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shy
Crypt Keeper
 
Australia
1867 Posts |
 Posted - 19 March 2004 : 11:33:21 PM
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In Germany a man is on trial for killing and eating an acquaintance - by mutual consent. Peter Fray reports on the ultimate taboo.
They exist under half-names and phoney identities in the darkest crevices of cyberspace. People such as Laura, who pleads her bona fides in poor English: "Please don't tell me I'm sick," she writes.
"It is just a fantasy, but the realism of it turns me on so much." Or, Robert, who cuts very much to the chase: "I already have a young, pretty, slightly plump married women from Iowa offering herself . . . "
They are probably fantasists, sexual deviants and plain old fruit bats, but their messages are nonetheless chilling; especially chilling because one of these modern-day cannibals and his allegedly willing victim has now stepped out of cyberspace, evolving before our eyes from the virtual to visceral.
It may be hard to digest, but it appears we live in a time of cannibals. The question is, how can such apparent savagery exist in supposedly a sophisticated world?
Armin Meiwes used to be a nondescript, polite, middle-aged, even sensitive German computer nerd, or so his friends and neighbours say, but now the world knows him as the Rotenburg Cannibal or the Hesse Hannibal.
A lonely bisexual, the product of a tortured, cold and unloving relationship with his late, domineering mother, Meiwes, 42, collected sex and torture scenes off the internet and advertised to meet a "well-built man who wants to be eaten".
In gruesome, often stomach-challenging detail, the world has heard
how his fantasy became frighteningly true.
Almost three years ago, he met Bernd-Jurgen Brandes, 43, a computer engineer from Berlin, via an online cannibal "cafe".
Like Robert and Laura, Brandes posted an explicit and challenging note: "I offer myself to you and will let you dine from my live body. Whoever REALLY wants to do it will need a REAL VICTIM." Unlike Laura and Robert, it seems he wasn’t playing out a sexual fantasy.
Meiwes, using the name Franky, replied and after an internet courtship, he killed and ate Brandes in March 2001.
They first shared Brandes's severed penis. Miewes says it was "tough and unpalatable". And then Miewes stabbed his willing victim and cut him up into joints of meat.
Miewes now attends a packed courtroom in Kassel, waiting to find out if he is guilty of murder for sexual satisfaction or, as he claims, guilty of the lesser charge of killing by demand. According to Meiwes's legal team, the Berliner "could not wait to be eaten".
It is tempting to think of Meiwes as a total aberration, a throwback to the kind of savage society fiercely debated by anthropologists in academic texts on the Aztecs (who had a taste for eating their enemies) or Australian Aborigines (a colonial myth perpetuated for political reasons, argues respected Australian researcher Michael Pickering).
But the Meiwes case raises questions far beyond the realms of academe.
The word cannibalism comes from the West Indian Carib tribe who, according to Christopher Columbus, were known to supplement their fruit and fish diet with human flesh. Exactly why they did is not known, but armed with such evidence, many a white Christian missionary has sought to civilise natives away from such voodooistic practices.
When the Meiwes case first came to light, sections of the German press painted him as kind of hereditary witch. Papers found people who supposedly knew the family and were prepared to say his mother, Ulla von Bernus, who died about five years ago, was a witch who would kill on Satan's orders.
But the main magic Meiwes employed is available to most Westerners. It is called the internet.
And, as his trial has gone on, it has also become impossible to throw him into the same repulsive category as American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who is serving life for murdering and eating 17 men and boys, or his Russian counterpart Andrei Chikatilo. He was executed in 1994 for murdering and eating the the sexual organs of more than 50 people.
But Meiwes, who is undoubtedly psychologically challenged, is now not being seen as a violent maniac or serial killer or a latter-day member of a Satanic, flesh-eating cult.
A female friend, who could not be identified, told the court he was sensitive and friendly. "He came across as being very childlike," she said. Another female witness, a neighbour, said he had tried to start a relationship with her and had wanted to start a family.
The Meiwes case has opened the door on something far more insidious and pernicious: the secret world of the suburban cannibal, with the internet as the key.
