When you hear the phrase "the sex lives of cannibals," your mind probably goes straight to a low-budget 1970s Italian exploitation film. Or maybe you're thinking of J. Maarten Troost’s famous travel memoir about living in Kiribati, which, ironically, has almost nothing to do with literal cannibalism and everything to do with the absurdity of island life. But if we peel back the sensationalism, we find a complex intersection of biology, ritual, and human psychology that is far weirder—and often more mundane—than the movies suggest. Cannibalism isn't a personality trait. It’s a practice, a desperate survival mechanism, or a ritualistic end-of-life ceremony that exists alongside every other human drive, including the drive to reproduce.
The reality is that for groups that historically practiced anthropophagy (the fancy word for eating humans), sex wasn't some separate, depraved act. It was part of the same social fabric.
Why We Get the Connection Wrong
Humans have this weird obsession with linking "taboo" behaviors together. We assume that if a culture or an individual breaks the ultimate social contract—eating their own kind—they must be breaking every other rule too. It's called "othering." Colonial explorers loved this. They’d come back to Europe with wild tales of "savages" who were sexually rampant and ate their neighbors, mostly because it made for better funding for their next trip.
But look at the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. They are perhaps the most studied group in history regarding cannibalism because of the kuru epidemic—a prion disease spread through funeral feasts. For the Fore, eating the dead wasn't about being "monsters." It was about love. They believed it was better for the body to be tucked away in the warm stomachs of loved ones than to rot in the cold ground or be eaten by worms.
How did this affect their sex lives? Honestly, it made things complicated, but not for the reasons you’d think.
The kuru outbreak primarily killed women and children because they were the ones who handled and ate the highly infectious brain tissue. This created a massive gender imbalance. Imagine a society where the women are dying at a rate eight times higher than the men. Sex became a source of intense anxiety. Men weren't "crazed"; they were terrified. They feared that intimacy with women was actually the cause of the "shaking death." The sex lives of cannibals in this context weren't about excess—they were about a desperate attempt to maintain a population that was literally consuming itself from the inside out.
Ritual, Libido, and the Biology of Hunger
Let’s talk about the biology of it. It’s a bit grim.
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In survival cannibalism—think the Donner Party or the 1972 Andes flight disaster—the sex drive is usually the first thing to go. When the body enters starvation mode, it shuts down non-essential functions. Testosterone drops. Ovulation stops. You aren't thinking about romance when your body is trying to digest its own muscle tissue. In these extreme cases, the "sex lives" of those involved were essentially non-existent. Survival cannibalism is a bleak, functional necessity, and the trauma associated with it usually leads to a complete psychological shutdown regarding intimacy for a long time afterward.
Ritual cannibalism is different.
In some South American cultures, like the Wari', eating the deceased was a way to process grief. Anthropologist Beth Conklin spent years living with the Wari' and noted that their views on the body were incredibly fluid. For them, "personhood" wasn't just in the mind; it was in the flesh and the blood. In many indigenous cosmologies, the act of eating and the act of sex are linguistically and symbolically linked. The Wari' used similar metaphors for both.
Does that mean they were having orgies after a funeral? No.
Actually, many cultures that practiced ritual cannibalism had strict taboos. You often had to fast or remain celibate before and after the ceremony. It was a high-stakes spiritual event. If you look at the Aztecs, who practiced large-scale sacrificial cannibalism, the priests often led lives of intense asceticism. The consumption of the "sacred" flesh was meant to connect them to the gods, not to their own earthly desires.
The Modern Fascination with the "Dark" Side
We can't ignore the elephant in the room: the modern "cannibal" who is actually just a serial killer. This is where the sex lives of cannibals get truly dark and deviate from historical or cultural norms.
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Take Issei Sagawa or Jeffrey Dahmer. For these individuals, the act of cannibalism was inextricably linked to sexual paraphilia. It’s a condition known as renfield's syndrome or more broadly, clinical vampirism/cannibalism. In these cases, the "sex life" is the cannibalism. The consumption of the other person is the ultimate expression of control and possession.
But here is the catch.
These people are outliers. They don't represent a "cannibal culture." They represent a psychological breakdown. When people search for information on this topic, they’re often looking for that "Hannibal Lecter" vibe. But Lecter is a fictional character designed to be sophisticated and terrifying. Real-life cannibalistic sex offenders are usually socially isolated and deeply disturbed individuals whose intimate lives are defined by a total inability to connect with a living, breathing partner.
Breaking the Myths
Myth: It was always a violent frenzy.
Reality: Most historical cannibalism was "endocannibalism" (eating people within your own group) and was performed with a sense of deep somberness and duty. It was a funeral rite.Myth: Cannibalism leads to "wild" sexual behavior.
Reality: If anything, the social rules surrounding these rituals often made sex more regulated and restricted.Myth: It’s all about power.
Reality: Often, it was about calories or spirits. In the Fiji islands, where "exocannibalism" (eating enemies) was common, the act was meant to humiliate the enemy tribe. But even then, the victors had strict social hierarchies to maintain. You didn't just do whatever you wanted.🔗 Read more: The Betta Fish in Vase with Plant Setup: Why Your Fish Is Probably Miserable
The Role of Women
We often assume men were the primary "actors" in these scenarios. History tells a different story.
Among the Fore, women were the primary practitioners of cannibalism. They were the ones keeping the rituals alive while the men often sat back. This meant that the health and reproductive future of the tribe rested entirely on the women's experience with the practice. When the women died of kuru, the men had to take over domestic roles, which fundamentally shifted the "sex lives" and gender dynamics of the entire culture. Men started living together in "men's houses" and became increasingly wary of women, fearing they were "unclean" due to the disease.
It's a reminder that what we eat—and who we eat—dictates how we live and love.
What This Means for History
When we study the sex lives of cannibals, we’re really studying how humans handle the most intense aspects of existence: birth, death, and hunger. It’s not about monsters. It’s about people trying to make sense of a world that is often cruel and scarce.
If you're looking for the "eroticism" of cannibalism, you’ll find it in Gothic literature and horror movies, not in the anthropological record. In the real world, the practice was usually a heavy, ritualistic burden or a horrific survival choice. The intimacy that followed was often marked by grief, fear, or a desperate need to replace the lives that had been lost.
Practical Insights and Next Steps
To truly understand this topic without the filter of Hollywood, you need to look at the primary sources. The transition from ritual to modern taboo is a fascinating study in sociology and ethics.
- Read Beth Conklin's "Consuming Grief." It is the definitive work on the Wari' and explains the emotional logic behind cannibalism better than any textbook.
- Study the Kuru epidemic. Look at the work of Michael Alpers and Shirley Lindenbaum. It shows how a "sex life" can be decimated by a misunderstanding of disease and ritual.
- Differentiate between types. Always distinguish between survival, ritual, and pathological cannibalism. Mixing them up leads to the misinformation that plagues the internet today.
- Examine the "Colonial Gaze." When reading historical accounts from the 1800s, ask yourself: "What did this writer want their audience to believe?" Usually, the answer is "that these people are sub-human."
Understanding the intersection of human intimacy and these extreme practices requires moving past the shock value. It's about seeing the human beneath the ritual.