13:28

I guess I should wear like a necklace with his picture

13:30

on it. Um

13:32

More developments come in eighteen seventy

13:34

nine when Rodolf Lint

13:37

of you know Lint Chocolate, invented

13:39

conking, a process that also smoothed

13:42

chocolate, and he actually used a machine that

13:44

looks like a conk shell, hence Cleverland.

13:49

Uh So, because of all these innovations, by

13:51

the early nineteen hundreds you have guys

13:53

like Henry Nestley or would

13:55

that be Onree Nestle, Milton

13:58

Hershey and others who

14:00

are in the chocolate game. And so all of

14:02

a sudden you have at the beginning of the twentieth century

14:05

this growing chocolate business. And what's

14:07

interesting too, as we were talking about the gender

14:09

of it, if you look at the manufacturing

14:12

of chocolate, all those chocolate bars

14:14

that were eating a lot of times,

14:16

especially in the earlier twentieth

14:18

century, it becomes gradually

14:21

feminized as well. You have more and more women

14:23

working in these factories. So not only are women

14:26

becoming the target consumers of chocolate,

14:28

they're also often the ones on the factory floors

14:31

making the chocolates. So every day it

14:33

was like Lucy and Ethel, you're

14:35

working the chocolate. Okay, great, I'll just

14:37

keep that image in my head as well as the

14:40

Portland a sketch, so my brain is is

14:42

at capacity. There is a darker

14:44

side, of course, um to chocolate

14:46

making, and this is something that still

14:48

goes on today in some parts of the world

14:50

where they grow cow trees

14:53

and make chocolate, and that is

14:55

the fact that there are child labor

14:57

issues that that we rugle

15:00

with as well as environmental issues like

15:02

rainforest being stripped, the soil

15:04

being stripped of nutrients by planting these

15:07

trees over and over again. So

15:09

that has actually driven some companies

15:11

to you know, get into

15:13

the fair trade thing, make sure that they're

15:16

having positive sources for their

15:19

beings basically. Yeah, and and those

15:21

those sourcing issues are as relevant to chocolate

15:23

as they are to our conversation on

15:26

coffee. But we're not going to focus

15:28

so much on the manufacturing side

15:30

of it, but rather the

15:32

advertising of chocolate, because

15:36

you can actually trace

15:38

women's history in the twentieth

15:41

century in the United States through chocolate

15:43

ads. Essentially, just by

15:45

the way that chocolate is framed

15:48

really shows women's level

15:51

of social mobility and their

15:53

relationship to men. It's

15:56

fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating because this

15:58

is coming. You know, this starts after the Industrial

16:00

Revolution, when you've got guys like Milton Hershey

16:02

making a cheaper, more available

16:05

chocolate bar. I guess he's like the Henry Ford of candy,

16:08

uh, making it more available to people. And

16:10

so once it is more readily available, you

16:12

have to sell it. You have to make people

16:14

aware that it is not something for just

16:17

uppercrust elite ladies, that it's

16:19

for everyone. Yeah, and we already

16:22

have these longstanding connotations

16:24

of chocolate with sex

16:27

and romance and luxury,

16:30

and so what better thing

16:33

to sell to dainty ladies.

16:35

But in the Victorian era, depictions

16:38

of women gorging on chocolate

16:40

in the same way that we think of today of like,

16:43

you know, just chocolate crazed women that

16:45

would not have been kosher. That would have

16:47

totally violated the female

16:49

norms of the time, because this was at the time

16:52

too when women would not have been

16:54

you would not want to be seen, like eating a lot of food

16:56

like all you can eat buffets not okay

16:59

for the Torrian women to indulge in. So

17:01

they were supposed to eat more like ladies.

17:04

So a lot of times if you see Victorian

17:06

ads for chocolate, the women

17:08

aren't necessarily eating the chocolate

17:10

in the ads, but maybe holding it close

17:13

to their mouths just sort of tantalizing.

17:16

If you want to find a good way to get me to gorge

17:19

on chocolate, it's to make me hold it away from

17:21

my face for too long before I eat it, and

17:23

then it's just like cookie monster, it's

17:26

just over. But yeah, you couldn't with these,

17:28

with these proper Victorian ladies, you

17:30

couldn't show them over indulging. You couldn't

17:32

have them exhibiting any type

17:34

of desire because again, chocolate

17:37

being kind of an aphrodisiac, considered

17:39

to be an aphrodisiac tied in with wooing

17:42

people and whatnot. If a

17:44

woman is shown to not only gorge on

17:46

it, but really want it and desire it, then

17:49

it's getting hot up in those Victorian homes.

