This week, Channel 4 in the UK has been screening short “4Thought” films which ask “Is Homosexuality a Sin?” (Click here to view, until it falls off the internet.) One that caught my attention was Rev Peter Ould, a Church of England Minister. Having been exclusively gay as a young man, he claims to have had a personal revelation that made him leave homosexuality behind and discover “the man that God truly made [him] to be”.

“There was an amazing moment of insight for me,” he said, “when I realised that a lot of my homosexual attractions were actually cannibalistic… I was attracted to the kind of men that I wanted to be. Part of my moving on process – when I saw a bloke I was attracted to – was turning to God and saying: why am I attracted to that man; what is the thing that I feel is lacking in me?”

“That bloke’s cock,” I answered flatly, addressing the telly.

However, it got me thinking about cannibalistic desire. I’m not talking about people who literally eat other people. I mean cannibalism in the same sense that the Reverend does though, unlike him, I believe that it isn’t merely a gay thing but is, instead, the basis for all human desire.

A vital part of attraction to anyone, of any gender, is that you admire them in some way. That person must possess qualities, whether behavioural, physical or mental, that appeal to you. Even in evolutionary terms, it’s common to choose a partner on the basis of the potential traits they can pass on to your own future offspring. Not only do you seek someone whose genes you may want to stir into your own and cast into the next generation, but you also want to assimilate aspects of your lover into yourself. There is so much to learn and experience from this marvellous human being you’ve discovered. When you desire someone, you fancy, covet and crave them in every way.

If you watch QI, you might have heard of the Anglerfish. The female is far bigger than the male, and he latches on to the side of her body with his teeth, then releases an enzyme which fuses his mouth to her. Slowly, the tiny male withers away until he is almost completely absorbed into her and only his gonads remain. It’s beautifully symbiotic.

A sub once told me that when he serves a dominant woman, he imagines what it is like to be her. He basks in her power. Just as I once wrote a couple of years ago about the kick I get from empathising with my masochists, they often experience something startlingly similar, wanting to see themselves through the eyes of their captor. We feed off one another.

I can only speculate about what kind of relationships, if any, the freshly heterosexual Reverend now has. He says in the interview that he became “aware” of women, yet does that count as genuine attraction? If we hunger for a person, however metaphorically and whatever their gender, are we cannibals – and is denying our cravings a form of emotional, sexual and spiritual anorexia? If a lover craves us in return, is that a happy symbiosis or mutual destruction? Is desire really so sinful?

These aren’t questions that I, or possibly anyone, can answer, but in the meantime here’s “Autumnal Cannibalism” by Salvador Dali: