Over the decades, the word pornography has taken on shades of meaning beyond “the depiction of erotic behavior intended to cause sexual excitement.” For some unfortunate humans, porn addiction is a real thing. Then, there is another whole category of violent pornography — which is different from the pornography of violence.

A lot of people love watching violence when there isn’t an exposed breast or crotch to be seen. In the mainstream entertainment realm, the standards of acceptance are set up in such a way that the pornography of violence greatly exceeds violent pornography (or any other sort). One online comment from a real person says,

Someone once dragged me to a martial arts movie and that was my reaction within minutes — this isn’t a movie, this is “fight porn.”

When the topic is addiction, food is worth special attention, and that is where we are headed. But there is plenty of fringe wilderness to explore, so a few digressions are worthwhile. High fashion photography is a separate, cult-like realm which we won’t venture into here, except to mention wedding magazines, which are sometimes known as “porn for girls.”

For a person to appreciate photos pertaining to their area of interest is quite normal. To be involved with pretty much any obsession, even if it is considered kind of geeky or even scary/weird or whatever, is still just extreme fandom, and there is nothing wrong with that.
When someone gets a discussion going on a wide-ranging online platform, the reader is likely to stumble across references to just-about anything porn.

Here are some odds and ends paraphrased from social media and discussion groups, along with a few anonymous direct quotes (in red) with no credits provided because the remarks were all made from behind fictitious usernames anyway:

Every catalogue of audio and/or recording gear is “tech porn.” No people are required… just the knobs and sliders on the new digital consoles…..Your Playboy centerfold? Yeah, she’s cute. But look at this optical compressor!

A person gasping in awe of the spectacular photos beamed back to our astronomers from a zillion miles away certainly experiences “a quick intense emotional reaction” to the point where the term space porn is appropriate. Someone who derives joy from looking at plant catalogues and landscaping magazines full of lush lawns and perfect flowerbeds, might say they are lost in garden porn:

To enjoy Wordporn is to indulge oneself in the sensuous beauty of language where words… can melt your heart, seduce your mind…

What about the offices in some movies and TV shows, where the female bosses and even the lower-level workers all resemble models? “What’s more, they’re 120 words-per-minute typists who can speak and read three languages, and hold MBAs from Harvard and they work for minimum wage.” Now, that’s business porn! And how many YouTube videos exist for the enjoyment of people who love to see greasy car parts removed, spiffed up, and replaced? Engine porn!

Some golfing friends of mine refer to The Masters (or any big tournament) as “golf porno”. Getting big money to play on the impossibly beautiful courses that a real person wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting a tee-time at. Most travel shows are “vacation porn”. Traveling to exotic, off-the-beaten path locations, with no concern for time or budget and getting all-access treatment along the way.

Those comments obviously reference the wish-fulfillment aspect of sexual pornography, the capacity to fantasize about pairing up with some incredibly desirable person with whom you would never, in real life, have a chance.

We have all seen plenty of photos in the “food porn” genre, created by specialists who photograph only — you guessed it — food. Their realm has expanded relentlessly into an entire separate sphere. A rather disheartening sub-category of the vast genre is kiddie food porn. The Web holds plenty of pictures of tiny children smearing food (often, birthday cake) all over their own faces and stuffing their mouths with it and getting it in their hair…

All of which, not being intended for sexual arousal, escapes the strict definition of porn, but it certainly could be deemed obscene, from a certain point of view — like that of a parent who wants children to be healthy and non-obese, and not interfered with by food laced with dicey chemicals that they never heard of.

Written by Pat Hartman. First published June 6, 2025.

Image Copyright: Mojpe/Pixabay.