17:51

Yeah. But when you move into the progressive

17:54

air, out of the Victorian era, into

17:56

the progressive air, you have the rise of

17:58

the new woman. You have the suffrage

18:00

movement taking place. You have women

18:03

having a little bit more social mobility.

18:05

They might be driving cars every now and then. Yeah,

18:08

and and the whole rituals of dating

18:10

outside the home are starting to take

18:13

shape. And so chocolate advertisers

18:15

are thinking, Okay, how are we going

18:17

to advertise to

18:20

this new woman. How are we going

18:22

to frame chocolate as something that she needs

18:25

in her life? Oh, dating,

18:27

gentleman callers, what better gift

18:30

for this new woman than a box

18:32

o chockole lots? Right. It's kind of like

18:34

when we talked about diamonds. How diamond advertising

18:36

put it in men's heads that you're not a

18:39

good husband, fiance, boyfriend,

18:41

et cetera. If you don't present a diamond, and

18:44

then that leads the woman to expect it

18:46

and think, oh, well, you're not a good fiance if you didn't

18:48

give me a diamond. It's kind of the same

18:50

thing in in this you know, smaller

18:52

scale, less expensive, but it's kind of the same

18:54

thing with chocolate. It's like, oh, well, he must not

18:56

really like me. Yeah, exactly. And it's

18:59

because they're hurting female consumers

19:01

but ultimately courting

19:04

men to buy the chocolate, saying

19:06

it what better gift for gal than a box of

19:08

Chocolate's Johnny, Yeah,

19:10

and there is um

19:13

yes. And they were addressing Johnny

19:15

in a whitman's ad that

19:18

gave me pause when I read the copy

19:20

for it, because it sounds so

19:23

opposite of the whole idea

19:25

of of keeping chocolate in the Victorian

19:27

area era away from sounding

19:29

to um sensual. So

19:32

in this ad they said, a

19:34

visit to Pleasure Island is

19:36

best when made by a man and a maid,

19:39

and together they enjoy the plunder from this

19:41

wonderful chest of chocolates. Now tell

19:43

me that's not one big euphemism, right,

19:45

Oh yeah, chocolate as are all euphemism.

19:47

I mean, even in the Victorian

19:50

era. As you get creep closer and closer

19:52

to the twentieth century, you see

19:54

how chocolate is still it's still

19:56

sort of symbolizing the

19:59

physical concer omption that may ensue

20:02

after you know, proper marriage and whatnot.

20:04

Right, Yeah, I can't believe they were giving

20:06

chocolate to women when they were just dating. Well,

20:09

in the nineteen twenties, you even have companies

20:11

like Romance Chocolates just going ahead

20:13

and putting it friends center, Like, hey,

20:17

Romance Chocolates, what else are you going to get

20:19

for a for a date than these?

20:21

Right? But so in the nineteen twenties,

20:24

as you know, women are wearing

20:27

shorter clothes, tighter clothes. They've

20:30

they've shed the bustle and the corset.

20:33

Lucky Strike begins advising

20:36

women to reach for a cigarette instead

20:38

of chocolate to keep that figure

20:40

slim to fit into all of your new

20:43

garments. Yeah. This is around the time too

20:45

when you start seeing alongside

20:47

the suffrage movement you also see the

20:50

first big wave of a

20:52

dieting push for women. And

20:54

to me this was really significant because I

20:57

feel like today, even with

20:59

all this over chocolate advertising,

21:01

there's always still that underpinning of

21:03

guilt, and we're never like

21:07

advertisers, never let us forget that

21:09

we have female figures that

21:11

you know, we're supposed to keep in shape,

21:14

and so in the late when this lucky

21:16

strike ad comes out, you have women

21:19

having the right to vote, more freedom

21:21

theoretically than ever before.

21:23

But also too, this is a

21:25

time when you're also seeing the first

21:27

kind of dieting push for

21:30

women as well. There's always this balance

21:32

between like, ladies, go ahead and indulge

21:34

but not too much, feel

21:37

bad about yourselves, but enjoy yourself,

21:39

but then feel bad about yourself. Yeah,

21:42

it's a terrible yo yo effect. And I

21:44

mean it is interesting to think about how like every

21:47

time women are on the

21:49

verge of getting more power

21:51

in society and they're outside of the

21:53

home, all of a sudden people are like, yeah,

21:55

but you should probably be thinner and and

21:57

remember not to eat too much. Well, that's the thing

22:00

I think. Naomi Wolf points this out in The

22:02

Beauty Myth, which now is such an old

22:04

text but still Uh. The point

22:07

I think is uh sort of time immemorial,

22:10

because she talked about how any time, like you

22:12

said, women are experiencing

22:15

the most liberation, you have the

22:17

most sort of reactionary

22:20

um messages regarding

22:23

our bodies of like of dieting,

22:26

of exercise. So

22:28

moving from the twenties Zoe into World War

22:30

Two, chocolate becomes advertised

22:33

as almost a sexual surrogate

22:36

for absent soldiers, which I found

22:38

so fascinating. There was a Whitman

22:41

ad, for instance, depicting a woman

22:44

wistfully staring at a soldier's

22:46

photo while holding a chocolate.

