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Cannibalism !!!


Im Your Man
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There's a fascination about cannibalism (all the Hannibal serie, or Perfume:story of a Murderer and other stories) and I noticed it's really a taboo. I start this thread because I said ingesting blood (by mouth or intraveinous) might be a non-vegan act or even considered as cannibalism, or at least modern cannibalism, like organ transplants is like eating human organs for the rest of your "vegan" life. (See fascinating posts on Give Blood topic). Someone said that I should extrapolate this to semen entering another's body as cannibalism. I wouldn't go that far. We can compare our semen to flower's pollen, it's just a tool for reproduction, sowing. But just for the fun of it, here's what I just found: "-A tablespoon of semen contains approximately five to 25 calories. Hence, swallowing isn't terribly fattening.

-Semen is made up of water, sugar, calcium, chlorine, magnesium, nitrogen, vitamins B12 (note from me : hey we could get our B12 from that !!) and C, and zinc, among many other ingredients.

-While there are no studies to support it, it is generally received that kiwi, celery, pineapple, and watermelon can all make semen taste lighter. Heavy beer and coffee drinkers are said to produce bitter-tasting ejaculate. Alkaline-based fish and meats make for a buttery taste.

-An estimated 5% of women are allergic to semen, although pronounced allergic reactions are rare.

The protein content of semen is roughly equivalent to that found in the egg white of a large egg.

-Contrary to 2003 report run by a number of media outlets (including CNN), swallowing semen does not reduce one's risk of breast cancer.

-Fellatio has been demonstrated to make pregnancies safer. Women who practice oral sex before impregnation are at less risk for blood pressure problems during their terms than those who don't. The reason for this is that regular exposure to semen before pregnancy helps a woman's immune system get used to her partner's sperm" (http://ca.askmen.com/love/dzimmer_100/114_love_answers.html). The female Mantis religiosa, referred to as the European mantis or "the praying mantis" performs cannibalism after the sex act. Other relations between sex acts and cannibalism : just google "sex, cannibalism" and you'll end up with over a million results, with texts like that : "In Fascination with Cannibalism has Sexual Roots, Josh Cannon writes about psychologist Steven Scher and his team who conducted one of the only known studies on sex and cannibalism at Eastern Illinois University in 2002. The study surveyed several groups of people who were asked questions pertaining to cannibalism and sexual interests. The results of the study found that people were more likely to eat someone that they were sexually attracted to than not. This suggests that there might be a significant sexual component in the practice of cannibalism. (http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/cannibalism/5.html). CANNIBALISM, which is as old as starvation and older than mankind, while "Neanderthals are believed to have practiced cannibalism" and " it has been practiced by various groups (...) among modern humans": can•ni•bal /knbl/ noun

1 a person who eats human flesh: a tribe of cannibals

2 an animal that eats the flesh of other animals of the same kind

can•ni•bal•ism /knblzm/ noun : to practise cannibalism can•ni•bal•is•tic /knblstk/ adj.

(©Oxford University Press, 2005. ) If we consider blood transfusions a vegan act just because there's no suffering involved by the donator. Then what about true cannibals like the Papou or Fore tribe in New Guinea eating the brains and other organs of their postmortem members until the late '70's. Nobody was killed for food, so no suffering involved. But we can't deny that those practices are not vegan and that they are cannibalistic... WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT CANNIBALISM ?

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If you eat dead people it's cannibalism.

 

If you stuff dead people into other orifices in your body than mouth it's not cannibalism. It's necrophilia or something. Sick but not cannibalism.

 

If you have a blood transfusion from someone it's not cannibalism since you're not eating anything. And it's not even sick, it's essential to save lives.

 

The definition "cannibalism" only applies to eating and drinking.

 

I think that eating a human placenta is vegan even though the idea is repulsive. If you bite your fingernails it's also vegan. If you lick a wound it's vegan. And it's vegan to breastfeed a baby. Milk is quite similar to blood plasma.

