"Is that a banana in your pocket?"
I'm guessing that you can't remember the source of this quote (I can't either), but your mind has already autocompleted the phrase ("Or are you just happy to see me?"). This is just one of the zillions of references that tie fruit to genitalia.
But it's not like the act of substituting flora for fauna is any new. Renaissance artists like Raphael and Caravaggio painted phallic fruit and voluminous vegetables with reckless abandon.
That this connection is practically hard-wired into our brain is one reason that brands offering forbidden products continue to shove this symbolism down our throats. The other is practical. Advertising regulations make it impossible to display images of genitalia or overt references to sex.
So, we end up looking at the same images over and again. Swisse Me, a UK-based smoothie brand recently released this ad which, despite relying on the same playbook, was deemed too spicy for daytime television.
Bananas and honey. Strawberries and cream. It's the same tropes you've seen dozens of times. On the website, the brand extends its fruity affiliations into punny product names like "BERRY Banger" and recipes for "Pear Almond Balls," which promise to "get more balls in your mouth."
But it's not just the advertising we've seen on TV and every sexual health article we've read online this year. It's also our digital conversations. We use the eggplant and peach emojis to suggest intercourse so frequently that Facebook Community Standards now ban their paired use under their "Sexual Solicitation" statute.
Nor is it just fruit. In New York City, it's impossible to walk through the subway without a cactus penetrating your consciousness. That's because advertising for erectile dysfunction medication sold by men's wellness brands Hims and Roman are practically everywhere.
Unsurprisingly, their appearance in the metro was not without a bit of scandal. The same MTA review committee that allowed their succulent succulents also banned advertising from Thinx, which deployed a grapefruit to advertise period panties.
The issue wasn't the imagery; rather, the inclusion of the word "period." But come on?
I, for one, think it's ridiculous that the MTA chose to censor a product for women that has nothing to do with sex and allowed a product for men that everything to do with sex. Apparently, erectile dysfunction meds are also categorized as a "medical product," whereas Thinx are not.
Controversy aside, aren't we sick of this kind of symbolism? There’s got to be a better solution. I welcome your suggestions.
A note about The Mandate Letter
I use this newsletter as a journal to work through my ideas and collect examples of broader trends that reflect how masculinity is evolving in culture. I would very much appreciate your input. If you come across interesting examples of this trend or others, please email me tips at Jason [@] jasonrogers.co. If you're reading this in your inbox, just hit reply, and your response will go directly to me. Also, keep up with me on Twitter & Instagram or text me at 310-299-9363.
Footnotes:
Caravaggio painting: Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge
Hims ad: Chris Maggio for The New York Times
Thinx ad: Via Thinx
From one of the Mandate Letter's readers!
Food, specifically fruit and vegetables have been used extensively in medicine for probably as long to describe the size of organs and tumors. I suspect this is due to the universality of the food. I can read a medical book that writes "lymph node the size of a grape," and it will be understood by any age, culture or language translated. More recently, pregnant women can plug into an app their week of gestation, and it will tell them their fetus is the size of a blackberry, or kiwi, etc. humans are programmed to see human traits even in inanimate objects, especially faces. Think of the man on the moon 🌝. Banana = penis is not a stretch for our simple minds when procreation is required for species survival. This has helped us is our evolutionary to find our kind in the wild for protection and procreation. So why is fruit the most sexual since biblical times? Maybe it has to do with the fact that fruit is created by a form is sex, aka pollination. Or that it is something to be savored like a delicacy and can be used to attract a mate. Fruit bats literally do exactly this. Sex sells, and to use fruit to engage our primitive brain, is, for lack of a better phrase, going for the low lying fruit.
-Nathan