22:48

So it's basically like, ladies, you

22:51

know, old Johnny, Old Johnny's off

22:53

fighting the Nazis, So

22:56

while you're home, stay faithful and eat

22:58

some chocolate to tie you over. Yeah.

23:00

Yeah, the joy you get from chocolate

23:03

is almost like having sex with a loved

23:05

one, which is still the same kind of

23:07

advertising we see today of like lone

23:09

woman, always with a background of billowing

23:12

silk, like I don't need

23:14

anything but this chocolate.

23:16

Yeah, my hair would just be all over the place.

23:19

But moving into the nineteen sixties

23:21

and seventies, you know, Chris and I were just talking about

23:23

um, that whole control,

23:26

that body control of like okay, well, more

23:28

women are in positions

23:31

of power, they're they're taking power for

23:33

themselves. We have the second wave feminist

23:35

movement, but we also, alongside

23:37

that at the same time have this whole

23:40

concern about health and fitness

23:42

and how do we advertise sweet

23:45

treats to health conscious

23:47

feminists of this era. Yeah,

23:50

so this is when you

23:52

start to see the entrance of and

23:54

I hope this is not offensive to anyone's

23:57

ear, but let's face it, their

23:59

master a tory chocolate ads.

24:01

Basically, instead, you could replace

24:04

a chocolate bond bond with a vibrator

24:07

in a woman's hands and a lot of these ads and

24:09

it would be the exact same thing. You wouldn't even have to changed

24:11

the copy. And

24:14

you also see the reentry to of chocolate

24:16

being seen as this aphrodisiac.

24:19

For instance, this I gotta kick out of this. In

24:22

nineteen seventy five, High Times,

24:24

the weed culture magazine that we mentioned

24:26

in our Women in Weed episode, I

24:28

had a cover story on chocolate

24:30

as an aphrodisiac because you have the flow

24:33

chart of smoking pot plus

24:35

munchies equals chocolate, which

24:37

then may or may not lead to groovy

24:40

sex, intimacy,

24:42

true intimacy. And so here's the

24:44

return of chocolate being considered

24:46

an aphrodisiac. But in the nineteen eighties you also

24:48

have the return of it being considered a status

24:51

symbols going all the way back to sixteenth

24:54

century Spain, when it was considered only for

24:56

the elite. So in the era of Gordon

24:58

Gecko and Greta's Good, you don't

25:01

just want to get your special girl a drug

25:03

store brand. You don't just want to go and get

25:05

Whitman's. You have to get

25:07

some like crazy boxed chocolate

25:10

that's a million dollars to show

25:12

that you can afford it and that she's worth

25:14

it. Yeah, in the nineteen eighties you see

25:16

a sixty percent rise in dark

25:18

chocolate sales. This is when you start, you

25:21

know, hearing more about like, oh, dark

25:23

chocolate, that's the good stuff. And

25:25

this is too, a trend that seems to have continued

25:27

today as you see more and more not only specialty

25:30

brands of chocolate, but just the hyper specialization

25:33

of dark chocolate. Two, as we're being

25:35

told like, okay, yeah, no, it's actually good for you.

25:37

So it's a little more okay to eat dark

25:40

chocolate. But then you go to Whole

25:42

Foods and you find these organic

25:44

chocolate bars and it's like chocolate

25:46

and bacon, or chocolate and Serrano

25:49

chilis or something, all these kinds of exotic

25:52

flavor combos, and they

25:54

are crazy expensive. Yeah.

25:57

I I almost hate to admit this because

25:59

it makes me sound like a really

26:01

big idiot. But when I was Christmas

26:04

shopping back in December.

