The Hypocrisy of Muckbang and Other Online Work

How Mukbang Exposes Double Standards

Mukbang is fetish content.

This might be surprising if you’re used to watching videos of people gorging on massive plates of food under the guise of entertainment. But let’s break it down: What makes mukbang videos so compelling to their audiences? The same things people enjoy about oral sex:

• Eye contact
• Heavy breathing
• Slurping
• Swallowing
• White sauce dripping over their mouths
• Big bites forcing the mouth to open
• Moaning
• Commentary like, “It’s so good” and “It’s so hard.”

Before ASMR became mainstream, mukbang videos were the kind of thing you could pay an online sex worker through fetish sites. The overlap between mukbang and sex work is clearer when you consider it’s under the umbrella of food play.

What Is Food Play?

Food play involves incorporating edible items into sexual routines to heighten arousal. It’s not as…