Vegansexuals
Articles about vegansexuals are making the rounds in my social group:
A GROUP of vegans in New Zealand - vegansexuals - are shunning sex with meat-eaters because their bodies are made up of animal carcases.
"When you are vegan or vegetarian, you are very aware that when people eat a meaty diet, they are kind of a graveyard for animals," vegan Nichola Kriek said in the Christchurch daily The Press.
I rarely make a big deal out of it, but this article reminds me that I've been practicing the opposite of this ever since my early twenties when I made it a policy to never even go on a first date with a vegetarian or vegan. This wasn't because they can't be perfectly nice people, it was because I knew that anyone who couldn't sit down with me to enjoy barbecue, seafood, or weird ethnic restaurants just wasn't going to work out in the long run.
After a particularly bad trip to a non-western, non-english-speaking country with a vegetarian I'm even tempted to extend this rule to travel companions with severe dietary restrictions. As Anthony Bourdain says:
Nothing horrifies me more than someone traveling this incredible world and not eating everything in sight. Whatever you choose to do in your home - that's fine - but how do you travel? You've already decided before you leave home "I reject it, I don't like it, I'm not going to try it." You're not making any friends in this world. It's rude. It's not respectful. I don't necessarily like everything I eat ... but I'm grateful that they're there and they're giving me their best. Because I sit down first and eat plenty of whatever's offered - proudly offered, food being the purest expression of a culture, an identity, a personality, a family - because I do those things accompanied by large amounts of the local beverage all those other things open up for me. You never see people so without guile, so open, as at the table. And once you share something so intimate as a meal you tend to then be shown other things that you just ain't gonna see from the tour bus, or even if you'd met them under other circumstances. ... I am very grateful, always, for what I've eaten and what I've seen and this is directly related the fact that I show up and I eat and I eat what is offered.
A GROUP of vegans in New Zealand - vegansexuals - are shunning sex with meat-eaters because their bodies are made up of animal carcases.
"When you are vegan or vegetarian, you are very aware that when people eat a meaty diet, they are kind of a graveyard for animals," vegan Nichola Kriek said in the Christchurch daily The Press.
I rarely make a big deal out of it, but this article reminds me that I've been practicing the opposite of this ever since my early twenties when I made it a policy to never even go on a first date with a vegetarian or vegan. This wasn't because they can't be perfectly nice people, it was because I knew that anyone who couldn't sit down with me to enjoy barbecue, seafood, or weird ethnic restaurants just wasn't going to work out in the long run.
After a particularly bad trip to a non-western, non-english-speaking country with a vegetarian I'm even tempted to extend this rule to travel companions with severe dietary restrictions. As Anthony Bourdain says:
Nothing horrifies me more than someone traveling this incredible world and not eating everything in sight. Whatever you choose to do in your home - that's fine - but how do you travel? You've already decided before you leave home "I reject it, I don't like it, I'm not going to try it." You're not making any friends in this world. It's rude. It's not respectful. I don't necessarily like everything I eat ... but I'm grateful that they're there and they're giving me their best. Because I sit down first and eat plenty of whatever's offered - proudly offered, food being the purest expression of a culture, an identity, a personality, a family - because I do those things accompanied by large amounts of the local beverage all those other things open up for me. You never see people so without guile, so open, as at the table. And once you share something so intimate as a meal you tend to then be shown other things that you just ain't gonna see from the tour bus, or even if you'd met them under other circumstances. ... I am very grateful, always, for what I've eaten and what I've seen and this is directly related the fact that I show up and I eat and I eat what is offered.