26:07

Uh, I was going through this store

26:09

and I was getting my niece and nephew mostly

26:11

candy for their stocking. It was neat candy. I mean,

26:13

it was like kind of fancy, because you know, they

26:15

don't like anything that I get them, so I'm just like, I'll

26:18

just get them candy. Ha ha. My brother will have to

26:20

deal with it. Well. So

26:22

anyway, I grabbed this like three

26:24

pack of chocolate bars because I'm like, how

26:26

I didn't even I literally didn't even have the thought of how

26:28

expensive could chocolate be? Because why

26:30

would I? Chocolate is not that expensive? Right? Thirty

26:34

dollars? Thirty dollars. I know, I'm the

26:36

biggest idiot. Why did I not check that ahead

26:38

of time? But I didn't even think too. It's because

26:41

it was from like this. It was all dark

26:43

chocolate, different types of it, and

26:45

it was from like this teeny tiny, like artisan

26:48

chocolate place in San Francisco. And

26:50

I just the regret. I

26:52

don't think I've ever felt deeper regret for anything

26:55

in my life. And then did you sad eat the

26:57

chocolate? I couldn't. I gave it

26:59

to my boyfriend. I was like, I can't

27:01

even like look at this. You just

27:03

take it, consider it part of your Christmas present.

27:06

Talk about chocolate guilt seriously,

27:09

but no, I mean I think that the dark chocolate

27:11

thing does kind

27:14

of point to or highlight interesting

27:16

aspects of the whole chocolate guilt conversation,

27:20

because like, we're supposed to

27:22

feel guilty, or we do feel guilty after we eat

27:24

too many sweets, but then dark chocolate,

27:26

like celebrities and magazines are preaching to us

27:28

that like, if you eat dark chocolate, it has antioxidants

27:31

and so you will never get cancer. But you're only

27:33

allowed to have a square a day, maybe a square

27:35

every other day. Well, and then how

27:38

many celebrity interviews

27:40

with you know, beautiful,

27:42

very thin, fit women who say,

27:45

oh, my weakness is chocolate. I mean, it's

27:47

always all these conflicting messages.

27:50

There's one thing that Katherine

27:52

Nutter points out about chocolate

27:54

ads today is that the

27:57

models in these ads

27:59

clearly don't indulge

28:01

in, you know, chocolate fests. On the regular

28:05

chocolate fest, my

28:07

mouth just started watering. I think I need to start

28:09

that or maybe never never alburn

28:11

it down. So from the nineteen eighties,

28:13

where we see all of that fancy chocolate

28:16

rising to the two thousands,

28:19

we see this whole self empowerment

28:21

message come about, one of which

28:24

came from Godiva in two thousand four

28:27

with their tagline every woman

28:29

is one part Diva, much

28:32

to the dismay of every man. And I

28:34

have no idea side note

28:36

what that means. I don't get that the

28:38

whole just also side

28:41

note to anyone in marketing listening.

28:44

If you call me a diva, I'm not gonna want

28:46

your product. Yeah, I don't

28:48

get that. Who like who? Who

28:50

thinks that women want to be want

28:53

to be diva's? I don't know. I'm sure there are probably some women

28:55

listening thinking that that's fun, but I

28:57

don't know. I just think it's so hokey. I think it

29:00

is hokey. And I think when you have people like

29:02

I'm just trying to think of an example, somebody like Mariah

29:04

Carrier, you know, somebody who's like a stereotypically

29:08

high demand, high

29:10

maintenance celebrity calling themselves

29:13

a diva. That makes me want to call

29:15

myself that even less so.

29:17

But then you're telling me that I am one if

29:19

I eat your chocolate and Godiva, which

29:22

really is like the gray Goose

29:24

vodka of candy, like Chocolate

29:27

Burn, old chocolate Burn, because

29:29

you know, you take something that's really kind of basic

29:32

and just mark up the price. Just putting a

29:34

fancy ribbon or some you know, geese

29:36

on it doesn't actually make it worth

29:38

the price. Yeah, there was an article, I

29:40

forget which one it was, that we read talking

29:42

about how some chocolate

29:45

experts, like Small Gaze of Chocolate

29:47

essentially tried Godiva

29:50

and they did not give it very high mark.

29:52

Now what did they say, like a

29:54

box of sugar had been poured into candlewax

29:56

or some something like that, or that it was very chalky.

30:00

Just weren't big fans. But I

30:02

do think it's it's interesting how

30:04

there's now that self empowerment aspect.

