Women’s relationship to eating food is a microcosm of what happens when pleasure is pathologized. When eating is designed to be a functional act instead of a pleasurable act, there’s no point in consciously asking yourself, “What do I want to eat?” The question instead becomes, “What am I supposed to eat?” When you conflate pleasure with sin outside the context of food, there’s no point in asking yourself, “What do I want to do?” The question instead becomes, “What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to be behaving?”
