Free In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food by Stewart Lee Allen

leave the subject prone to suggestion and hallucination. And trip out these ladies did. The most popular “vision” among the medieval Twiggies consisted of sexual encounters with Christ. “At first she kissed Christ’s breasts,” recounted Angela of Foligno’s confessor /biographer in the 1300s. “And then she kissed his mouth from which, she said, an admirable and sweet fragrance emanated . . . then she placed her cheek on Christ’s cheek and Christ placed his hand on her other cheek, and drew her close to him.” St. Teresa of Avila described how angels plunging “burning spears into my entrails” made her moan with desire. At times this supercelestial foreplay gets positively coquettish. The patron saint of Italy, Catherine of Siena, described how Christ teased her by “showing me His most sacred side (the open wound) from afar and I cried from the intensity of my longing to put my lips to the sacred wound. After He had laughed for a little while at my tears—at least that is what He seemed to do—He came up to me . . . and put my mouth to where His most sacred wound was.” In other passages she rhapsodizes about how Christ inserted a “red and gleaming” organ (a heart) into her body.
    This has striking parallels with the modern dilemma. Models, of course, do not diet in order to have sexual hallucinations involving the Son of God. At least, not exactly. Bear in mind that the fantasies of the medieval saints described above were not private affairs. They were made for public consumption and usually told to a male confessor who shared the vision with the public via pamphlets like the incredibly popular fourteenth-century biography written by St. Catherine of Siena’s confessor. In lieu of achieving sainthood via priests, the modern “saint” creates otherworldly fantasies with fashion designers and photographers, who then share them with the public via an endless stream of magazines. That these tabloid visions are as sexual and paradisaical as those of the saints is beyond question. Perfect women drift through surreal settings of bucolic perfection and insane wealth. They lounge beside swimming pools shimmering with celestial light. To the reader, these are images of an unobtainable Heaven—only slender and perfect goddesses are allowed in these pages! The male models in these tableaus tend to have the same asexual look medieval artists used in portraying Christ: hairless, beautiful, and slender. The women are pictured touching the male model’s body reverently, almost in worship, and many of the photos are done in the “soft focus” look now associated with romance but which was originally connected to the diffused light shed by a halo. When St. Veronica died, her followers tore her body to pieces and then sold the various limbs as religious relics. Italian churches are filled with similar ghoulish trophies, and some have compared this practice to the experience of the runway model being torn asunder in an explosion of paparazzi flashbulbs to create “relics” for worldwide distribution.
    In both industries women who have “purified” themselves through extreme fasting are working with or being manipulated by men—priests or fashion designers—who are in the business of selling illusory perfection and who are reputedly largely either gay or sexually inactive. Even the stereotype of the misogynous male fashion designer has an early Christian archetype. St. Jerome, a fourth-century monk, originated the waif look by urging his followers to dress their daughters in rags and make them fast without cessation in order to cool “their hot little bodies.” His definition of a true lady was “one I never saw eat,” and his followers forced their girls to dine alone in a darkened room so no one could see their shameful behavior. That Jerome’s theories should prove so sympathetic to Western fashion moguls isn’t really surprising when you consider that both come from a culture that considers the