30:06

It's like the men have sort of been removed from

30:09

these chocolate ads. So

30:11

instead of the old dynamic

30:14

of wooing men into buying

30:16

chocolate to give to women, it's

30:18

now Dove, for instance,

30:21

telling us, oh, ladies, treat

30:23

yourself, you go buy chocolate

30:25

for yourself. Stay at home. It's

30:28

just stay at home and read the inspirational

30:31

messages that on the inside of dove rappers,

30:33

right, and and give yourself a

30:35

gentle, you know, hug, and

30:38

then go eat some yogurt. But

30:40

can we talk a bit more about this guilt

30:42

issue with chocolate, because this isn't something

30:45

that came up in any of the papers, but

30:48

what it sounded an awful lot like

30:50

the more we read about how chocolate

30:53

is, you know, basically is sold to women

30:55

as sex. It's the one acceptable

30:59

sexy vice that women can

31:01

have, according to society,

31:03

and yet there's that guilt undergirding

31:06

it of like if you eat too much of it,

31:09

then boys aren't gonna like

31:11

you because you'll have a chocolate belly. It's

31:14

so weirdly slut shamy.

31:16

It's like it's like a candy analog

31:20

to slut shaming, where it's like, well, ladies,

31:22

if you do too much of that, then

31:25

boys aren't gonna like you. Am

31:28

I am I making too big of a leap? No, I

31:30

think it's absolutely parallel.

31:33

I think there are some very weird

31:36

and they always have been apparently, some

31:38

very weird things going on with the way we look

31:40

at chocolate and think about chocolate. And you

31:43

know, we have the Aztecs in the Spanish to think,

31:45

but um, we'll actually get into some more ickiness

31:48

behind chocolate advertising

31:50

when we come back from a quick break.

32:00

When we left off, we had gone through the

32:02

history of women in chocolate and advertising.

32:04

But one thing that we didn't mention as

32:07

we were going through that twentieth

32:09

century timeline was that really

32:12

the main target of chocolate

32:14

ads, especially in the first half

32:16

of the twentieth century, were exclusively

32:19

white women. And there are some issues

32:21

of race and racism

32:24

and chocolate that we would be remiss

32:26

to not address as well,

32:29

because you see, for instance,

32:31

racial anxieties surrounding

32:35

chocolate going all the way back to when

32:37

it was first brought from the

32:39

New World to Europe. Right

32:42

there was this uh story that mort

32:44

rosen Bloom, who we saided earlier,

32:46

the author of Chocolate A Bittersweet Saga of Dark

32:48

and Light, Uh, talks about in his book

32:50

about a woman by the name of Madame

32:53

de Saveny writing to her

32:55

daughter warning her against drinking too much

32:57

chocolate because she knew

32:59

of an another woman who drank it and her child

33:02

came out black as the devil. Yikes,

33:04

yikes, indeed, okay,

33:06

well, and and there are all these chocolate anxieties

33:09

to probably linked to this

33:11

early idea of it as an aphrodisiac

33:13

and being linked to sex, where oh, if

33:16

you eat too much of it, you might become, you

33:18

know, some kind of sex monster. But

33:21

then too if you look at advertising

33:23

in the nineteenth century, these

33:26

chocolate dads typically portrayed

33:28

women of color representing

33:31

chocolate in its raw, unrefined

33:33

form, whereas the white

33:35

women were used to evoke

33:37

a sense of luxury and romance,

33:40

which is very problematic,

33:43

right, Yeah, women of color being seen as the workers,

33:46

white women being seen as the consumers,

33:49

going from raw to refine. There's

33:51

all sorts of really icky racial

33:53

things there, which makes sense because it ties

33:55

so much into those issues of class

33:57

and the evolution of chocolate and how it kind of became

34:00

a mass marketed good. And

34:03

I was hoping to find more scholarship

34:06

on the race aspects

34:09

of chocolate advertising, but

34:11

unfortunately didn't, because I feel like

34:13

today it's still and maybe it's

34:15

just just advertising in general,

34:18

but I still feel like you mostly almost

34:20

exclusively see white women

34:23

in chocolate ads. Well,

34:26

yeah, I mean, we're we're definitely not in any

34:28

sort of post racial utopia

34:31

by any means, especially when it comes to discussing

34:33

chocolate. The whole racist thing

34:36

of calling women of color chocolate

34:38

is referring to well, any person of color

34:40

as being chocolate. Yeah, then you

34:42

get into issues of exoticizing

34:45

and eroticizing people of color by referring

34:47

to them as chocolate. Again, didn't

34:50

find any you know, deep

34:52

research on it, just a few blog posts

34:54

here and there, mostly from black women asking

34:56

like, please stop calling me chocolate

34:59

because it's all so notable that it's not like

35:01

we refer to white women as vanilla except

35:04

to indicate how boring we are

35:06

when we have sex. Uh. Yeah,

35:09

Well, there was that one Cadbury ad that

35:11

was addressing Naomi Campbell

35:14

by saying, move over, Naomi, there's

35:16

a new diva in town talking about a chocolate

35:19

bar. And so that's that's combining.

