The eating of tiger body parts including the tiger’s penis by some people and cultures in Asian is a consequence of their anxiety. It’s a superstition which helps to reduce anxiety and therefore there is a placebo, mental health benefit but it is the only one. It allows the person eating the soup to exercise some control over his life which has a calming effect. The whole mental edifice is built on superstition but there’s nothing scientific about it. There is no science anywhere which supports the notion that eating the penis of a tiger acts as a medicinal anaphrodisiac and improves one’s sexual performance or virility or can cure impotence. It is a mental trick. If they believe it does improve sexual performance their performance might indeed improve. It is a self-imposed trick but it is not seen as such as no one admits to it.
I am not singling out Asians as the only people who are anxious. It is major problem anywhere. But I am singling out Asian cultures for expressing their anxiety in a way which is catastrophically harmful to wildlife in general and cruel to cats and dogs through cat and dog meat markets. The pangolin is another heavily persecuted wild animal. It is persecuted because “The official pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China continues to include Chinese pangolin scales as an ingredient in [Chinese traditional medicine] to unblock blood clots, promote blood circulation, and to help lactating women secrete milk….treating gynecological diseases, and…treating blockages of the fallopian tubes to cure infertility”. (Wikipedia). Pangolin scales are made of keratin, the material that makes our nails and hair. The belief that it cures these illness is pure supersitition arising out of anxiety. The pangolin is critically endangered and rapidly heading to extinction in the wild because of this misguided human behavior.
I’ve chosen the tiger penis because it catches the eye. It’s rude almost, and unpleasant, but it should make you look and think. But this culture and superstition emanating from anxiety, fear and lack of confidence applies to the eating of any animal body part in the belief that it carries some mystical, medicinal benefit.
For instance, cat and dog meat is very big in China where they round up stray cats and eat the flesh of these animals after brutalising them because they believe it’ll cure them of some illness like arthritis. Once again there is no science at all behind it. It’s pure superstition based on anxiety and need to feel in control of one’s life.
The point that I’m labouring is that this brutality of domestic and stray cats and poaching of Bengal tigers with the resultant massive conservation consequences are all because a group of people are anxious about life. Does that strike you as slightly mad? It does to me but at the same time it is totally normal. It is normal for humans to think like this which points to a dysfunctional mentality among a large section of modern society. It is a human fail of gargantuan proportions.
The cure, the true cure for impotence or bad sexual performances is not to eat tiger penis but to see a psychiatrist, to gain some confidence, to educate oneself, to understand science. Humans should not be persecuting animals because of their mental health problems. This is the great problem in the world. We have huge inequality in advancement and civilised behaviour across the planet. It creates great universal dysfunctionality. And with this dysfunctionality the world is pulled in different directions. There is a lack of harmony which leads to an inability to get things done on a grand scale like fixing global warming, another dire human failing.
I dare you to comment.
HERE IS SOME MORE ON CAT MEAT:
