These are my random musings. Hopefully they will be witty, insightful, and frequently updated.
Sexual fetish is one thing, but...
Published on January 17, 2006 By singrdave In Current Events
By sheerest coincidence, I was thinking about a scene this morning from the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. The kids are surfing on the Internet, and stumble across a German scheisse video. (Just think "poo" and Cartman's mom, and you'll have all the information you need.) As they scream in horror and quickly click away, one of the kids exclaims: "Dude, what the f*** is wrong with German people?"



And then, this morning I stumbled across this story, and asked myself the same question.

A convicted German cannibal returned to court on Thursday for a retrial to determine if his killing and eating of a willing victim amounted to murder.
Meiwes was first sentenced in January 2004 to 8-1/2 years for manslaughter, but the Supreme Court ruled last April that the judges had been too lenient and ordered a retrial.
The bizarre case of sexual fetishism and gory details of the crime have transfixed the public in Germany and beyond, while legal experts have argued over the definition of murder.
He has admitted killing Berlin-based computer specialist Bernd-Juergen Brandes but had been spared a murder conviction and a possible life sentence as the victim had yearned to be eaten.


Surely I'm reading this wrong. Surely the victim chose the wrong person to say "bite me" to, or maybe this was a sauce-mixing adventure gone horribly awry. But no ... we're dealing with a guy who wanted to be eaten, as in consumed, for ... sexual gratification?

But wait, the story continues. Oh, joy.

Lawyer Harald Ermel acknowledged his client had a “fetish for human flesh”, but said he was no longer a threat. “Under the same circumstances he would never do something like that again,” he said.

"Defense counsel?" "Yes, your Honor?" "Would you ask your client to stop rubbing A-1 Sauce on the court reporter, please?"

(Those of you with more delicate constitutions may want to skip the next paragraph ...)

In a “slaughter room” fitted out with butcher’s bench, meat hook and cage, Meiwes severed Brandt’s penis and they both tried to eat it.

... WHAAAAAAA???????.



I have heard of lots of warped sexual fetishes in my 35 years of life. I have never in my life heard of anybody who ever wanted to CONSUME THEIR OWN PENIS. Sure, Ron Jeremy's porn career was built on his interesting ability to put his own in his mouth (or so I've heard) ... but to take a big healthy chaw out of it? Most men are far too attached to their member to want to be detached from it, let alone to make sashimi out of it.

But wait, there's more. (Of course there is.)

“Due to the consistency of the penis, this did not succeed, either raw or fried,” Koehler said.

I am a becoming a decent cook. I have put things in my mouth that-- (wait, that would be a very unfortunate metaphor for this discussion.) Suffice it to say that I have even eaten Cajun food. But I have never come across any recipes for "chicken-fried penis". Not ONE. (Not human penises, anyway. Or is the correct plural "penii"?)

Besides, perhaps I'm being too harsh on ol' Bernd-Juergen. Perhaps it wasn't chicken-fried at all. Perhaps a light pan-frying is all that a good "filet of trouser snake" requires. Obviously, though, "tenderness" is not necessarily a desired quality in this dish ...



When Brandt fell unconscious, Meiwes slit his throat, pulled out his organs and chopped off his head. The next day, he froze portions of his flesh, eating some 44 pounds of it over following months.

I think we can all agree that both cannibal Meiwes and victim -- my bad, sexual partner -- Brandes are, or were, a couple of truly warped individuals. And perhaps you may be thinking that because I took the time to bring this story to your attention, I must be a sick bastard as well. (And please leave my last name out of this.)



But remember, oh ye in glass houses: You read this entry all the way to the end, now didn't you?

Comments
on Jan 17, 2006
forum bump
on Jan 17, 2006
I read about this story when it first appeared.  It is still sick today!
on Jan 17, 2006
I think it's hilarious that this guy is getting retried when the powers-that-be realized his sentence wasn't harsh enough.

Or that murder of a willing victim doesn't equal manslaughter.
on Jan 17, 2006
Shadowar had a blog about this on the 12th. Being the thread killer that I seem to be, I was the only one who commented on it. I hope I don't kill this one too! Maybe your's will be more popular because it has pictures
on Jan 17, 2006
Shadowar had a blog about this on the 12th.

Thank you. I did not do my due diligence. Sorry, Shadow. Now I'll have to go read it.



Later:

Sorry, Jill... couldn't find it on his site or even in his index. Went back all the way to early December.

on Jan 17, 2006
Sorry, Jill... couldn't find it on his site or even in his index. Went back all the way to early December.


Just go to Current Events in the forums and hit the More button. I'm sure you will find it then.
on Jan 17, 2006

Maybe yours will be more popular because it has pictures


And with disturbing pictures to boot. ::
on Jan 18, 2006
Well, as you may guess, the story got A LOT attention here in the german media.
It's a typical case of 'common sense vs. law'. Those two don't get along to well most of the times, neither here in germany nor anywhere in the world.