 

BTW, coconut milk can be used in emergency situations to replace blood plasma. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060712053613AAgajJ9

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Yes Tuc it's interresting to make a difference between drinking/eating, and transfusion/transplant. But that kind of difference only applies to ethical concept but not to a strict biological concept. In the blood thread you said "Is all cannibalism automatically bad? I don't think so. Eating parts of dead people is bad but breastfeeding isn't." Breastfeeding ain't cannibalism. Milk ain't blood. It's not a body fluid or the body itself but just a liquid produced by and stored in the breasts to feed babies. FormicaLinoleum mentioned something about human hair. Vegan to wear someone else's hair ? I don't see any problem with it, but again, it depends on which vegan grade each person might adhere. There's a huge human hair traffic, for dolls, but for other products, like using the L-Cystine amino acid from human hair protein in commercial bread products. Usually coming from women in third-world countries who don't necessarily like having their heads shaved but do it because there's no other way to have their 5 cents per month. Some people could accept to use human fats in some of their home products like the glycerin from foreskin in hand moisture lotion, while some others (even omnis) find it quite repellent.

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If you eat dead people it's cannibalism.

 

If you stuff dead people into other orifices in your body than mouth it's not cannibalism. It's necrophilia or something. Sick but not cannibalism.

Eating dead humans postmortem or killing them especially for the purpose of eating them, both are cannibalism. "Necrophilia" is not cannibalism but having sex with a dead person. Now if "stuff dead people into other orifices in your body than mouth" is not cannibalism, I'de like to know what's the exact term. Words like "transfusion" and "transplant" are just words that describe the way we do it, right? There must be a word for those procedures.

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Awesome! I can tell my GF that swallowing will help her put on muscle and meet B12 needs! Thanks for the info on the nutritional make up of semen, not something I'd thought about lol. Chimps will occasionally kill and eat rival group members, then I think they also eat some fecal matter to help digest it. Nasty chimp cannibals!

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What tuc said about cannibalism being about "eating or drinking" is exactly right - that's the definition of cannibalism. It's about eating.

 

Receiving a blood transfusion is not, conceptually or biologically, like drinking someone's blood. A transfusion is a life-saving procedure that relies on the plasma and red blood cells to provide the same function in the recipient as it did in the donor. Same thing with transplants. Eating an organ or drinking blood is using the human tissue in question as a food source, not for the blood or organ's original function.

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I

 

I think that eating a human placenta is vegan even though the idea is repulsive.

 

According to The Vegan society The Placenta is not Vegan. It's listed in a rather huge list of Non-Vegan things.

 

Blood Transfusions are of course not listed

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Too bad HUFU didn't last long on the market... http://www.thisnext.com/item/410C5019/F6079241/Hufu
Lol, what the hell is that, what were the ingredients ?
What tuc said about cannibalism being about "eating or drinking" is exactly right - that's the definition of cannibalism. It's about eating.

 

Receiving a blood transfusion is not' date=' conceptually or biologically, like drinking someone's blood. A transfusion is a life-saving procedure that relies on the plasma and red blood cells to provide the same function in the recipient as it did in the donor. Same thing with transplants. [i']Eating[/i] an organ or drinking blood is using the human tissue in question as a food source, not for the blood or organ's original function.

Then what if we get a transfusion but we don't need any transfusion? Is it still vegan and/or not-cannibalistic ? Sorry, but nobody convinced me yet that medical procedures like that are not cannibalistic and that it could even be vegan. It's animal-based substance that we put in our body.
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My guinea pig is a cannibal. As her mate was choking (and nearly dead), she bit little pieces of her ear. If I hadn't separated them in time, she would have eaten her. And those guys are supposed to be herbivores! It was really a shoking sight to see.

 

But I really think that blood isn't such a big deal.

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Too bad HUFU didn't last long on the market... http://www.thisnext.com/item/410C5019/F6079241/Hufu
Lol, what the hell is that, what were the ingredients ?
What tuc said about cannibalism being about "eating or drinking" is exactly right - that's the definition of cannibalism. It's about eating.

 

Receiving a blood transfusion is not' date=' conceptually or biologically, like drinking someone's blood. A transfusion is a life-saving procedure that relies on the plasma and red blood cells to provide the same function in the recipient as it did in the donor. Same thing with transplants. [i']Eating[/i] an organ or drinking blood is using the human tissue in question as a food source, not for the blood or organ's original function.

Then what if we get a transfusion but we don't need any transfusion? Is it still vegan and/or not-cannibalistic ? Sorry, but nobody convinced me yet that medical procedures like that are not cannibalistic and that it could even be vegan. It's animal-based substance that we put in our body.

 

I'd like to know when people are given blood transfusions out of lack of necessity - if there were some sort of evidence that people were given them without need, I could see it being an issue of a different sort, but you're making it sounds like you can go into a hospital for an injured back and come out with someone else's blood in you, which just isn't how things work.

