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Some thoughts...

1. When considering the "lesbian love poems" that we looked at on Thursday, I see a major focus to be the inadequacy of langauge. In many way, language interferes with a certain modern feminist agenda, for it forces us to create labels and names and differentiate outsider from insider. One similarity that I saw between food and love is the impossibility of experessing each in language. Both food and love trigger the senses in a way that is undescribable. It seems that the poems we looked at, especially Hackers'. are attempting to create a sensational experience with words. The Hacker poem arouses the reader intellectually and, perhaps, emotionally and physically. How do we describe the feeling of arousal? It is interesting to consider how picky we are about what's an acceptable means of arousal. In other words, is it a problem if food arouses us? (How do we consider the popularity of aphrodisiacs such as raw oysters among even the most conservative poulations?) What if literature arouses us? What about someone of the same sex? Opposite sex? Why does the means of arousal matter more than the resultant state?

2. I was reading the NY Times Dining Section and found an interesting article called "Old Gender Roles With Your Dinner?"  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/dining/08gend.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In this piece, restaurant critic Frank Bruni discusses the prevalence in restaurants of unequal treatment based  on gender. Many waiters continue to treat women as though they are vulnerable flowers capable of blowing away at any moment. Waiters offer women the "better" seat, give them the menu, take their order, and deliver their food first, and typically give the man the check. Such treatment encourages the belief that men are and need to be both stronger and more financial powerful. The article explains that the waiters continue to act in this manner because "ignoring gender is risky." Overall, it seems safer to stick with the status quo than to attempt social reform and risk receiving a measly tip. Restaurants are hesitant to change their ways because they want to "offend the least number of people." Food service is an industry, and so upsetting the customers is a highly unfavorable option. Waiters would rather treat "female diners as second-class citizens" than risk upsetting men (the typical check-payers) and getting a bad tip. Thus, we see that social reform is poorely suited to areas of society where pleasing people is of the utmost importance. The final problem with such restaurant tradiitons are that they propagate the "perfect" male/female gender divide. The diners must be classified as either male or female- not questioning, queer, or other alternatives.