We often say odd things when we’re in love. For instance, in a completely unoriginal moment the other day, I said to my girlfriend: “I could just eat you alive“. Which got me wondering. Could I? Like most of us, when I have a question about romance, I seek the counsel of friends. I don’t know any cannibals though, so I of course headed over to the How Cannibalism Works page at HowStuffWorks.com. This wasn’t very helpful. They started off with a piece about Armin Meiwes, the German cannibal who enticed his victims with charming online dialog like this, and then moved on to things like How The Donner Party Worked. Wanting something a little more guide-like and factual, I tried Wikipedia. Although it was interesting to learn that stories of cannibalism – like so many things that white people say about other social groups – have been historically rather exagerrated to suit some personal needs, at this point I became distracted by the story of Issei Sagawa, Celebrity Cannibal, who was freed four years after being incarcerated for his cannibalistic murder, and moved on to become quite the celebrity in Japan. Sound strange? What do you expect from a country that has an established method for dealing with train groping, a pervasive fascination with tentacle sex, and an entire industry devoted to providing alibis? Anyway, by this time I’d lost my appetite for more information on the topic, but if you’re hungry for more yourself, this rather lengthy LRB review of An Intellectual History of Cannibalism was actually rather interesting. I have to go now, my girlfriend just asked who we should have for dinner.

Armin Meiwes actually somehow looks like he’d eat you:

Toto Coelos’ “I Eat Cannibals”

I eat cannibal, feed on animal
Your love is so edible to me, I eat cannibals
I eat cannibal, it’s incredible
You bring out the animal in me, I eat cannibals

What can you do, you’re in a stew
Hot pot, cook it up, I’m never gonna stop

Fancy a bite, my appetite, Yum, yum, gee it’s fun
Banging on a different drum

I Eat Cannibal, feed on animal
Your love is so edible to me, I eat cannibals
I eat cannibal, it’s incredible
You bring out the animal in me, I eat cannibals

I like spice, tasty and nice
Looks trim, vitamin, forget the dieting
Mmm such a dish, I can’t resist
Healthy recipe, what you got it’s good for me

All I wanna do, is make a meal of you
We are what we eat, you’re my kind of meat
Got a hunger for your love, it’s what I’m speaking of
Give a dog a bone, I can take it home