Criminologist Rudolf Egg, a psychologist from Germany's leading criminology institute, believes there are probably thousands of would-be, Meiwes-style cannibals across the world.
"There are several hundred people with cannibalistic tendencies in Germany alone," he has told the court. "And many thousands around the world. Cannibalism has always been around, but the internet reinforces the phenomenon. You can be in contact with the whole world and do this anonymously."
Most are fantasists who only play with the sexual allure of being eaten or eating someone else and never come out from behind the veil of cyberspace. As Meiwes lamented to Brandes, "there are a lot of people out there who are interested, but only a few really mean it".
Not so Meiwes. He had so much correspondence from various cannibal forums he could fill two trucks, police say. He was in contact with more than 400 cannibals, mainly from Western Europe and America.
In the manner of the net, they conversed frankly, with the talk carrying a frisson of the illicit, of two people being very, very naughty.
"Did you kill any young men over the holidays," asked Jorg, one of Meiwes's many correspondents, in January 2002. He replied: "It was the only thing I didn't do over the holidays. Do you think that I have slipped out, that I want to kill a young man and eat him?"
Jorg: "No, there is nothing sexier than to be killed like a pig."
Miewes met four men after he killed Brandes, and he is now being investigated over the deaths of two more people, one in Frankfurt and one in Austria. He has yet to be charged with these murders.
Sex lurks behind cannibalism. Professor Egg has described Miewes’s actions as "sexual cannibalism", a highly elevated form of the sexual act. "Sexual cannibalism . . . is the 'highest' form of intimate behaviour." He believes Meiwes had been trying to find in cannibalism the kind of intimacy he never found with another human, especially his uncaring mother.
The four men who met Meiwes after he killed Brandes were clearly prepared to indulge in a deep and dark sexual fantasy, part bondage, part flagellation.
They allowed him to wrap them up in cellophane and mark out their body parts as joints of meat. When they chickened out, Meiwes let them go. As his lawyers argue, hardly the act of a depraved serial killer. But among the truckloads of evidence against him are two naked pictures of Brandes. Homoeroticism is being used to further tarnish what is left of Meiwes's reputation.
But not all cannibalism is about sex. Just as often it has been used as a vicious form of slander. Extremist Muslims are harnessing its shock value as the last great taboo to demonise modern-day Jews, just as the medieval Christians and later Nazis propaganda, claimed the Jews had a taste for baby Christian blood.
Author William Shawcross, writing in London's Observer newspaper, brought to the attention of the West a Syrian-made film recently shown across the Middle East by a Lebanese satellite TV station, which carried the following dialogue.
Rabbi: "Well, we have a mission from the leadership, and we must carry it out quickly."
Young Jewish man: "What is it?"
Rabbi: "Listen, We want the blood of a Christian child before Passover, for the matzos."
Can cannibalism ever be justified? Yes, when it's the choice between life and death. History abounds with instances of so-called survival cannibalism, among them the Donner party of 90 American frontier settlers who survived being trapped in Sierra Nevada snows in 1846 by eating their dead comrades, and the members of an Uruguyan rugby team who used their dead team-mates as food after an Andean aircraft accident in 1972.
Their exploits were later recreated in the film, Alive, and condoned by the Catholic Church. Archbishop Rubio of Montevideo compared their survival tactics to a medical transplant.
"Eating someone who has died in order to survive is incorporating their substance, and it is quite possible to compare this with a graft," he said. "Flesh survives when assimilated by someone in extreme need, just as it does when an eye or heart of a dead man is grafted onto a living man."
Citing the Uruguyan crash, the late Australian philosopher, Richard Routley (later Sylvan), argued that "there is really nothing extravagant at all in contending that sometimes cannibalism is perfectly right: any extravagance is due to the fact that the admissible cases lead, naturally and coherently, once human chauvinism is properly left behind, to much more controversial cases."
A known stirrer, Routley's 1982 paper, In Defence of Cannibalism, hit a raw nerve among the ranks of the nation's philosophers, as his former colleague, William Grey, recalls.
