“You crave some?”: Hunger and Desire in Alaíde Ventura’s Autofagia

Abstract

Food is a prevalent theme in erotic fiction, with whipped cream, melted chocolate, and strawberries used as erotic imagery. The former are also known aphrodisiacs, believed to enhance pleasure and make sexual intercourse enjoyable, but what about esquites, tuétano, and chilpachole? In Mexican writer Alaíde Ventura Medina’s third novel, Autofagia (2023), both the desire derived from tasting Mexican dishes and the sexual pleasure shared by two lovers are fused by diction, with verbs such as eating, biting, kissing, and licking used to describe both experiences. The following paper will develop a critical approach towards queer poetics of desire in Autofagia’s female characters, for the novel produces imagery and narrative structures that detach from heterosexuality. As a framework, this paper will use concepts discussed by Susan Winnett, Laura Arnés, and César Cañedo in order to deepen the understanding of a “multiorgasmic narrative structure”, as it was proposed by the aforementioned scholars. But the themes of pleasure and appetite, central to the novel, are intertwined with the main character’s eating disorder, which she develops to please her partner. On one hand, the narrator is moving to a new city, and her romantic (though violent) new relationship forecasts exciting sensations for her. On the other hand, however, these changes create a sense of instability and uncertainty (disorientation). This is why Sara Ahmed’s disorientation strategy and Jack Halberstam’s oblivion will be crucial to the understanding of ambivalent pleasure within the novel.