35:21

We already had the diva conversation. That's combining

35:23

like the worst of all chocolate

35:26

ads. Yeah, and she did not appreciate

35:28

it. I wouldn't an entire campaign

35:31

to get them to take it down, because

35:33

I mean some people are saying, oh, it's not you know, it's

35:35

not racist, it's not, but yeah,

35:37

it's it's a it's a little bit racist.

35:41

And then there is just the awkwardness of

35:43

More recently, Ferrero launched

35:46

an ad campaign in Germany for

35:48

their white chocolate and

35:50

they're like, big commercial tagline

35:52

was Germany votes White, so

35:55

which Germans were like, Hey, yeah,

35:57

no, you remember, remember

36:00

Nazis and that whole thing. You

36:03

please don't do this. Ah,

36:06

there's some people in some marketing departments

36:08

somewhere who were laid off after

36:10

that. I'm assuming, well, what did you think?

36:13

Did you see the Axe Dark Temptation ad?

36:15

Where I didn't? Okay, so what happens?

36:18

I mean, it's an axe body spray ad. So

36:20

basically the premise of every single ax body spray

36:22

ad is that the guy puts it on and

36:24

then he just becomes irresistible

36:27

chick magnet use the worst

36:29

phrase on the planet. Um. So with

36:31

the Dark Temptation ad,

36:34

he puts on the body spray and

36:36

it turns him into a chocolate man. And

36:38

what women love more than chocolate

36:40

caroline, And so women start coming up

36:42

to him and you know, eating

36:44

away at his chocolate body, and

36:46

then finally it's revealed that oh he's

36:48

just like, he's just a white guy under there.

36:51

But the fact that it's called dark temptation and

36:53

it's it's fine because there's

36:56

a white guy under there still, you know, just some

36:59

just some issues, just some issues kind

37:01

of all piling up there together.

37:03

Yeah, that is that is a pile of issues. Yeah.

37:06

Lots of lots of women eating away at your

37:08

very core. Yeah, lots of just

37:10

symbolism loaded into

37:13

one terrible commercial.

37:16

Um. But what though,

37:18

okay, so speaking, women eating men

37:20

made out of chocolate. Yikes,

37:24

what about the science of

37:26

this? Because we've talked all about advertising. We have

37:28

clearly been sold this idea that

37:30

chocolate is a food for women,

37:33

that we love it more than anything else, including

37:35

shoes. But

37:38

what does science have to say about

37:40

this? You would think, right

37:43

that science would have been, like, ladies,

37:46

every time you bite into a chocolate bar

37:48

and you you get obsessed with the idea of eating

37:50

more chocolate and you feel addicted to it, it's because

37:52

it's releasing all of these amazing things,

37:54

and you're it's not really that. It's

37:57

they've found that there's not a huge like

38:00

cause and effect chocolate. Sarah

38:02

tonin lank It's probably

38:05

more that it chocolate is fatty and sugary

38:07

and it tastes real

38:09

good. Yeah, there have been a lot of studies

38:11

actually looking at the psychopharmacological

38:14

effects of chocolate, essentially how groups

38:17

of chemicals such as cannabinoids and

38:19

chocolate react in

38:21

our brain and make us chocoholics,

38:24

I guess, And the suity results have kind

38:26

of been mixed. They really haven't been able

38:28

to pin down one

38:31

specific chocolate

38:33

craze chemical in there.

38:36

So it's like, well, some people

38:38

really like it and I guess

38:40

it's I guess it's good. But

38:42

there was the study called Chocolate

38:45

and Cheese their effects on mood, sort

38:47

of looking at okay, well, we know that it probably

38:49

has something to do with the fat and chocolate. So

38:51

if we take a sweeteness savory like cheese

38:54

and compare it, what happens

38:56

and their best conclusion was

38:59

that it's proba probably the oro

39:01

sensory effect of

39:03

eating chocolate. Essentially, we like

39:05

how it smells, how it feels

39:08

in our mouth, just all of the

39:11

sensory sensations of

39:13

eating chocolate. The look on your face right now,

39:15

Caroline, I feel like you've been whisked

39:17

away. I need to go find that Easter basket.

39:20

You need to go to Pleasure Island from the I

39:24

absolutely do um.

39:26

Speaking of health stuff, one thing that does get

39:28

brought up in women's magazines a lot

39:31

is if you like chocolate,

39:34

ladies, not only are you gonna get fat,

39:36

but you're gonna break out. Yeah, what about

39:38

what about that connection? Yeah? Um,

39:41

that's something that I've always been worried

39:43

about because I had so

39:45

many pimples when I was a young girl,

39:48

and even now my horm I'm thirty, right,

39:50

like, I shouldn't break out anymore, but I still do.

