Consensual Cannibalism - is it wrong?

[VelmaD]

Poll question: Consensual Cannibalism - is it wrong?

Ok, this story about the guy consenting to be eaten has popped up in the Lounge the last couple of days:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=484450

Just wondering what everyone thinks. Is it wrong to eat someone who asks you to do it? What do y'all think about this.

edit: I always misspell consensual. :eyes:

[absyntheNsugar]

1. I guess it all goes down to

is the eaten crazy, or are they sane at the time. If sane, what on earth would posess them to want to be eaten?

Kind of cyclical...

[VelmaD]

2. Could you make that same argument...

about anyone who wanted to commit suicide?

Would a sane person want to put a shutgun barrel in their mouth and pull the trigger with their toe?

This is not me being flippant believe it or not.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. LOL... Heinlein made a case for it in Stranger.... You grok?

[arcane1]

15. I grokk in fullness...

he made a rather compelling case, IIRC

[supernova]

4. A well-justified taboo

is cannabalism. I mean, what kind of society would we have if we went around eating each other?

I think it's best reserved for the few cases of extreme survival.. the Donner party...the Andes plane crash. Even then the consumed were already dead, they weren't slaughtered for the purpose as a cow is.

[VelmaD]

5. Well, I agree that slaughtering the unwilling...

would be wrong. But what is this guy is telling the truth and the guy actually wanted to be slaughtered and eaten?

[everythingsxen]

8. Personally, I don't have a problem with it if he's willing..

Also, I'd add, without sounding too tacky and/or inhuman.. I've always wondered how it would taste...

Not that I ever would.

[VelmaD]

10. Probably would taste...

like chicken. :evilgrin:

[everythingsxen]

12. I just knew someone would say that.

:P

My money is that it wouldn't taste all that good, most humans being omnivores. Now you vegeterians out there... :evilgrin:

[VelmaD]

14. Sorry...

couldn't seem to help myself. It had to be done.

[TXlib]

20. I think the repugs would mostly taste like chicken.

Dems would probably taste like like horse, or bear, or some other noble animal.

Except Zell Miller, who would taste like weasel.

[supernova]

13. Well, let's say he is telling the truth

In a strange way, I believe him, btw. I believe there was someone that depressed, suicidal, etc. that would consent to that kind of torture, sick as that is.

It's not the actual eating of the flesh that concerns me, believe it or not. Afterall, I symbolically do that every month when we serve communion at church.

What concerns me is that over a period of time you could build a society where there is a two-tiered humanity. Those who see themselves as eaters, and those who see themselves as nothing more than a food supply. Goes against the grain of all being equal in the universe. That's what sickens me.

edit: Plus, you would ignore the fact that in the animal kingdom, cannibalism is a near universal taboo. Why do you suppose that is?

[VelmaD]

17. Part of me thinks...

you'd have a hard time convincing a significant number of people to want to be eaten - humans have a strong survivial instinct.

Then I think about our current society where there's a class who seems to think of themselves as just a source of cheap labor and I can't discount your scenario entirely. People are sheep - and we know what happens to sheep.

[BiggJawn]

18. We already are moving that way.

The rich, "upper class" ReTHUGlicans, who see themselves as masters of all, the privileged ones, and the REST of us.

Willing or not, we're food for their bellies (metaphorically at present) grist for the mill, fodder for the cannon, etc.

And cannibalism IS practiced in the animal kingdom, albeit among the LOWER orders, like fish, rodents, and fowl...What lesson is to be learned there?

[politicat]

22. Cannibalism is not an animal kingdom taboo. That's bad biology. Sorry.

Plus, you would ignore the fact that in the animal kingdom, cannibalism is a near universal taboo. Why do you suppose that is?

Actually, it's not. Male lions kill (and eat) cubs if the food supply is low, we've got tape evidence of Alpha female chimpanzees and baboons going after lower ranking female's infants and probably eating them since the body never shows up - they don't practice burial; Mice, cats, dogs, wolves, hyenas, rabbits, etc. will all eat their young. Seagulls have to protect their own eggs and infants from other seagulls who see them as a tasty snack. Fish, turtles, frogs.... umm, umm, nummy nummy little ones. Strict herbivores are about it for the non-consumption clause. Omnivores and predators will eat their own as readily as someone else's.

