A pineapple a day
Plus - an invitation for tomorrow night
Hey horny readers! This newsletter is a quickie about a fruit that always seems to be having a moment. But first, an invite.
Tomorrow night, Thursday, September 26th I’m a special guest at an event for World Contraception Day. It’s hosted by NY Birth Control Access Project, an organization focused on policy initiatives, implementation of existing laws, and growing a network of young professionals interested in advancing reproductive rights. I’m telling some jokes, drinks are complimentary, and all you have to do is RSVP HERE.
As always, thank you so much for reading the Adult Sex Ed newsletter. If you’re enjoying it, please share with friends, so they can be hilariously informed.
Adult Sex Ed comedically challenges why we think what we think about sex. In case you’re new, I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. In 2018, I started a comedy show called Adult Sex Ed and launched this newsletter last year. Each week, I take a fun deep dive into a topic that I’ve been researching. Want to know more? Read the whole description on substack here.
Ready to plug the holes in your education? Okay, let’s go!
Pineapples are having a new moment. Recently, my friend sent me a story about a supermarket in Spain where people are gathering in the evenings from 7pm-8pm to find people to hook up with. They signify their status with an upside-down pineapple in their carts. If you search for the store “Mercadona” on tiktok, you’ll find dozens of videos of shoppers looking for love (or sex). One location of the chain even had to start hiding the pineapples. There are other “rules” that seem to vary a little bit: some people claim this only happens in the wine section and in some videos, you are supposed to hit the other person’s cart to signify interest. One thing is constant—the pineapple.
Pineapples used as sexual symbolism is not new. An upside-down pineapple has been part of swinger culture for years. Whether placed outside a house (or in a shopping cart), it’s used to symbolize that there’s a swinger party going on, or that people are open for opportunities. The history of pineapples in Western society is key for figuring out how this all came to be.
In England as early as the 1600s, pineapples were a must-have accessory at the social gatherings of wealthy aristocrats. According to the BBC, a single fruit was worth thousands of pounds and was often paraded around from event to event until it was completely rotten. People would even rent them for a night to be able to carry it around like a status symbol. It was so associated with wealth and status that pineapples were carved into furniture. King Charles II commissioned a painting of himself being presented a pineapple (and he was a perv, so we don’t know exactly what that meant to him).
Of course, no one talked about where these pineapples came from or how the people were treated who farmed them. They were exotic, rare, and since they were previously unknown, they didn’t come with lore. The apple has always had a baked-in story from the Garden of Eden. Pomegranates are associated with femininity. Cherries with virginity. You can build a whole new story around a pineapple.
I first found out about the magic of pineapples in high school when someone told me that eating pineapples makes semen taste sweeter. I was already a bit neurotic, so I had a lot of questions. Who did the taste tests? What were the sample sizes? How many BJs were happening before someone figured this out? Now a quick search tells me that there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that eating pineapple or other fruits can make semen taste sweeter. (For the record, the other items that boasted the same claim include cranberry, lemon, kiwi, peaches, dates, and parsley.) But isn’t the lore fun?
There is apparently a story in every pineapple, from 1600s stuffy England to horny millennials picking up groceries in Spain.
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