Food play can have sexual or non-sexual connotations. The term often refers to sitophilia, a form of sexual fetishism in which participants are aroused by erotic situations involving food. The phrase is also used to refer to non-sexual play with food, such as playful and decorative food displays, enjoyment of preparing food, or even a play about food. This article refers to the sitophilia connotation of food play.
Some foods and herbs themselves are purported to cause sexual arousal in and of themselves. Food play overlaps with other fetishes, including wet and messy fetishism, feederism, and nyotaimori. It is differentiated from vorarephilia (often shortened to "vore") in that food play fetishizes food while vore fetishizes the act of eating a living creature, or being eaten alive.