purely out of curiousity

[slavelucy]

What about the guy who was recently acquitted, in a Scandinavian country, for killing and eating a willing participant. The victim (or subject really as he was 100% willing) answered an ad this guy placed and after a while of correspodence gave himself up to be killed and eaten. So there are definitely people out there willing and able to do pretty much anything.

If you mean Armin Meiwes from Germany (and from your description, i strongly suspect you do), he wasn't found guilty of murder, but he was actually acquitted either, he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 8 years. There's some stuff about the outcome of the trial here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3443293.stm

i am clearly not sanctioning his actions, but the guy he killed (etc) was a willing participant, and the case involves specific psychological issues regarding the need to consume human flesh ( ) , whereas i'm assuming that the snuff films to which MrJG, TG et al refer are one's wherein the victims are largely not willing.

You make an interesting point sunegeg, regarding the nature of the fine line being drawn, particularly in the example you provide; the execution was used for personal consumption even if the express intention of it was not for titillation. i therefore think the distinction can only be be based on if the recording had any other purpose other than titillation and making money, it probably isn't snuff, even if it went on to be viewed by people who were viewing it for that reason.

As for the festive atmosphere on the tape you saw...i'd say that was probably a historical time, place and culture thing.

sl

[Curtis]

Yes, slavelucy's last sentence is very true. Being from Down Under, you people have had very little (comparatively speaking) experience with public execution in your history, but in both the United States and Mother England, they were wildly popular, with souvenier salesmen, food vendors, etc. In the nineteenth century, they would sometimes draw crowds of tens of thousands. Some places would charge admission (to hold down the crowds and/or defray the cost of the trial/execution/crowd control). They were looked forward to with great anticipation.

I agree with csr's definition of snuff, which is similar to mine: snuff is death for the explicit purpose of sexual gratification.