Bringing food into the bedroom can be either really sexy or really…not sexy, tbh. It’s one of those fantasies that can at times be better than the reality, since the last thing you want to be worried about mid-bedroom sesh is where to throw your strawberry stems or whether that chocolate sauce will come off your white comforter. It’s all in how you do it and, of course, which foods you turn to. And, yes, perhaps a bit of preparation beyond that trip to the grocery store. After all, when people start getting too “creative” with their sex-toy choice, dangerous things can happen. (That’s why you should never use these 10 items as DIY sex toys and use these homemade sex toys instead.)
In an effort to help you navigate the tricky waters of bringing food into your sex life, we had two writers, Cosmo Frank and Lane Moore, join forces to take a (fine, purely comedic) look at ranking the food items people often consider bringing into the bedroom to discuss their merits (“Cheese is sexy in a sophisticated kind of way. Like a hot librarian”) and their pitfalls (“Chocolate would’ve been my number one if it weren’t for the fact that it can melt and get all messy and possibly be confused for poop”). They even venture into out-there territory: sex while eating shellfish, anyone? Read on for a—again, purely comedic and perhaps, at times, not entirely practical—guide to the best foods to have sex with, ranked somewhere between “Yeah, I would fully do that tonight” to “Oh please, no, keep that away from here.”
1. Strawberries
Lane: Hands down the best one. They don’t fill you up, but they’re sweet and cute and for some reason you even feel adorable when you’re eating them. And you can wipe off your hands on your arms or your boobs or something afterward and everyone’s chill with it. Win.
Frank: The only bad thing about trying to get sexy with strawberries is that once you’ve eaten them, the stem becomes garbage, and there’s nothing sexy about garbage. Other than that, they’re compact, they’re not messy, and they can go in orifices and be paired with other foods on this list, like chocolate. Strawberries are a jack-of-all-sexy-food-trades.
2. Chocolate
Lane: Anyone who’s ever eaten chocolate would pretty much eat it constantly if they could. Adding that to sex, which most people would have pretty much constantly if they could? Um, yes.
Frank: Chocolate would’ve been my number one if it weren’t for the fact that it can melt and get all messy and possibly be confused for poop.
3. Bananas
Frank: Bananas are a great phallic representation, but that illusion is shattered once you stop putting it in your mouth and start biting down on it.
Lane: Bananas are great because it looks like a penis, but if you don’t care about penises at all, you can chop them up into a delicious snack that will help prevent leg cramps during sex!
4. Whipped Cream
Frank: This is great to bring into sex for about 20 minutes and then it gets all watery and smells weird, and we’ve already got enough of that during sex. But sometimes 20 minutes is all you need.
Lane: Whipped cream is delicious and mostly not melty, so you can put it, uh, anywhere and, uh, lick it off. I don’t know why talking about this is making me nervous.
5. Champagne
Frank: Champagne is basically fuck-wine. It’s one of the few beverages that is socially acceptable to pour on a naked body.
Lane: Champagne mostly rules because if you’re going to be a little drunk during sex, at least be Classy Drunk during sex.
6. Cherries
Lane: Cherries are sexy because you can both try to tie a cherry stem with your tongue, and then when you both fail because that is really hard, you can still have sex after because LOL whatever.
Frank: Cherries are sexy because of the whole tie-a-stem-with-your-tongue thing, but what if they’re not pitted? Nothing sexy about that. The potential for pits dropped cherries down this list for me.
7. Melons
Lane: Yeah, sure, eating melons involves a knife, but if you’re also into knives, it’s like, two birds, one stone.
Frank: I get that they’re supposed to be like boobs, but it’s not like I’ve ever stood in the fresh-fruit section of my market with a boner, casually fondling melons.
8. Cucumbers
Frank: I guess what’s great about them is you can use them as an impromptu dildo [editor’s note: DO NOT DO THIS!], but there’s nothing actually sexy about them. They’re bumpy and bulbous.
Lane: If you get one that is appropriately sized, they really can make excellent dildos [editor’s note: AGAIN, PLEASE, JUST NO!]. Plus, they fall into the category of bananas where they’re phallic, and cucumbers also have a surprising amount of potassium.
9. Oysters
Frank: Oysters are like fancy White Castle burgers: They taste great, but I don’t really want to think about what I’m eating.
Lane: I love oysters. Still, let’s eat them at a nearby restaurant and then immediately wash our hands and mouths and maybe even bodies and then have sex because they’re supposed to legit turn you on.
10. Ice Cream
Frank: Ice cream is great as long as you stick with the classics: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. You don’t want to do Rocky Road and get bits of nuts up your hooha.
11. Gummy Bears
Frank: You can lick them and stick them to each other, and then eat them off.
Lane: You can throw them at each other and it won’t really hurt, but it might hurt a little bit. It’s like S&M Lite.
12. Bacon
Lane: It’s hot, it’s greasy, it’s beyond delicious, and it knows it. There’s nothing about bacon that doesn’t make you want to make out with someone in a primal way.
Frank: Bacon is sexy in an earnest kind of way. It’s the Seth Rogen of sexy foods.
13. Cheese
Lane: You can get really fancy ones, blindfold the other person, and have them guess which ones they are. Even if they get it wrong, everyone still wins because sex happens.
Frank: Cheese is sexy in a sophisticated kind of way. Like a hot librarian.
14. Shellfish
Frank: Shrimp are sexy. Basically, any food you can dip in tartar sauce or butter. French fries are dipping foods, too, but they’re not classy enough to be sexy. They’re too everyman.
Lane: Anything bite size that you have to lean back and open your mouth for is automatically sexy. Shrimp are no exception.
Lane Moore is an award-winning comedian, actor, writer, and musician. She is the creator of the hit comedy show Tinder Live and author of the critically acclaimed book How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't. Moore is the front person and songwriter in the band It Was Romance, which has been praised everywhere from Pitchfork to Vogue. She has written for The Onion, The New Yorker, and was previously the Sex and Relationships editor at Cosmopolitan.