"Apparently some philosophers believed it was outrageous, or evidence of a corrupt mind, to be prepared to seriously address such a topic as cannibalism. Perhaps, too, more timid members of the philosophical community were alarmed that Sylvan might be a Hannibal Lecter in the world of philosophy."
In the paper, Routley asks: "Since it is not eating human flesh per se that is wrong, what is it that is wrong, if anything, with raising humans or other creatures for food? Is it the raising, or the killing, or is it both?"
The German court now listening to the evidence against Meiwes will not be afforded such highfalutin rhetorical flourishes. Cannibalism is not on trial in Kassel as it is not illegal in Germany, just as it isn't in Britain and several other Western nations. The question is, did Miewes murder Brandes or, as he maintains, did he just help him fulfil his wishes. This would put the case on a par with euthanasia.
Brandes's ex-boyfriend, Rene Jasnik, has told the court that his lover had "no thoughts of suicide".
For murder Meiwes faces life, for the lesser charge, about five years. Either way, he will have time to finish his autobiography which he has reportedly started. There is talk of a movie. Sentencing is expected within the month.
Whatever Meiwes receives, the secret world of cannibals, real or imaginary, will never be so secret again.
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sorry_im_different
Corpse
 
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 27 March 2004 : 04:33:16 AM
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| I would be so scared to offer myself...But, it would be interesting...They need to make more true movies that are based on these events..I would watch them...Sarah Theora. |
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Mazeppa
Zombie
 
USA
884 Posts |
Posted - 28 March 2004 : 06:00:13 AM
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Well, the cannibalism topic IS rather hard to digest, I view this as a definite abberation. I like a good choice cut of meat as well as the next man, but NOT HUMAN FLESH!! Egads. Idi Amin was asked how human flesh tastes, was reported to have replied "Salty."
An acquaintence recently told me (she says she is a witch) that one reason she practices witchcraft is due to her Catholic upbringing, that she viewed it as a "cannibalistic religion" due to the drinking of Christs' blood and the eating of his flesh...in the form of communion wafers. Perhaps some of these modern cannibals were set up for their behaviour?
Carrion, I mean carry on.
Robert Dougherty |
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kanjo
Undertaker
Australia
75 Posts |
Posted - 31 March 2004 : 12:10:27 AM
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This is all well and good, but knowbody has asked the blindingly obvious, what do you serve as a side dish with penis?
Spuds? |
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shy
Crypt Keeper
Australia
1867 Posts |
Posted - 31 March 2004 : 12:30:38 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by kanjo
This is all well and good, but knowbody has asked the blindingly obvious, what do you serve as a side dish with penis? Spuds?
I would of suggested roasted chestnuts... but each to their own 
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Mazeppa
Zombie
USA
884 Posts |
Posted - 01 April 2004 : 4:04:27 PM
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I would suggest asparagus or broccoli as a side dish. With lots of butter. An art-i-choke would be just too funny......
Robert Dougherty |
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Buckshot
Man Pussy
Australia
327 Posts |
Posted - 18 April 2004 : 12:42:55 PM
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A movie on this incident has already ben greenlit - can't wait to see which fast food chain signs up for the obligatory meal deal tie in.
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shy
Crypt Keeper
Australia
1867 Posts |
Posted - 19 April 2004 : 11:47:33 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Mazeppa
I like a good choice cut of meat as well as the next man, but NOT HUMAN FLESH!!
How would you know it was human flesh Mazeppa? -- We would all like to think that we could distinguish between what we have previously classed as edible meats, but would we really know? And not having tasted human flesh (aside from the little nibbles I take from Bucky  ) how would you know what it tasted like to actually realise that you were eating it?
When we think of cannibalism we think of the body as a whole, sections being removed and eaten straight from the body. If a cow was on the table, with skin, hair, eyes and offal, would you be compelled to eat chunks from the carcass? We think that cannibalism is barbaric, though most cases of cannibalism in their most interesting form are concerning people who prepare human flesh as most prepare animal meat. Though I will agree that some cannibals gnaw straight from the carcass, many cultures do this with animals as well.