Chimpanzees are actually pretty "brutal" - war parties frequently eat the remains of enemies. And they eat monkeys, who are pretty clearly related. So, no, cannibalism isn't taboo.

There's nothing anthropologically speaking that says we're the only ones who engage in cannibalism. For more information, please see Reay Tannahill's book on the subject called : Flesh and Blood: A history of the Cannibal Complex and Susan Allport's "Primal Feast: Food, sex foraging and love" for discussions on the value in a protein deficient society of cannibalism.

I'm agnostic on this issue - my ancestors and yours ate their enemies and their dead. We're here. I'm not apologizing for it. There seems to good reasons not to - we don't have a protein debt these days, meat's readily available, CJ/BSE/CWD/other prion diseases are easily transmitted.... but those can change in a matter of weeks or months.

Why the dead man wanted to do what he did .... well, fetish can be strange. And it was obviously fetish related. (Penectomy pretty much says that.)

Politicat. (Who is perfectly okay with someone eating her remains as long as she's dead from something other than murder first. After all, I won't be using them again, will I?)

[Zhade]

26. Er...that's not quite accurate.

There are many species that eat their own young.

[oldleftguy]

6. Are we making fun of the...

right wing fundamentalists again? Let us be sensitive and accept their traditions!
:bounce:

[THUNDER HANDS]

7. depends on who's asking

If you asked me to eat you, Velma, I'd certainly comply.

:D

[VelmaD]

9. I just knew...

somebody was gonna say that and the smart money was on you. :eyes:

[THUNDER HANDS]

16. i yam what I yam

:D

[BurtWorm]

11. I have no problem if someone consents to being eaten after their death

but I don't accept a cannibal's claim that the victim wanted to be killed and eaten at face value, even if he has "proof." Nor should any instance of consensual murder--and I'm not talking about assisted suicide, which I tend to support--be acceptable, mainly for the reason that you cannot ask the victim if they really did consent. But if a person is dying and makes an arrangement with a third party arbiter of some kind to provide a loved one (or other) with a portion of their body to be eaten--what the hell! To each his or her own! (No pun intended if one can be so construed.)

[TXlib]

19. Somebody who consents to be killed in a fetishistic ritual

is probably not playing with a full deck.

I don't think such a person would be mentally competent to make such a decision.

Now, assisted suicide, when the suicider has legitimate reason to want to die (incurable, excruciating, and/or debilitating disease, with no hope of regaining a normal life) is another matter entirely.

[felonious thunk]

21. Provided there's no murder involved

If I'd like to spot someone a nice juicy steak of my right thigh, by golly, I should be able to lop it off, put in a nice chipotle marinade overnight, grill it over some mesquite wood chips and serve with a garnish of cilantro pica de gallo, then why not?

[JohnKleeb]

23. You are aware of that I am eating dinner soon

:puke: worst thing since the guy eating the rats.

[Dirk39]

24. You'd been seriously damaging a German, while we're about

to eat one another anyway. This is the poll of all polls, I need a new desk-chair.
Hungry in Germany,
Dirk

[Cleita]

25. I just saw this on BBC news and frankly

this sort of reminds me of the Twinkie defense. I mean the 'meal' isn't around to testify that he was eaten with his consent.

[45th Med]

27. Personally, as a Hawaiian...I would like to have his head to shrink.

HEHEHE. J/K. But seriously folks.

Cannibalism is a ritual act of the Christian Communion. Figurately, we are eating the body and blood of Christ to become Christlike. Cannibalism is a pagan ritual act that Christianity picked up on. But, yeah.

[rucky]

28. What goes on in peoples' kitchens is their business.

This is the funniest thread in a long time

[SiobhanClancy]

29. Sorry,I just can't get my teeth around the concept ...

of "consensual cannibalism".

[guitar man]

30. Is it wrong to eat someone who asks you to do it?

My wife thinks it's wrong if I don't! :)