 

I don't agree with your veiwpoints at all based on the fact that they're bordering on a quasi-religious view of abstaining from things that do not fly in the face of the definition of veganism. Eating/drinking blood or flesh as nourishment to provide sustenance by choice over other options is not even close to having a blood transfusion to save one's life because it's the only option available. You can't be suffering from extreme blood loss and have a quart of 10/40 oil or carrot juice put into your veins to save your life - blood is your only option otherwise you may well die in some situations. If there were a non-blood option available you that did the exact same thing you can be sure many people would choose it for various reasons (since many people are creeped out at the concept of someone else's blood in their body, except when their life depends on it). But, there is no such option, so there's only one logical solution. You're comparing something optional vs. something compulsory, which is an apples-to-oranges situation that is incomparable based on the grounds that they're two totally different scenarios.

 

Much like the semen issue that was debated before, it can still be used against your argument. What if people swallow semen without the intention of procreation at any point? It is still a mutual decision to allow ingestion of fluids that don't aid in the creation of new life, and it's not providing sustenance for a person to save someone's life (unlike blood/plasma), so therefore, by your definition it could be even LESS "vegan" to ingest it that to have a blood transfusion. By rights, unless the receiver of the transfusion has disagreed to the procedure, both parties are concensually accepting their part in the role of how the fluid is extracted and used, so it's no different than the semen ingestion issue. Simply pointing out that semen has nutrients and swallowing it may be beneficial to women who may want to get pregnant does not change the fact that people could still choose to ingest it without any thought of using it to procreate. Semen, by your definition as well, is an animal-based substance, and putting it in the body without the need to save someone's life (who wants to be the starving person who would need a cupful to be saved from starvation ) is less "beneficial" than putting blood into your body that does not provide nourishment in the same way as food which DOES save a life.

 

Unfortunately, you tend to contradict yourself by picking and choosing minute points to suit your reason for one type of human fluid ingestion to be acceptable, while another of a different sort used in a way that has far more purpose to preserve life is seen as bad by you.

 

Today, I asked about a dozen vegans I know via email if they thought that a blood transfusion could even remotely be considered non-vegan, and they all thought it was absurd to even consider such a thing. I have the feeling that if I posted the same thing in many other places, I'd get an overwhelming response of the same sort. You can certainly refuse a transfusion on your own degree of consideration for what you consider to be vegan or not, but I don't believe that you'll find much support in the community to ever define a blood transfusion as being non-vegan. It's simply your own interpretation, and is not the general concensus and is not true to the fact that veganism was founded out of principle for the well-being of non-human animals who cannot give their consent to their bodies being used for our purposes. Concensual actions that remain withing legal bounds (I put this due to the "concensual cannibalism" cases of the past where people have allowed others to kill and eat them Which, of course, were not exactly legal by definition) cannot be compared to taking an action on a creature who cannot express free will to refuse to be used as a commodity.

 

Basically, I'm just trying to end up getting at this: If you don't think transfusions are to your own definition of what you think is "vegan", that's great, but please do not try to convey to others that it is somehow not vegan because it's only your interpretation and cannot be backed up by comparing it to use of animals as commodities since it's not even close. Just like I could say that a thousand other things are not vegan and should be avoided, it would only be my interpretation and not true to the root of what veganism was founded on. I just see that finding splinter reasons to call things "non-vegan" is a detriment to those who are curious as to what veganism is really all about. The more we put our own interpretations into the mix and call them truth to those who may not know better, we only succeed in driving away people who may be curious that have issues with our own views that are off the mark of the root of what veganism really is and what it was founded on.

 

End of rant. I know that we tend to go back-and-forth on issues here and there, ImYourMan, so I'm just posting this here one time and don't plan on debating it over and over. I don't expect to change your views on this, but I did feel the need to point out your contradictions and to say that I think conveying your belief on blood transfusions being non-vegan to others as if it were in the basic tenets of veganism does more harm for the movement than good. I'm happy to read your reply, but I won't bother debating this past this point because frankly, I'm completely confounded by your viewpoint and it'll get me nowhere trying to convince you otherwise since you're usually quite set in your opinions. No offense, but we know how these things usually turn out

