Cannibalism

Dimestore Saint;;:

I'd give someone my blessing if I was about to die and they had to eat my corpse to survive. Fact is, they're probably going to do it anyway, so I might as well try to alleviate some of the guilt that would arise from it.

I think the instinct for survival is a lot stronger than a lot of people here think, though.

I've never been in a situation where I've needed it, so you're right, I'm probably not aware of how strong that instinct is.

I don't know, I could just never see me doing it still.
Never say never though.

my sister did psychology and they did an study on this man who really wanted to eat someone so he advertised on the internet for volunteers and people replied. it caused a bit of a stir as is it illegal if they ask? legally it still is and i think he went to prison or maybe he was institutionalised. but it just goes to show that there are all types. some people want to be eaten.

as far as cannibalism goes i think it is pretty inhumane but i suppose if it's necessary for survival then i can understand it. maybe.

Eclipse:

DhaniCauldwell:

Personally, I would never eat another human being, alive or dead, for survival reasons or any other reason.

Okay...so we pretty much know the general concensus on this board...no one would engage in cannibalism.
Let me get hypothetical on you guys, though, and turn the tables a bit.....If you were about to die, and someone you loved had to eat YOU in order to survive, would you give them your blessing?

No. I would not. I doubt someone I loved would even consider eating me anyway.

It's funny because regardless of what you think you'd do in a serious situation, chances are you would eat to live. When your body starts to shut down, your instincts take over and you do what you can to survive.

Cannibalism is sick and demented.
People eating other people.
It makes me sick to know people actually do that.

DIE! DIE! DIE!:

It's funny because regardless of what you think you'd do in a serious situation, chances are you would eat to live. When your body starts to shut down, your instincts take over and you do what you can to survive.

I would probably have killed myself when my loved one died anyway...there would be no reason for me to survive of they were dead.

Just saying...

---I know that it doesn't happen very often but it's happened in some life or death situations like the Donnor party and the soccer/rugby (one of the two) team that was traveling in a plane when it crashed in the Andes Mountains. in the Donnor party they were traveling from the east coast to California and about the middle of their voyage they stated running out of food so they began boiling and eating leather from various things and eventually they began to eat their dead. In the plane crash, the team was going to a game when they crashed into the Andes Mountains. Some of the team were killed instantly and others were seriously injured. As they had no food they also had to resort to cannibalism. I think that cannibalism is a terrible thing if it is not used in a life or death situation. But in a dire situation sometimes I believe that it is actually quite necessary. Even butterflies are cannibalistic!

hmm
tbh i think i have the same views as this on necrophillia
if the person consents to be eaten then i dont think it should be illegal
but then again that starts the debate as to the fact that it would be hard to prove for definate that that person had given consent.
in survival situation then i think its a nessecity
but personally as much as i think its a bit strange and sick to eat another human, tbh i am actually pretty curious as to what it would taste like

i couldnn't be bothered to quote. but
if i was in the situation that i had to eat someone to stay alive.
when the said person is 'finished' then they would eventually die.

i would rather die than eat some dead dudes rotting corpse.
thanks.

^^
its survival instinct though,
at the moment you feel that its disgusting and that but if you were in a life or death situation you probably would, everyone has the mental instinct to survive and not die.

All_You_Need_Is_Love:

I definitely believe cannibalism is wrong and sick.
I understand the "starving on an island necessity" hypothetical situation, but I personally do not support it.
I also cannot imagine myself ever eating a human being's flesh.

As for the religious aspect: In Satanism, making human sacrifices is considered to be a good thing. In Christianity, homosexuality is one of the worst sins you could commit.
Simply because it is somebody's religious beliefs that it's okay doesn't make it okay. Regardless of religion, I still find it a sick, wrong thing to do.

In Satanism, it is morally wrong to make human sacrifaces.

i found loads of information on this site and some of it was really interesting,
just thought i'd post it

historical cannibalism
Except from Herbert Ward's A Voice From the Congo as found in Gary Hogg's book, Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice:

'Do you people eat human bodies?' I said one day, upon entering a native village, and pointed to a quantity of meat, spitted upon long skewers, being smoke-dried over numerous smouldering fires. 'Io; yo te?' was the instant reply - 'Yes; don't you?' And a few minutes later the chieftain of the village came forward with an offering, which consisted of large and generous portions of flesh, only too obviously of human origin. He seemed genuinely disappointed when I refused.

Historically shrouded in mystery, myth, symbolism, fear and speculation, cannibalism remains in most cultures one of the ultimate taboos. According to William Arens' book The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology & Anthropophagy, the first known account of cannibalism came following an expedition to the West Indies, led by Christopher Columbus. Columbus and his crew supposedly discovered that the Carib West Indies tribe participated in a particularly gruesome practice of ritualistically eating the flesh of other humans.
The explorers mispronounced the name of the tribe and referred to them as "Canibs," which was overtime changed to "canibales," meaning thirsty and cruel in Spanish. The English translation of the Spanish word became cannibalism, which is the most widely used term to express human's consumption of other human beings. The Latin form of the word cannibalism is anthropophagy and is a term used mostly in anthropology and archeology.

The existence of cannibalism has been a widely disputed topic in academia. However, the evidence supporting its existence is abundant and is represented in every medium imaginable, including stories, symbols, legends, writings, archeological evidence and first hand accounts. Cannibalism is a practice that reaches across centuries and cultures. In many cultures, it is considered atrocious and sacrilegious, whereas in another culture it is a sacred and revered custom. Cannibalism is an undeniable occurrence rooted in antiquity and branching forth to the present-day.

survival cannibilism
Perhaps the only generally accepted form of cannibalism is when humans eat the flesh of other humans in an attempt to stay alive in adverse and desperate situations. Survival cannibalism is rare and explicable in many cases, yet is still an act that is often punishable by law. There have been several prominent cases of survival cannibalism over the last two hundred years, including that of the Donner Party expedition and the more recent cases that occurred in the Andes Mountains following a plane crash
In 1846, a group of eighty-nine men, women and children led by a man named George Donner set out across the Sierra Nevada Mountains enroute to California. During the trek, the weather took and unexpected turn and they were forced to take an alternative route. The travelers began to run out of food and other resources. Many died from exposure and starvation.

Half of the travelers perished before the remaining people eventually succumbed to their situation and began to feed on the flesh of the dead in an attempt to survive. The forty-six survivors were eventually rescued, however upon reaching civilization they were regarded as monstrous criminals and tried for their actions. The travelers served around six months before they were re-released back into their communities.

In 1972, a group of rugby players, their friends and families left on an airplane for Chile from Urugua. The plane crashed into the snow-covered Andes Mountains killing thirteen of the forty-five passengers onboard the aircraft. Many of the passengers died over the weeks from crash-related injuries. Without any provisions, those left alive resorted to cannibalizing the dead. Those who refused to eat the human flesh died of starvation. After seventy days in the mountains, sixteen survivors were rescued and taken home.

Even in the most extreme cases, the act of cannibalism is treated with scorn and disgust by many cultures and is sometimes punishable by social ostracization, institutionalization in a mental facility, arrest, incarceration or even death. Cannibalism is most commonly believed to be the epitome of savage behavior. Although disease and religion have greatly diminished the practice, it continues to be practiced worldwide.

Disorganized cannibalistic practices amongst criminals have been steadily increasing over the last century, especially in the Western Hemisphere. Lawmakers around the world have been forced to update laws pertaining to cannibalism or establish new laws where none existed before. Criminal cannibalism has become the concern of the future.

criminal cannibilism
In modern times, the murder of a person or the use of a corpse for the purpose of consumption by another human in any situation, outside that of conditions of starvation, is considered to be a form of criminal cannibalism or anthropophagy. However, the definition of and laws governing criminal cannibalism vary considerably from culture to culture.

In many parts of the world cannibalism is not considered a crime in and of itself and it is often only recognized in concurrence with another crime. For example, in Britain and the United States of America, cannibalism is not considered to be a felony, but is socially unacceptable. Those who have been found to participate in the gruesome act are usually charged with another crime that is directly related to the act of cannibalism, such as murder, grave robbery or necrophilia.

In other cultures, what some deem to be an act of criminal cannibalism may be an acceptable element of another culture. For example, Japanese enemies were allegedly consumed during the height of World War II by tribes in Papua New Guinea, which was acceptable in the culture during that period.

There are many who refuse to believe that cannibalism is practiced in this modern, "civilized" age. However, there is much evidence suggesting that it does occur and with some frequency. There have been many documented cases of cannibalism, especially within the last 100 years.

There are four primary forms of criminal cannibalism:

sexual cannibalism
aggression cannibalism
spiritual and ritual cannibalism
epicurean/nutritional cannibalism.
These various forms substantially overlap with one another. For example, one may consume human flesh for several purposes, such as to achieve a sense of power and control (aggression cannibalism), yet one may also find the taste to be agreeable (epicurean/nutritional cannibalism). Another may indulge in cannibalism in order to reach a higher spiritual affinity with the person they have devoured, simultaneously achieving intense sexual and gratification.

Sexual cannibilism
Sexual cannibalism is considered to be a psychosexual disorder, which involves a person sexualizing the consumption of another person's flesh. This does not necessarily suggest that the cannibal achieves sexual gratification only in the act of consuming human flesh, but also may release sexual frustration or pent up anger. Sexual cannibalism is considered to be a form of sexual sadism and is often associated with the act of necrophilia (sex with corpses). There have been several high profile cases, which have involved sexual cannibalism, including that of Andrei Chikatilo, Edward Gein, Albert Fish, Armin M and Jeffrey Dahmer.
During the 1920's Americans were confronted with the horrors of Albert Fish who was said to have raped, murdered and eaten a number of children. Fish was a sexual cannibal in the truest sense of the term and claimed to have experienced enormous sexual pleasure when he imagined eating a person or when he actually indulged his fantasies
Andrei Chikatilo, a Russian serial killer, was responsible for the murders of scores of young boys and girls. During most of his life, Chikalito suffered from impotency and was only able to achieve sexual gratification from the torture and murder of other people. He would often mutilate and then consume the flesh of his victims, including the breasts, genitalia and internal sex organs, as well as other body parts. It is possible that he also achieved sexual gratification when cannibalizing. Chikatilo claimed that he was disgusted by the "loose morals" of many of his victims, who served as painful reminders of his own sexual incompetence. Moira Martingale writes in Cannibal Killers that many of the murders Chikatilo committed came after viewing sexually explicit or violent videos.
Edward Gein, a farmer from Plainfield, Wisconsin was as believed to have killed at least three people including his brother, a bar keeper named Mary Hogan and the owner of the local hardware store, Bernice Worden. In 1957, police searched Gein's home and found the body of Worden along with the remains of over fifteen other women. A majority of the remains found at the crime scene were robbed from a nearby cemetery. Gein was believed to have had sexual contact with the corpses.

He was also an admitted transvestite, who found delight in dismembering the bodies and peeling away the skin of the corpses so that he could wear them around the house. Gein was known to have cannibalized some of the bodies, including Worden's whose heart was in a pan on the stove at the time police conducted their search of the house. Whether Gein sexualized the consumption of his victims was unclear. However, there was a strong relationship between his necrophilia and cannibalistic behavior.
Intriguingly, some people that claim to be cannibals have admitted to feeling a sense of euphoria and/or intense sexual stimulation when consuming human flesh. In an article written by Clara Bruce titled Chew On This: You're What's for Dinner, anthropophagists compared eating human flesh with having an orgasm. The experience was further believed to cause an out-of-body-experience causing effects comparable to taking mescaline.

According to Lesley Hensel, author of Cannibalism as a Sexual Disorder, eating human flesh can cause an increase in levels of vitamin A and amino acids, which can cause a chemical effect on the blood and in the brain. This chemical reaction could possibly lead to the altered states that some cannibals have claimed to have experienced. However, this theory has not been substantiated by scientific evidence.

In Fascination with Cannibalism has Sexual Roots, Josh Cannon writes about psychologist Steven Scher and his team who conducted one of the only known studies on sex and cannibalism at Eastern Illinois University in 2002. The study surveyed several groups of people who were asked questions pertaining to cannibalism and sexual interests. The results of the study found that people were more likely to eat someone that they were sexually attracted to than not. This suggests that there might be a significant sexual component in the practice of cannibalism.

Agression cannibilsm
Most acts of cannibalism are, to a degree, motivated by a desire to express power or control over the victim. Cannibalism is the ultimate expression of dominance over another person. Aggression cannibalism includes acts of cannibalism that are motivated by feelings of hostility and/or fear, creating an overriding need to exert power, revenge or control over the victim by murdering and then consuming him.

Aggression cannibalism is one of the more common forms of cannibalism and often overlaps with other types of anthropophagy, especially spiritual, ritualistic and sexual cannibalism. Some forms of aggression cannibalism have recently gained worldwide media attention. The most recent cases include, Anna Zimmerman and Ed Kemper.

In 1981 Anna Zimmerman, 26, a German mother of two, murdered her boyfriend out of anger and revenge and then dismembered his body. She froze his remains and over-time defrosted portions of his body and consumed them with her unsuspecting children. She represents one of the few known cases of female criminal cannibals.
Edmund Kemper was found guilty of the murders of six young women, his two grandparents, his mother and mother's friend. Kemper's killing spree and cannibalism was believed to be the result of his disdain for his mother and an unhappy childhood. According to Kemper, his mother psychologically abused him and at one point forced him to sleep in the cold and dark basement when he was a child. While in the basement, his hate for his mother began to fester. In order to release the pent up anger he would often entertain murderous fantasies.

Many of the murders Kemper committed had a large sexual component to them: he raped some of his victims, killed them and then sexually molested the corpses. However, it is believed that the murders were primarily motivated by his feelings of anger and revenge, directly and indirectly towards his mother. In fact, Kemper claimed that the unpleasant relationship with his mother was what influenced him to act out his violent fantasies, which included cannibalism.

Ritualistic & Epicurean Cannibalism
Modern forms of spiritual and ritualistic cannibalism are very similar to that seen in tribal groups. However, the modern criminal version of this kind of cannibalism is more associated with satanic or cult group rituals, instead of tribes in remote locations of the world.

In Helsinki, Finland in 1999, two men and a teenaged girl were sent to prison for the torture, murder and cannibalism of a twenty-three-year-old man. The three individuals claimed to be Satanists performing a ritualistic killing. In Karen Jones' Satanism and Ritual Abuse Archive, she states that the murderers received a little more than two and a half years each for the brutal slaying.

Jones also mentions another case where a young girl succumbed to a similar Satanic ritual. In 1999, a man named Dmitry Dyomin and two other accomplices abducted a fifteen-year-old girl in Kiev. The girl was eventually murdered and her tongue was removed and eaten by Dyomin. He and the other two accomplices decapitated the girl and kept the skull as a trophy.

Spiritual and ritualistic cannibalism is not necessarily limited to groups. Many cases of individual cannibalism incorporate spiritual and ritualistic aspects into their practice. Cannibals such as Dahmer and Kemper claimed that when they consumed their victims, they believed that they spiritually became a part of them. They also believed that their cannibalism allowed them to absorb some of their attributes, such as power.

Epicurean and nutritional cannibalism refers to the consumption of human flesh, which is primarily motivated by the taste of the flesh or for the nutritional value. This form of cannibalism is believed to be rarer and is usually considered to be a sub-motivation of other forms of cannibalism, such as survival and sexual cannibalism. However rare, there are several cases that fall into this category which have had significant media attention.
In 1981, Japanese student Issei Sagawa was arrested in France for indulging his fantasies of cannibalism. One day he propositioned a Dutch friend only to have his advances rejected. Sagawa shot and killed her and then sexually assaulted her corpse. Sagawa then carved away pieces of his victim's body, including her breasts and buttocks and consumed them. Martingale quotes Sagawa in her book, where he exclaimed that, "nothing was so delicious!" Sagawa was determined to be mentally incompetent to stand trial in a French court. He was held in a mental institution for a little over a year before being returned to Japan, where he has been released for a number of years and enjoys a kind of celebrity status.
Also in France, Nicolas Claux was convicted of the 1994 murder of 34-year-old Thierry Bissonier. However, murder was not his only vice. Claux, who at one time worked at a children's hospital morgue in Paris, admitted to stealing flesh from the dead children and taking it home to eat. In a Crime Library article on Claux written by David Lohr, Claux claimed to have eaten the human flesh for its taste, stating that he preferred to eat it raw. He likened the taste of humans to steak tartare. Claux is also believed to be a Satanist, which could be another motivation behind his cannibalistic practices.

Physcologial Perspectives
Within the field of psychology there is a debate on what factors lead a person to practice criminal cannibalism. There are a many theories which have been presented, ranging from the over nurturing of a child during the first few months of their life to sudden stress. However, there is little evidence to support most of these theories. Nevertheless, the theories put forth present a framework in which one is able to gain a better understanding of the possible psychological factors behind cannibalism.

