Eating It Out: Cannibalism and Sexual Deviance in Nineteenth Century Travel Writing

The editors of this volume highlight a significant characteristic of the moral panics of sexuality: “nonsexual events become sexualized viamoral panics just as sexual events become nonsexualized via moral panic” (Introduction to this volume). In this chapter I will discuss this charac- teristic in the context of the English empire in the nineteenth century. Analysis of nineteenth century travel writing in British colonies of the South Seas demonstrates how these texts may be considered colonial/ imperial discourse rather than just touristic documents alone. Colonial travel writing of this period typically presents Western European prac- titioners (usually the authors themselves) drawing moral assessments of native colonial cultures from journeys that become part vacation, part civic duty. These texts additionally provide context for contem- porary modes of moral panicking, especially as their global concerns are compounded in current internet culture. I will lastly show how contemporary internet deviant culture reflects these nineteenth century narratives.