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Redeemer
DOA
3 Posts |
Posted - 23 April 2004 : 02:21:42 AM
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I've read about many suburban cannibals over the past 7 years or so.Most of the subjects happened to live in NYC(how fitting),and many of these cases were very similiar in nature.Each case contained either 1 or 2 males from the ages of 30 to 60 w/ the victim always being a woman.
the cases included a few or all of the following...
1.)female is killed first via asphyxiation or trauma to the head
2.)one or both of females breast is cut off
3.)vulva removed
4.)body parts and/or flesh is either baked,fried or placed in stews or mac and cheese(alot of cases involved mac and cheese....don't ask)
5.)ejaculation from one or both males into breast cavity occurs
Cannibal cases are supressed too often by the authorities(along w/ many other forms of crime) |
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shy
Crypt Keeper
Australia
1867 Posts |
Posted - 28 April 2004 : 07:27:16 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Redeemer
Cannibal cases are supressed too often by the authorities(along w/ many other forms of crime)
I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing Redeemer. Simply because I don't think that the public on a whole is capable of understanding these crimes and of course the old saying 'ignorance is bliss' comes to mind.
Most people are happy to live their lives in a world that they know little or nothing about and many are incapable of much more.
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joch666
Lost Soul
Australia
38 Posts |
Posted - 28 April 2004 : 9:15:08 PM
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Mac and cheese...?? "How ironic", I comment as I sit here reading and eating my pasta bake 
"I'm not lazy, I'm preventing the energy death of the universe!" |
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Jukama
Ghost
Australia
138 Posts |
Posted - 29 April 2004 : 6:18:47 PM
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It does beg the question though - how free are we to do what we want with our bodies? If abortion is murder of an innocent what is the reason behind condemnation of suicide? Should we not have the right to end our lives if we wish ... and if that involves feeding someelse in the bargain is that so wrong?
~Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.~
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morbidrancorfetish
Corpse
USA
10 Posts |
Posted - 01 May 2004 : 1:14:10 PM
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i would have to try it once. i mean you only live once .i would not kill someone, i would find someone that has engaged in such, and eat dinner with them. i do not think i would tell anyone i had done so , i would keep it to myself.
If I had a goddamn axe i would chop down the tree you fell from , invade the hell you come from. |
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Witchy Woman
Corpse
Australia
22 Posts |
Posted - 05 May 2004 : 12:37:02 PM
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What's mac and cheese?
--::>> Witchy Woman <<::-- |
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Mazeppa
Zombie
USA
884 Posts |
Posted - 09 May 2004 : 04:45:29 AM
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A good steak, bears little relation to a cut of human flesh. Of course, I lived in Trenton for awhile, and found that the catflesh purveyed at local chinese resturants to be rather good. I would afterwards read about the health board closing them down.....
I really think I know the difference between human and cow flesh, unless perhaps it was served as "hamburger~!!!!
*Pass the ketchup, please.........."
Liver and onions is a totally seperate tissue I mean issue.
mazeppa |
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joch666
Lost Soul
Australia
38 Posts |
Posted - 09 May 2004 : 5:15:48 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Jukama
It does beg the question though - how free are we to do what we want with our bodies? If abortion is murder of an innocent what is the reason behind condemnation of suicide? Should we not have the right to end our lives if we wish ... and if that involves feeding someelse in the bargain is that so wrong?
I'm forced to remember the case in the US (since adopted by Australian common law) which determined that a person has no legal ownership over his or her body. That being the case, I would say that our 'freedom' is quite severely curtailed indeed. Condemnation of suicide, I think, comes down from relgious dogma - being a damnable sin. Abortion as 'murder' is perhaps humans attempting to anthropomorphise an entity that 'might be'. It also involves denying basic freedoms to people already living independently (ie the woman). Since no one has a legal right to ownership of their body, the whole abortion hypocrisy doesn't surprise me.
"I'm not lazy, I'm preventing the energy death of the universe!" |
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Secret world of the suburban cannibal