In an article by Sally Talwani titled Experts Debate What Forces Create A Cannibal, Dr. Clancy McKenzie, a psychology professor at Capital University in Washington, D.C. believes that cannibalism is a result of trauma, especially that experienced in childhood. He states that a child, following weaning from the breast, experiences separation anxiety and fantasizes about devouring the mother. A person who has experienced this may regress back to this stage in adulthood due to stress or trauma and lead the individual to seek out the fulfillment he has been denied by resorting to cannibalism.

This theory is further supported by a study on cross-cultural cannibalism conducted by Eli Sagan. According to Sanday's book Divine Hunger, Sagan argues that cannibalism is a "psychological response to anger and frustration" expressed through oral aggression and an urge to literally absorb a person through consumption. Sagan states that this urge can be directed at an enemy who may threaten the strength of the individual.

Sagan believes that children who are excessively dependent on their mothers, due to maternal over nurturing, are more likely to experience oral aggression and frustration due to separation. Moreover, he contends that the adult who subconsciously carries this oral aggression is likely to express it in an overtly dominant fashion against women by turning to cannibalism.

Evidence taken during psychological interviews with cannibals supports to a degree the contention that aggression towards the mother may be one possible factor in a person's cannibalism, such as with the case of Ed Kemper. However, it is unclear whether that aggression directly leads to cannibalism. Furthermore, there is little evidence available which can confirm this theory in its entirety and such evidence, if it existed, would be difficult to obtain. Even if there is some merit to this theory, it is unlikely that all cannibals, especially criminal cannibals fit into this context.

Conversely, in Talwani's article Dr. Park Dietz, a criminal expert and key testifier in the Dahmer trial, stated that it is imperative that psychologist not delve too deep into the cannibal's childhood experiences to explain their practices. Dietz believes that a person can resort to cannibalism when faced with sudden traumatic stress, such as in the case of Dahmer who murdered his first victim following a break up of the family. Indeed, stress may be an important factor, which may propel one to indulge his appetite for his own species. However, it is not the only explanation.

This theory may be correct to an extent, yet it only gives a partial explanation into the motivation behind cannibalism and it may not be applicable to all cannibals. Moreover, it does not fully explain why, in the case of Dahmer, he entertained cannibalistic fantasies in his youth. Essentially, it is important to look at the entire psychoanalytical framework surrounding the behavior, instead of only a small portion. Therefore, it may be necessary to look into one's childhood or youth, as well as their adulthood for answers to the question of why people eat other people.

There are other theories, as yet unsubstantiated, that suggest cannibalism to be a sexual disorder and even an eating disorder. What seems to be a common characteristic among many cannibals is that many of them have been diagnosed with schizophrenia or some other form of personality disorder.

This theory suggests that there may be an underlying a neurochemical component related to cannibalistic behavior. Many cannibals, such as Andrei Chikatilo, Albert Fish, Edward Gein, and Issei Sagawa, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is defined in Reber's Dictionary of Psychology as a "general label for a number of psychotic disorders with various cognitive, emotional and behavioral manifestationsreflecting a cleavage or dissociation between functions of feeling and emotion" as well as a dissociation between thinking and cognition.

Reber points at several common characteristic of schizophrenia, including thought disturbance, delusions, hallucinations and a loss of reality. This diagnosis might help explain the experiences many cannibals claim to feel prior to, during and after their cannibalistic activities, including black-outs, heightened sense of self and of the experience, hallucinations and other forms of disorganized thoughts or behavior.

Moreover, schizophrenia may also be a significant component in historical accounts of tribal cannibalism. The psychotic features related to schizophrenia have been found to have a significant genetic component, thus it can be passed from generation to generation. Therefore, it is not unlikely that schizophrenia may take root in some small indigenous tribes, which pull from a small gene pool. However, this theory is speculative and has not fully been explored.

It is obvious that there is a dearth of research in the particular area of modern criminal cannibalism. Although there are many theories, few are able to fully explain why some people resort to eating human flesh. Therefore, more research is crucial in understanding the factors that lead to criminal cannibalism.


^^ there we go

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/cannibalism/index.html
xx

Quote

I'd rather die of hunger than eat my companion's guts.

Come on, you dont eat there GUTS! you eat there flesh... not...that...i...would...knoooow,, lol nah jk... well cannibal MOVIES are pretty rad, but sickening as hell...

i think in ordr to survive, if you were completely desperate for life, you can eat your best friend! but if you love you friend, i suggest not to... you may miss them later on in life. . .

but people who murder people and eat them, just for fun..? are completely SCREWED in the effing head...

-overrandout-