See, it's obvious to every sane person that the whole thing is just sick and is, of couse, murder - but if you try to apply german law to it, the situation gets kinda weird because, well, when the law was written, nobody exspected a case like that. There just isn't a law about cannibalism, it's just a loophole and never was thought necessary - it's such a rare thing anyway, and (before the Meiwes case) when it happend, it always happend together with harder crimes which give you a livelong sentence anyway, so it didn't really matter.
For the murder part - well, murder is defined by killing someone who doesn't want to be killed. There is a sepperate law for killing someone who wishes to be killed - it is still a crime and punished hard, of couse, but has nowhere the same status as murder. The law was written to deal with medical assisted suicide - which is illegal in germany, but definitly (I agree with that) not as bad as murder. It was never written to deal with cases like THAT - no law was - but, if you take it literally (and that's the way laws are interpreted), it is the law you have to apply.
It's at the same time disgusting and amusing. I could never be a successful laywer. I have way to much common sense.

As for that laywer who defends him... oh my. Of couse it's bullshit. But of couse he HAS to say this. It's his job. But how can such people sleep at night? I always wonder about those laywers who defend serial killers. Creepy.
on Jan 18, 2006
Yellow Sign:
Thank you for your wonderful response. It truly is nice to see things from your side of the Atlantic, especially when incidents occur there. What a great post, have a cookie. Now to address some of your talking points...

when the law was written, nobody exspected a case like that. There just isn't a law about cannibalism, it's just a loophole and never was thought necessary - it's such a rare thing anyway, and (before the Meiwes case) when it happend, it always happend together with harder crimes which give you a livelong sentence anyway, so it didn't really matter.

Yes, I can easily see how no one thought this would come before the courts. It's not just about murder, as you said, it wasn't an "assisted suicide".

murder is defined by killing someone who doesn't want to be killed.

Exactly. So how do you prosecute a guy who killed another willing human being? Under what statute? Obviously the meeting of two like-minded insane people is going to cause a few legal problems. It hadn't been pigeonholed before!

It's at the same time disgusting and amusing.

Yes, it is.

As for that laywer who defends him... But how can such people sleep at night?

How would you like to be known as the lawyer who got this guy off? Well, let me rephrase that...
on Jan 18, 2006
Jesus Christ! A real life Hannibal Lecter! That guy's depraved, and needs to be locked away.
on Jan 19, 2006

As for that laywer who defends him... But how can such people sleep at night?

That seems to be a consensus among people with common sense.

on Jan 19, 2006
Here's an update, with testimony from the killer...

From Yahoo News:
A German cannibal who killed a man who wanted to be eaten told a court Monday that he had only been carrying out his victim's wishes and had not expressly sought to kill him.

"I wanted to eat him, but I didn't want to kill him," Armin Meiwes, 44, told judges in three hours of testimony at his retrial.

Meiwes was sentenced in January 2004 to 8-1/2 years for manslaughter, but the Supreme Court ruled last April that the judges had been too lenient and ordered a retrial.

He had admitted killing Berlin-based computer specialist Bernd-Juergen Brandes, 43, but was spared a murder conviction and a possible life sentence because the victim had demanded to be eaten.

Meiwes told the court, repeating much of his testimony from his first trial, that he had severed Brandes's penis at his request and that both had tried to eat it, without success.

Brandes steadily lost more blood and finally dropped unconscious, at which point Meiwes said he decided to pray.

"I didn't know whether I should pray to the devil or to God," said Meiwes, who appeared relaxed and eager to tell his version of events.

Believing his victim to be dead, he said, he plunged a knife into his neck. Only when he later saw his videotape of the crime did he realize that Brandes had still been faintly breathing.

Meiwes's legal team has argued the defendant merely acceded to Brandes's wishes and that his crime was only "killing on request," a form of illegal euthanasia that carries a maximum five-year sentence.

Prosecutors, hoping to secure a murder conviction, need to show that Meiwes killed Brandes not only because the latter had wanted to be eaten, but also due to a base desire of his own. Germany's top criminal court said the first trial court had ignored the fact that Meiwes had filmed the slaying for later sexual gratification.
(Emphasis added.)

This story gets more and more sordid with time and revelation. Yikes.

What gets me is what was mentioned before: there is no precedent for something this heinous or abhorrent. There aren't laws to cover it because it is such an unthinkable crime. We shouldn't fault the lawmakers for neglecting to cover this eventuality, because this crime is beyond the pale. Lawmakers, just like the rest of humanity, shouldn't be responsible for preventing this kind of depraved crime. But since the law hadn't caught up with the basest, most vile side of human nature, now society has to find existing statute in order to put this guy away. FOREVER.