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Good points VeganEssentials, I just wanna say: nothing wrong about self-expressionor with willing to convey, but trying to convert is bad. I'm not trying to convert anybody to anything, just trying to prove myself I'm right But I don't need anybody else for this, I already believe in my beliefs. But as everybody will agree: each one has their own opinions and beliefs, except the followers with their eyes riveted on the tv screen. There's contradictions in everything on both sides, nothing is purely black or white, there is a war between everything : "the rich and poor, the man and the woman, the right and wrong, the odd and the even, a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say that there isn't" (leonard cohen) ... +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ NOW some cannibalistic news I've read in the newspaper today: in Iles-des-soeurs, a small island around Montreal, there was 48 houses last year that were illegally linked to the sewing for rains, dumping all their wastes directly into the river. We could see condoms, fecal matters and toilet papers floating on the surface of the water. Analysis of the water showned that the human fecal matter level was 650x higher than what is considered safe by the Environmental Department. There was 130 000 fecal coliforms per 100ml of water. 2 months later there was 2 millions, while the Ministery suggests that we should not touch to water containing more than 200 coliforms per 100 ml ! The Environmental knew about this for 8 years and didn't do nothing until the medias made it public! Then it took one more year to oblige the owners of the houses to do something. Today the newspaper went there and said there were no more wastes floating on the water but it smelled bad within a radius of some kilometres. So this is shit from humans and pets that goes into rivers and then we drink all that. Eventhough tap water is filtered there's still some of it that remains especially when the river is infected like that.

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I agree with Hillary - well said, as usual, Ryan!

 

I am not going to debate the ridiculous point of this thread. But I am going to call into question the point of posting such self-serving threads on a vegan forum. This forum exists, in part, to build community for vegans and to promote veganism. There are certainly some threads that don't fit in that context but we're flexible as a forum. However, there are some members who post on this forum in a ways that don't promote veganism, don't build community and quite frankly make us look like asses.

 

I like this forum and this community. I don't like us looking like asses. For those non-forum members who are reading this, please understand that the vast majority of vegans do NOT agree with these ideas of cannabalism.

 

I'm Your Man, I think it would be beneficial for you to view the video that BeforeWisdom posted on this thread: Here Be Dragons!

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I am not going to debate the ridiculous point of this thread. But I am going to call into question the point of posting such self-serving threads on a vegan forum.

I don't want this thread to be a "self-serving thread" (I don't want this thread to talk only about the blood and organ transplant, espescially since "it's not cannibalism", I want it to be a place for people to speak about cannibalism... or maybe it's too taboo and it's gonna be censored?) and excuse me but there are many threads that have nothing useful or no pertinent informations. There's some threads that are like a joke about a guy walking on a banana skin and falls. A thread about cannibalism seems contradictory on a vegan forum, but that's the point : vegans are not supposed to eat humans, so we talk about it. Just like we talk about animals, because we're not supposed to eat them. It is a totally legitimate topic. If some are horrified by it, don't read. Yes, cannibalism exist, even if the vast majority would never admit it. Animals in farms are cannibalized, fed with bone flour and blood flour made of deads of their own specie, often dead due to cannibalism disease (mad cow disease, mad sheep, etc) and therefore creating an eternal cannibalistic circle. This is important to know especially for the meat-eaters. Unfortunately, us vegans are not totally protected from that. There's reports in different countries of a few vegans that got infected in a way or another by infectious animal proteins (cannibalized). +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (sorry, my Backspace on my keyboard don't work anymore so I'm putting symbols to create paragraphs) NOW, concerning the human blood and organ thing, each person has the right to believe it is or not cannibalism or if it's vegan, even when the reasons are because it's too shocking or cannot be conceived as possible, too absurd to even consider it, or that we shouldn't say it out loud, or because it saves lifes it's not cannibalism, or that it could scare vegans, readers of the posts, or discourage potential future-vegans (as if only vegans donate or receive blood). The idea of blood transfusions and organ transplants being cannibalistic is not new. Vegan author Daniele Starenkyj wrote about it some years ago in her book about the saga of infectuous proteins (prions), and the idea is not from her neither, she quoted some eminent authors that talked about the idea way before her. It's not pure cannibalism (this is gone since a long time ago amongst all cultures) but modern cannibalism, which is, like it says itself, a modern variation of cannibalism, a form of cannibalism which is accepted -- and ignored!- amongst our population. When eating makes crazy (her book) is not trying to sow panic among the population, but is a convincing plea in favor of vegetarianism and veganism. Just because some things are unknown to the large public doesn't mean it's false, it's just taboo and controversial, or even worse: totally ignored, because it's concealed by the eminent forces (governement, medias, agrobusiness) to hide something which is embarrassing, to protect themselves or to protect their interests. If it's too much, fine I'll just talk about it on my blog. Edited by I'm Your Man
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