Also, my memory of this through cultural osmosis was basically just 'Jeffrey Dahmer ate a bunch of people'. when you listen to the testimony, especially about his plans to make an altar out of human bones, it's really nuts. I think the whole thing is way more bizarre than most people realize.

The cannibalism started with his later victims, first out of curiosity and then as a kind of faux-spiritual aspect of his fetishes as a way to take in part of his victims "essence" and whatnot.

He had a fascination with bones and dead animals when he was young and it eventually took on a much more sexual aspect, becoming aroused by dead bodies and dismembered body parts. His crimes came out of trying to fulfill his erotic fixations.

I recommend reading "My Friend Dahmer" by Derf Backderf, a cartoonist that actually went to high school with Jeffrey in the late 70s. It really goes into his odd behavior, crummy home life and his alcohol abuse at the time.

Dahmer had several strikes against him:

- His mother was insane.His father was in med school for most of his childhood. He had a double hernia at 4 years old so he spent most of his developmental years alone, in excruciating pain, with Dad’s medical books.

- He was a child alcoholic from age 12 on. And he drank more than adults should drink. He just casually walked around drinking gin in the schoolyard.

- He fetishized death and bones during his developmental stages. He would play with dead animals and eventually just start killing animals. Had he been a normal kid, he’d probably have just gone to osteopathy school or get a chiropractor license. Ultimately his fetish was about control and isolating his partners, exactly like his own developmental years, but then he tacked in his total void of empathy and his sex partners were seen as his own personal toys. He was also rather artistic, and the bone throne was less about worship of a demon or something and more about being an evil John Waters: it was taking his loneliness to the furthest possible extreme just to say he could do it.

- He was gay from the start and had no context to place himself, being so isolated. Also, despite his problems, he turned out to be a rather attractive guy, which opened up doors for his domination fantasies. Add to it being midwestern, during the height of AIDS, and he was a black hole of nihilism. He did not give a fuck.

- The cannibalism was just a natural choice extension of his necrophilia. It was an act of ultimate domination and desecration, two kinks I, personally, fully understand and have in my own low level vanilla bag of perversions. He just took those motivations and shot them into natural maximum altitude.

- Also he worked at the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory, which still exists, and you can buy a 10 pound bag of chocolate chips and make dick shaped cookies if you want.

The Ambrosia chocolate factory where Dahmer worked was closed and razed the year after his trial. The company still exists though.

Still a conversation piece!