Posted by Vorarephilia, or “vore”, is a paraphilia in which people are aroused by the idea of being eaten, eating someone or watching it happen. Since it cannot be acted out without injuring or killing, it lives almost entirely in drawings, stories, videos and roleplay. It should not be confused with actual cannibalism, like that of Issei Sagawa or Armin Meiwes.
Vorarephilia is a sexual paraphilia. People who have it are sexually aroused by the idea of being eaten, eating someone, or watching either of the two.
Vorarephilia
Among insiders vorarephilia (from the Latin vorare, to devour or swallow, and the Greek philía, love) is simply called “vore”.
The vore fantasy, however, can hardly be acted out in real life without injuring or killing someone, and is often physically impossible anyway. So vore lovers turn to stories, drawings, videos, video games and roleplay on the theme, where pain is not necessarily present. “Prey” and “predators” can be people, animals, dragons, giant snakes and other creatures, real or imaginary.
Some identify with the person being eaten (the prey), others with the one doing the eating (the pred, short for “predator”). Very often the desire is to be swallowed whole. In fact vorarephiles are generally not especially attracted to pain, as happens in masochism: the pleasure lies rather in the psychological side, such as the idea of being completely annihilated.
Precisely because of the desire to be swallowed alive and whole, this paraphilia is often associated with macrophilia, the fantasy involving giants. Many drawings and videos for vorarephiles show giants able to swallow their prey in one gulp. Some vorarephiles can also be aroused by watching animals swallow other animals whole, like snakes.
Types of vorarephilia
There is not just one kind of vorarephilia, there are several:
- Soft vore: the person is eaten alive and whole and is not injured before reaching the stomach. There they may stay unharmed and later be “released” (this is called endo vore), or die by being digested. In the fantasies, victims are not always willing.
- Hard vore: the most extreme and least common form, in which the victim is chewed and torn apart, with lots of blood, wounds and lacerations. It is in every respect a fantasy of sexual cannibalism.
- Macro/micro vore: the victim is much smaller than the one eating them. In same-size vore, prey and predator are roughly the same size.
- Vore through other orifices: in fantasies and drawings the prey can also be “absorbed” through other openings of the body, including the genitals, the anus or the nipples, ending up in the womb, the bowel or the breast.
The difference between vore and cannibalism
The cases of Issei Sagawa, Jeffrey Dahmer and Armin Meiwes are often cited as famous examples of vorarephilia. These, however, are cases of cannibalism rather than vore, and cannibalism is different from vorarephilia.
In soft vore, the fantasy is to be swallowed whole, and at the moment of ingestion the prey must still be alive. People with these fantasies often explicitly forbid chewing. Moreover, vore is not exclusively oral: as we saw, in fantasy it can happen through many of the body’s orifices.
In real cannibalism, on the other hand, as in the cases mentioned, swallowing a whole living person without injuring them is impossible, and there is always pain, wounds and blood.
Who are vorarephiles?
We still know little about this paraphilia. One case study linked it to sexual masochism and suggested it might stem from the desire to merge with someone more powerful or to escape loneliness for good. The idea of being annihilated does not necessarily indicate self-destructive tendencies: more often it is linked to escapist fantasies.
Psychologists at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, since there is no known treatment, advise people who struggle with this sexuality to try to adjust to it rather than suppress it.
Two online surveys in 2021 and 2022, with about 1,600 and 3,200 responses from self-identified vorarephiles, gave an idea of the community: about 80% are men, around half say they are heterosexual, and just under half are part of (or unsure whether they are part of) the furry fandom.
Is vorarephilia really that strange?
The logical answer would be “yes”. It is also true, though, that metaphorical cannibalism is very common in everyday life, especially in love and sex. Just think of phrases like “I could eat you up” said to someone you love.
In some languages, like English or Spanish, during oral sex you “eat” your partner’s genitals. In those same languages a kiss can be “tasty”, “juicy” or “rico”, and in English an attractive person can also be described as delicious.
Without going too far, in the Christian religion too the body of Christ is symbolically eaten to unite the divine and the mortal.
And perhaps this is exactly what vorarephiles want: to become one with the other person.
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