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Other outlets include fantasy writing and cartoons, in which the consumer is frequently an humanoid animal, often a wolf, cat, dragon or snake. A common theme is that the victim wishes to be swallowed whole, not damaged by chewing, and the story often focuses on the resulting full belly, which looks almost “pregnant.”

This link to birth is also thought to be psychologically significant, and related to other unusual desires such as “unbirthing,” the act of physically returning to the womb. Stephen’s desire to be eaten fits into this wish to be unborn, the authors suggest, because both represent the “total destruction of being and personhood” in a permanent physical union.

Expulsion also figured importantly in Stephen’s desires.

“He often fantasized about being feces or semen and being expelled by a person,” the report reads.

Curiously, given all this, Stephen was mostly worried he was gay. The doctors explained that, as far as they could tell, based on several tests, he was not, despite some sexual desires involving men. “Persons with paraphilic interests often report sexual arousal to both sexes in the context of their paraphilic fantasies,” they write.

They also expressed skepticism about his claims that, on several occasions at a library, he “crawled under tables, without the women’s knowledge, so that he could smell their feet.”

When he was examined, Stephen’s libido seemed to have decreased due to depression, but the doctors anticipated it would return if the depression was eased. There is no known treatment to change such abnormal desires into normal ones, however, so their recommendation was treatment to “help him adjust to, rather than change or suppress, his sexual interests.”

Failing that, they would have prescribed medication to lower his sex drive. As it happened, though, Stephen did not return to the clinic, and his fate is not known.

National Post

jbrean@nationalpost.com