39:53

Adult actnate totally exists hormones

39:56

anyway, So they looked at whether researchers

39:58

looked at whether, um, chocolate actually

40:01

does produce acne, and again the results

40:03

were kind of mixed, but they did

40:05

find that among the people who

40:07

broke out, who did break out and

40:09

experience acne, here's

40:11

here's a little bit of what happened. So

40:14

after people ate chocolate and

40:16

then we're exposed to the bacteria

40:19

that caused acne, they

40:21

found that the blood was shown to have more

40:23

markers of inflammation than the people

40:25

who had not eaten chocolate.

40:27

But they're just not sure what component of chocolate

40:30

actually caused that inflammation, whether

40:32

it is the fat or whether it is the sugar.

40:34

I mean, we know that sugar causes inflammation in

40:36

the body, but they're not quite

40:38

sure about the acne link. It seems like that's

40:40

the story with everything regarding women in chocolate.

40:43

We're just not quite sure. But here

40:45

have some chocolate in the meantime while

40:47

we try to figure this out, let's also

40:50

talk about the stereotype of periods

40:53

making women crave chocolate even

40:55

more. Yeah, I

40:57

I am. I was. I'm gonna tell the truth

40:59

here. I was a little dismayed

41:02

to find out that there is no scientific

41:05

link really supporting the hypothesis

41:08

that you crave chocolate more around

41:10

your period, because I

41:13

swear I don't know what it is in my brain

41:15

and the brain of Caroline Urban Podcast

41:17

or Extraordinaire. I don't know what's going

41:19

on that like leading up

41:22

to my period, I'm just like gorging

41:24

on chocolate, and like as I'm stuffing the

41:26

fifteen candy bar in my face, I'm like, oh,

41:29

Okay, I see what's happening. But I wonder

41:32

if it's just not so much the chocolate

41:34

as maybe a connection between

41:37

menstrual cycles and comfort food.

41:40

And some scientists say that, you know, chocolate contains

41:42

minerals like magnesium and iron, which

41:44

we may be deficient in around our period things

41:47

like that. All I know is just I just

41:49

wanted. And one of the reasons so why

41:51

this period chocolate hypothesis

41:54

has been debunked is because

41:56

chocolate cravings don't diminish

41:59

with menopause. If it was a period

42:01

thing, then we would see a massive

42:03

drop off in women over fifty

42:05

wanting chocolate. But that all happens. Well,

42:07

maybe it's a mood thing, because I know, like when I'm

42:10

sick or hungover or just generally

42:13

not feeling good, I want comfort food. I want

42:15

like fried chicken and mashed potatoes

42:17

and soup and like you know, salty,

42:19

mushy, amazing things that have really

42:21

strong flavors um

42:24

And so maybe chocolate just fits into that, like making

42:26

you feel good. Well, speaking of making you feel

42:28

good, the one thing that we do know about

42:30

chocolate, specifically dark chocolate, is

42:33

yes, the rumors are true. Dark

42:35

chocolate does appear to have some health

42:37

benefits. There was a

42:40

study published linking it to

42:43

lower rates of stroke, coronary

42:45

heart disease, blood pressure, and

42:47

other cardiovascular conditions,

42:49

but in an interview with The New York Times

42:52

about this study, finding one of the lead

42:54

authors said, police, don't get us wrong.

42:56

This doesn't mean that you can eat all

42:58

of the chocolate that you want. We're just saying it's

43:00

a correlation. It's not

43:03

a causation, right, Yes, antioccidents,

43:06

Yes, Gorging on chocolate until

43:08

you throw up pretty

43:10

much destroys any of the positive effects

43:12

of chocolate. Although I was thinking about studies

43:15

exactly like this one when Sally

43:17

also gave me a solid dark

43:19

chocolate Easter Bunny. But

43:24

no, don't try to come from me. I don't care. I don't. Yeah, I

43:26

don't. I don't feel guilt. I mean I do, but I don't.

43:28

But see, that's good, that's great that you don't feel

43:30

guilt. You shouldn't feel any guilt. If

43:32

you want chocolate, eat the chocolate. I don't know, I just I'm

43:34

so yeah, I'm at the point of I'm just tired

43:37

of hearing about it. I'm tired of seeing those weird ads.

