Necrophilia

Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia and necrolagnia, is a paraphilia characterized by a sexual attraction to corpses. The word is artificially derived from Ancient Greek: νεκρός (nekros; "corpse," or "dead") and φιλία (philia; "love"). The term appears to have originated from Krafft-Ebing's 1886 work Psychopathia Sexualis.

Figuratively, the term "necrophilia" describes an inordinate desire to control another person, usually in the interpersonally controlling as to be better-suited to relationships with nonresponsive people..

Social, legal and psychological views on necrophilia

Cause and prevalence

Virtually no research has been conducted regarding the prevalence of necrophilic attraction among humans. Klaf and Brown (1958) commented that, although rarely described, necrophilic fantasies may occur more often than is generally supposed.

Rosman and Resnick (1989) theorized that either of the following situations could be antecedents to necrophilia (pp. 161):

1. The necrophile develops poor self-esteem, perhaps due in part to a significant loss;

   (a) He (usually male) is very fearful of rejection by women and he desires a sexual object who is incapable of rejecting him; and/or

   (b) He is fearful of the dead, and transforms his fear of the dead—by means of reaction formation—into a desire for the dead.

2. He develops an exciting fantasy of fucking dead people, sometimes after exposure to a corpse.

The authors also reported that, of their sample of 'necrophiliacs,' 68% were motivated by a desire for an unresisting and unrejecting partner; 21% by a want for reunion with a lost partner; 15% by sexual attraction to dead people ; 15% by a desire for comfort or to overcome feelings of isolation; and 12% by a desire to remedy low self-esteem by expressing power over a corpse (pp. 159). This study has very many flaws, however, and is not to be taken as fact. At the end of their own report, Rosman and Resnick wrote that their study should only be used like a spring-board for further, more in depth, research. There is a very good website with not only the full report by Rosman and Resnick, but also has a very informative criticism of the study at the end.

Minor modern researches conducted in England have shown that some necrophiles tend to choose a dead mate after failing to create romantic attachments with the living.

Consensuality issue

Although obtaining consent is not usually considered a prerequisite for activity with non-living material, sexual activity with a human corpse is taboo and frequently labelled 'abuse,' based on the presumption that the person would not have consented to the act while alive, and that it would thus constitute a profound and disturbing disrespect for their remains to be treated in a way other than their wishes.

Although virtually all human societies condemn sexual activity with the dead as a form of symbolic disrespect, several groups, individuals, and publications have pushed for the legalization of necrophilic acts. "The NecroErotic," for example, argues that "necrophiliacs have as much right to engage in their orgasmic release of choice as do 'normal' couples," and that "all 'rights' cease the moment a person draws their last breath."

Necrophilia in psychoanalysis-Erich Fromm

For psychologist/philosopher Erich Fromm, necrophilia is a character orientation which is not necessarily sexual. It is expressed in an attraction to that which is dead or totally controlled. At the extreme, it results in hatred of life and destructiveness.

For Fromm, necrophilia is the opposite of biophilia. Unlike Freud's death instinct, it is not biologically determined but results from upbringing. Fromm believed that the lack of love in the western society and the attraction to mechanistic control leads to necrophilia. Expressions of necrophilia are modern weapon systems, idolotry of technology, and the treatment of people as things in bureaucracy.

For further information, see Fromm's, The Heart of Man (Harper and Row, 1964) and The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970)

Necrophilia in history

The practice of necrophilia has a long and rich history. Necrophilia was practiced in some ancient cultures as a spiritual means of communicating with the dead, while others employed it as an attempt to revive the recently departed. The evidence of necrophilia practices can be found in the artifacts of the Moche civilization of South America, where pottery depicting skeletal figures engaged in coitus with living humans are among the ruins. Even in ancient Egypt, there is record of the treatment of the bodies of young women that were set out to rot for a few days before being delivered to embalmers. This practice was born from the need to discourage the men performing the funerary customs from having sexual interest in their charges. Herodotus writes in The Histories that, to discourage intercourse with a corpse, Ancient Egyptians left deceased beautiful women to decay for "three or four days" before giving them to the embalmers.

Necrophilia in literature

In Toni Morrison's novel Song of Solomon, Macon Dead is explaining to his son Milkman that he is disturbed by the relationship that his wife/Milkman's mother Ruth Dead had with her father Dr. Foster. Shortly after Dr. Foster's death, Macon caught Ruth lying naked in bed with her father Dr. Foster's corpse, while sucking on his fingers. It is not known whether Ruth actually had sex with the dead Dr. Foster; and Macon is believed not to have caught her in the act. Yet, Macon seems to believe that intercourse occurred between Ruth and the corpse.

In Algernon Charles Swinburne's poem, "The Leper," the speaker is scribe who had long desired a woman in the royal house where he is employed. When she contracts leprosy, she is deserted by all others. The scribe then takes care of her, and has an arguably necrophilic relationship with her.

Published in 1930, William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" tells the story of a lonely house ridden woman named Emily Grierson who deals with the strange circumstances of the man she loves, and her secret world of necrophilia.

One could argue that the Legend of Osiris and Isis involved a necrophilic act; Isis is said to have fathered Horus with the dead Osiris's dismembered penis, albeit miraculously. According to Christian Origins in Egyptian Mythology, "an ancient Egyptian relief depicts this conception by showing his mother Isis in a falcon form, hovering over an erect phallus of a dead and prone Osiris in the Underworld."

