The Ethical Cannibals of the World Would Like the Armie Hammer News Cycle to End, Too
You may have heard the news about the actor who seems to have fantasies of chomping on his sex partners’ flesh, one Armie Hammer. He allegedly described himself as “100 per cent a cannibal” in a message to a woman; to a girlfriend, he reportedly said that he wanted to “break” her rib and “barbecue and eat it.” The story has been an absolute gold rush for tabloids—the New York Post published no fewer than 16 dispatches on the subject, including inventive listicles like “5 Armie Hammer movie moments that are even creepier amid DM scandal.” Still more disturbing headlines emerged this week.
At some point, you may have thought: This is really not the news cycle I wanted. Well, let me tell you: The world’s ethical human cannibal fetishists don’t want it either. ...
“It’s so easy to shut down and say, ‘That’s not an acceptable fetish, and you need to see a psychiatrist and be behind bars,’ ” a lifelong cannibal fetishist who goes by the pseudonym Mr. Muki told me. He sort of felt this way growing up, too. “I was concerned that maybe I was nuts, borderline pyscho.” Then, in the ’90s, when the internet began connecting people of all sorts of predilections, he realized he wasn’t alone. There were other cannibal types gathering in forums and photoshopping photos of models into giant pots. A photographer himself, Muki thought he could do better, and set up a website called Muki’s Kitchen, which he filled with shots of women “preparing” other women to be eaten. “I’ve always approached the website as a safety valve,” he said—a fun way to explore the fetish without offering anything remotely like instructions for, you know, killing and eating someone. ...