43:39

I don't get it, you know, yeah,

43:41

I don't. Uh, it's the same

43:43

things. Like I'm surprised there's not more terrible

43:45

chocolate stock photography. I mean, I know there

43:48

is, but you know, the way we see women

43:50

laughing over salads, the same way we see women

43:52

eating yogurt, like chocolate is

43:54

in that same ballpark, as far as like

43:58

women are so stupid, look at what you're eating

44:00

and how you're eating it, and like you're pinning all

44:02

of your hopes and dreams on it, whereas

44:04

men are just told that

44:06

they really want a grill meet. Yeah,

44:09

you want a hamburger? Have a hamburger?

44:13

Sloppy? Joe's sloppy. Joe's not

44:15

sloppy jays Nope. Well,

44:18

Caroline, I think we've now pretty much exhausted

44:20

all of our chocolate knowledge and now

44:22

it's time to hear from listeners. I want

44:24

to know if there are guys out there who are also

44:26

a self identified chocoholics. I want to know

44:28

who the ladies are like me who could

44:31

care less about a bag of Eminem's, Give

44:33

me some dol Rito's please, or

44:35

like any kind of chip you get me. I'm saying savory

44:37

rather than sweet. And

44:40

anyone who don't, I don't know what are your thoughts

44:42

on chocolate? Let

44:45

us know. Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot

44:47

com is where you can email us. You

44:49

can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast

44:51

or send us a Facebook message, and

44:53

we have a couple of messages to share with you

44:56

right now. So

45:00

I've got a couple of messages here about our

45:02

new male grooming episode. This

45:05

one is from Jess, who

45:07

writes, in My Dating career,

45:09

I despise male body hair. I thought

45:11

it was just plain unattractive and probably wouldn't

45:14

have looked twice at a hairy dude. However,

45:17

a few years ago I met a guy and film

45:19

madly in love with an extremely

45:22

hairy dude. I mean his back

45:24

has started to connect with his chest.

45:26

Hair level of Harry anyway,

45:29

his hair a nous drives me crazy too,

45:31

but in a good way. I think a huge

45:33

part of what we find attractive is just

45:35

what we see on TV. The unknown is

45:37

always scary. It's really frustrating

45:40

because he, as you mentioned many men are,

45:42

is very self conscious about his man for

45:45

he has even asked me to tweeze hairs

45:47

from areas that bother him. Once you associate

45:49

body hair with a manly dude who treats you

45:51

like gold, it's very sexy.

45:54

Here's hoping for more hair representation

45:56

in the media. Ah

45:59

and for love and I hope, I hope

46:01

that letter makes that gentleman feel better.

46:03

Who wrote us very concerned about

46:05

whether he'd find a date. Ye, don't

46:08

worry about your hairy bags. Don't worry about it. I

46:11

have a letter here from Gretchen who

46:14

wrote in about beards as well, and

46:16

she said, well, I can definitely see a trend in

46:18

the popularity of beards on men on TV.

46:21

I wonder if this is just a trend in certain social

46:23

circles. Maybe it's because I live in Alaska

46:26

that I have never thought of a beard is something trendy,

46:28

just something some men had and others didn't.

46:30

When I was growing up, my father sported a beard,

46:33

and my husband grows when every fall and shaves

46:35

it off in the spring. He does this as he works outside

46:37

and below zero weather, and it often helps

46:39

keep him warm and when spring comes it's too

46:41

warm. I know other men up here who also

46:44

follow this practice. I like my husband's

46:46

appearance both ways, so whatever he wants is

46:48

fine with me. On a recent trip

46:50

this winter to London, England, we did take an

46:52

interesting notice of the lack of beards there.

46:54

In fact, my husband's caught the attention of one

46:56

small boy who marveled at his appearance,

46:59

exclaiming and pointing. Adam out of pure amazement.

47:02

I also think if a man isn't well endowed in the

47:04

facial hair department, what is wrong with

47:06

being clean shaven? If that suits in better? And

47:08

then Gretchen has uh

47:10

some more comforting words for

47:14

our harryman out there. She

47:16

says on the topic of other

47:18

body hairmanance, personally, I like a guy

47:20

with some chest hair and find the idea of waxing

47:22

it or shaving it off because that is what women

47:24

like. Silly, so fear not men,

47:27

some women dig it. So

47:29

thanks Gretchen. I'm sure a lot of listeners

47:32

out there appreciate your viewpoint,

47:34

and thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom.

47:36

Stuff at Discovery dot com is our email address,

47:39

and if you want to find links to all of our social

47:41

media, all of our podcast, blogs

47:43

and videos, you should head on over

47:46

to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com

47:51

for more on this and thousands of other topics.

47:53

Is it how stuff works dot com

48:01

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