Did someone order a pizza? Maybe pizza & porn?
Even if you know absolutely nothing about porn, you’re familiar with the pizza delivery storyline: a hot and hung pizza delivery guy is called upon by an equally hot, also horny, housewife to deliver a pizza… and a whole lot more.
According to Eater, the cliche is so ubiquitous that it’s become a part of mainstream culture, referenced in everything from niche comedy like Tim and Eric! Awesome Show Great Job to network TV like Smallville, where it showed up in an episode that culminates in the hapless pizza delivery boy being devoured by a pack of lesbian vampires.
Pizza & porn, no surprises.
EJ Dickson was working with Eater on this piece, and she had some questions for me re the history of the trope and its current social implications. You can read EJ’s full piece — “Did Someone Order a Pizza?” (9/28/16) — right here.
Read on below for my full correspondence with EJ on the topic.
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EJD: [A]s far as you know, where you think the trope comes from, are there any specific performers/directors you associate with it, etc?
DrCT: I’m not sure where the trope comes from, though it’s definitely “classic” and has been around for decades. You see it in mainstream porn – the quintessential scenario (pizza stud and a bored housewife) – but you also see pizza studs with coeds (younger women performers vs MILFs) and in gay porn a lot (pizza dudes with frat dudes and/or daddies, etc).
…and it’s basically timeless. Riley Reid, one of today’s biggest stars, just did a scene where she is the pizza delivery person leading into a gangbang – “Pizza That Ass,” it’s called. It was released as a web exclusive on her site, and of course it was immediately pirated everywhere too. So this scene shows the classic trope, but in a contemporary iteration — pizza lady, web only scene/modern format and distribution, etc.
As such, there is no one director or specific performers that I associate with it. Jeff Vanzetti of IAFD will be able to give you more specific dates and examples of the very earliest use of the trope though.
EJD: I’m also wondering why you think porn is so associated with the pizza delivery boy trope, as opposed to plumbers, repairmen, etc. — given that the latter seem much more popular/more commonly used, why do people link porn and pizza delivery together? Are there any sociocultural reasons for why the pizza delivery boy/bored housewife pairing is so appealing, in your opinion?
DrCT: I am not sure I agree that plumbers and repair people are more commonly present in daily IRL life than a pizza delivery person. Part of why the trope is popular is because its actual presence is so universal – pizza delivery transcends gender, sexuality, workspace, social class, and time/era. (I actually can’t think of a pizza example in lesbian porn, but I bet it exists.) And though the other types of service providers are certainly common, people don’t connect with the ordinary-to-tantalizing phenom with those as readily with those as they do pizza.
Also, the pizza delivery trope is associated with porn at this point in a manner on par with the bow-chico-bow-bow music association, which I researched and wrote about in Exposure. Ask any person about porn, and they will either make that music association or mention pizza delivery. And in reality, though the pizza guy is certainly common (more common than funk music in porn, which really was only present for a brief time), it’s not that present. But pizza delivery is common in daily life, which then allows an anchor point for a porn-novice or casual viewer to associate with the genre.
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Well, what do you think about pizza & porn?
Is pizza delivery more commonplace in your life than, say, a plumber? Does that “commonplace” factor help you connect with a porno that showcases it? Or, do you just automatically associate pizza delivery with porn because renditions of the scenario are so commonplace in mainstream culture?
(pictured: porno pizza delivery, according to Eater)
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Get Exposure: A Sociologist Explores Sex, Society, and Adult Entertainment on Amazon and CT.com