Is Consensual Cannibalism a Path to Well-Being?

Exploring the Margins of Diversity

Consider the 2001 saga of 42-year-old Armin Meiwes. He placed an ad on the very, very niche Cannibal Café forum seeking a “young, well-built man” for “slaughter and consumption.” A notable 200 people responded with interest. Perhaps surprising to you but not to psychologists who study Vorarephilia - a subgroup of people who find gratification in being eaten, eating another person, or observing someone else do the ghastly act.

Trigger Warning: This is not your typical online dating rom-com.

Bernd Brandes, a 43-year-old engineer, jumped at the opportunity to be slaughtered and scheduled a meeting at Armin’s German farmhouse. Instead of dinner and a movie, they arose at a much more intimate first date.

First, chop off Bernd’s man parts, sauté them in olive oil and garlic, and eat the results together. Bernd not only consented, he consumed 20 sleeping pills to expedite the process. Unfortunately (depending on your perspective), neither of them could digest the meat.

Second, kiss on the couch.

Third, consent to being stabbed with a knife to the throat for the purpose of using untainted flesh for subsequent meals. Over the next few days, Armin digested 44 pounds of Bernd’s body.

This cannot be stressed enough - Bernd responded to the classified ad with the purpose of being eaten. Consented to having his man parts cut off and consumed. Participated in trying to eat his man parts. Digested drugs on his own accord to be chopped up into pieces.

This story evokes a lot of emotions. It also raises a large number of questions about who does this, why, and what should be the moral and legal implications.

I brought this case to the attention of my Science of Well-Being Class and had people break up into small groups to answer two questions:

1. Why is or isn’t this cannibalistic date acceptable?

2. What are your hypotheses for why someone wants to be eaten?

Students detailed a wide range of emotions from shock and disgust to amusement and curiosity. And then they entered highly energetic conversations while I played Explosions in the Sky in the background.¹

Precisely capturing what you feel allows for more sophisticated responses

Here are a few thoughts generated by groups:

• Loneliness might be the origin of seeking to eat or be eaten. One cure for loneliness, being unable to connect deeply with another person, is to consume them. You literally have another person inside you.

• This might have been a suicidal gesture by someone who feels their life is devoid of meaning. The idea of satisfying someone else’s desire for human consumption can be viewed as a final act of generosity.

• If consenting adults are involved, with sufficient mental capacity, why can’t they interact with each other in the privacy of their homes as desired? For several decades, therapists and scientists have been trying to remove fetishes as disorders unless there is nonconsensual harm.

• Legalize consensual cannibalism and crime rates might go down. The cannibal is not hunting innocent people - kidnapping, assaulting, and murdering on the streets. Instead, the cannibal uses modern dating apps to find willing matches (even if The Cannibal Café isn't as popular as Bumble). As long as the cannibal limits the search to willing recruits, it might be a useful service for the public safety and health of innocent civilians. However, this isn't to say that the situation is idyllic. Both the cannibal and recruit most likely struggle with mental health problems, leading to dire attempts to feel and think better.²

• Perhaps many people wanting to eat or be eaten are motivated by a compulsion. Cannibalism reflects an unusual variant of sexual desire (that is, a fetish).³

• Irrespective of consent, cannibalism should be considered illegal. Someone is actively contributing to the physical harm and in this case, death, of another person. Gratification serves as a weak exemption because there’s no safeguard against impulsive or irrational decision-making. The case for personal gratification might be less important than setting a precedent to protect human beings from not just other people but from themselves.

What I appreciate about this provocative conversation is the willingness of students to adopt the perspective of diverse characters in a strange storyline. Few of us will meet people with a proclivity toward cannibalism. The initial response might be to socially, physically, and legally persecute someone with an alternative lifestyle - deprive them of their humanity and agency. It’s worth remembering a long standing history of dehumanizing people who live differently.

• Dr. Benjamin Rush, founder of psychiatry in America, coined the disease Negritude to explain the problem of having dark, Black skin. The cure? Become White.

• Contrary to most psychology textbooks, homosexuality remained a psychiatric disorder in the fields of psychiatry and psychology in 1973. Being gay was not abolished as a mental illness until 1987!

• It wasn’t until 2013 that psychiatry and psychology abolished transgender as a mental illness.

Hard Conversations about Hard Things

What preceded my classroom discussion about consensual cannibalism was an introduction to 10 principles of productive conflict (read the article here and download a PDF to import into presentations). There is great value in introducing the principles of arguing well and then diving into a low-stakes stress test. This is what we did in discussing cannibalism instead of the current “culture war” topics of race, sex, gender, and political parties.

Each is Essential in Group Discussions Albeit Hard to Maintain

It is really hard to separate how much you dislike someone from the quality of their message (The Likability Principle).

It is really hard to hold a view that deviates from everyone else in the room. Often acts of solitary silence win over the public expression of questions and concerns (The Illusory Danger Principle).

I ask students which of these 10 principles:

• is the hardest in conversations?

• is the one they want to work on?

Think about starting a class by empowering students to own their difficulties and publicly committing to personal growth. Observe the rest of the group nod in solidarity and respect to each other.

Armin Meiwes was convicted of murder, sentenced to life imprisonment. The main determinant being that drugs and alcohol used by Bernd rendered him incapable of consent. There are still a lot of questions about how much agency Bernd is allowed to have in his self-destruction. A debate that mirrors societal arguments about the morality of self-directed euthanasia to relieve unbearable, unrelenting suffering. We all have initial reactions. With the purpose of education centering around curiosity and exploration, there is value in teaching people how to think critically which includes questioning their own belief system and allowing contemplation of alternative (less mainstream) positions.

Since words on the page are easily misinterpreted let me state: I am not an advocate of cannibalism.

I advocate for a deep appreciation of individual differences in humanity, spanning backgrounds, values, interests, and dispositions.

Exploring the extraordinary relationship between Armin Meiwes and Bernd Brandes allows us to unearth biases that produce more judgment than contemplation, more defensiveness than curiosity. Experiment with initial assumptions and how to hold them loosely, updating beliefs and hypotheses as information is collected. Information that includes evidence for and against your preferred position, and for and against seemingly unpalatable alternatives. Critical thinking is necessary irrespective of whether your position shifts.

There are multiple paths to well-being.

There are multiple elements to well-being.

It is worthwhile to contemplate the range of intersections that are possible. To do anything less is to stray from diversity to myside bias.

Make sure to read the last issue where I detailed suggestions for reducing ostracism in groups.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please leave a ❤️. Even better, share this and initiate a conversation about how your group fails to protect diverse members from unwarranted rejection. And if you read The Art of Insubordination (with strategies, tactics, and habits on the Rules of Principled Dissent), send me thoughts, questions, or beefs. I love hearing from readers.

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Extra Curiosities

• The MOVIE - Regardless of your position on free speech, watch this documentary, Mighty Ira. Get insights on the most famous free speech case in America - Nazi marches in Skokie, Illinois, home of the greatest number of holocaust survivors.

• The LISTEN - The chapter getting the most attention in my new book is on how to raise children to be persuasive, principled dissenters. We talk about strategies during this wonderful conversation on The Wellness Mama podcast.

• The READ - Four scientists experiment by saying no to all work requests. Check what happened.

1. Because the groups are close together, I play low volume music in the background to reduce self-consciousness. I do this for all the exercises in my class. I want them to reduce psychological barriers to voicing their opinions in a group setting. I also want them to arrive at their conclusions independently from other groups - which has been shown to be far better than beginning with group brain storming. And yet, most educational and occupational groups still rely on group brain storming for the initial generation of ideas. More about this can be found in Chapter 9 - How to cultivate rebel-friendly cultures in group settings.

2. While we didn’t discuss the existing research, it appears that severe mental health conditions are common in cannibals including a much higher rate than the population in schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder. The mental health difficulties of cannibals often emerge in early childhood.

3. Often determined by social factors. What was an immoral paraphilia in the mid 20th century such as homosexuality is now classified as a non problematic, lower frequency form of sexual expression. It is worth pondering what so-called pathologies of today will be considered just another variant of interests, desires, and motivation 50 years from now.