In Canadian author Barbara Gowdy's short story "We So Seldom Look On Love" a funeral parlour employee learns how to make the penises of recently dead men erect and she commits sexual acts on the corpses until she is caught.

Notable necrophiles

Carl Tanzler

Main article: Carl Tanzler

Carl Tanzler was a radiologist in Key West, Florida who developed a morbid obsession for Elena Milagro Hoyos (1910-1931). She was one of his patients, and she died from tuberculosis in 1931. With her parents' permission, Tanzler had an above ground mausoleum built for her, so she wouldn't decompose underground. He visited the tomb almost every night, but in 1933, his obsession apparently overcame him, as he took Hoyos' corpse home with him and kept it in his bed. He restored her body as best he could and kept a full wardrobe to dress her. As her body decomposed, he replaced the skin with wax and plaster of Paris, and bought copious amounts of perfume, often several times a month. In 1940, one of Hoyos's surviving sisters became suspicious due to omnipresent rumors of Tanzler's necrophilia, and eventually confronted Tanzler at his home. She entered Tanzler's house and found Elena's corpse lying in his bed in an elegant dress, almost fully decomposed. Tanzler was later arrested and charged with "wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization," but he was ultimately released, as the statute of limitations on the crime had expired.

Karen Greenlee

Karen Greenlee made national headlines in the mid-80's when she drove off in a hearse and wasn't heard from for two days. She was interviewed in the book Apocalypse Culture. The excerpt "The Unrepentant Necrophile: An Interview with Karen Greenlee" is available online.

Graham Coutts

Main article: Graham Coutts

Graham Coutts made national news headlines in 2004, after strangling a woman with tights. He had previously visited websites such as Necrobabes.

Serial killers

Necrophilia has also been a motive for some serial killers, including Richard Chase, Ed Gein, Winston Moseley, Dennis Nilsen, John Reginald Halliday Christie, Bruno Lüdke, Jerry Brudos, Gary Ridgway, Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer, who ate his victims after killing them (although Dahmer had only confessed to eating the bicep of a male); the technical term for this particular variant activity is necrophagia. Several other murderers have described drawing sexual excitement from killing, as well, such as Karla Faye Tucker, who claimed to have an orgasm with each swing of the axe she used to kill Jerry Lynn Dean. The guilty-plea testimony provided by the recently captured (2005) serial killer Dennis Rader provided a rare public glimpse into the workings of such a controlling mind.

Attempted Necrophilia

Main article: Laura Tennessen

On September 15, 2006 a judge dismissed charges of attempted sexual assault against three men accused of trying to dig up a woman's body to have sex with the corpse, noting that Wisconsin has no law against necrophilia. Twins Nicholas and Alexander Grunke, 20, and Dustin Radke, 20, were arrested after an alleged attempt to dig up the body of 20-year-old Laura Tennessen who was killed Aug. 27 in a motorcycle crash. Officials said a caller reported suspicious activity in the cemetery Sept. 2, and deputies found someone had dug down to her vault. Radke told police that the three had stopped at a Wal-Mart on the way to the cemetery to buy condoms. Authorities said the three were not acquainted with Tennessen but had seen an obituary with her photo.

Among animals

File:Necromouse.jpg

A photograph showing a mouse apparently engaging in necrophilic activity.

Necrophilia is not unknown in animals, with a number of confirmed observations. Kees Moeliker allegedly made one of these observations while he was sitting in his office at the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam, when he heard the distinctive thud of a bird hitting the glass facade of the building. Upon inspection, he discovered a drake mallard lying dead about two meters from the building. Next to the downed bird there was a second drake mallard standing close by. As he observed the odd couple, the living drake picked at the corpse of the dead one for a few minutes and then mounted the corpse and began copulating with it. The act of necrophilia lasted for about 75 minutes, in which time, according to Moeliker, the living drake took two short breaks before resuming with copulating behavior. Moeliker surmised that at the time of the collision with the window the two mallards were engaged in a common motif in duck behavior which is called rape flight. "When one died the other one just went for it and didn't get any negative feedback -- well, didn't get any feedback," according to Moeliker. This is the first recorded case of necrophilia in the mallard duck- though not the only recorded case of homosexuality within the bird family.

In the case of a praying mantis, necrophilia could be said to be part of their methods of reproduction. The larger female will often decapitate or even eat her mate during copulation. However, since praying mantids have two or more brains within the whole of their bodies, with only one of these being in the head, the male could still be said to be alive even after decapitation, and so necrophilia may not be an entirely appropriate term in this case.

Legal status

Legality in the United States

As of May, 2006, there is no federal legislation specifically barring sex with a corpse. Multiple states have their own laws:

• Alabama - Class C felony under 13A-11-13
• Alaska - Class A misdemeanour under 11-61-130
• Arkansas - Class D felony under 5-60-101
• California - Illegal, up to 8 years in prison
• Colorado - Class 2 misdemeanour under 18-13-101
• Delaware - Class A misdemeanour under 11-5-1332
• Florida-- Second degree felony under chapter 872.06
• Georgia - Felony, up to 10 years in prison under 16-6-7
• Hawaii - Misdemeanour under 7
• Oregon - Felony for "Abuse of Corpse" ORS 166.085
• Pennsylvania - Second degree misdemeanor under Title 18 §5510
• Washington - Class C Felony for "Sexually violation human remains" RCW 9A.44.105
• Minnesota and Nevada also have laws prohibiting necrophilia

Legality in the United Kingdom

Sexual penetration with a corpse was made illegal under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The Government is also considering criminalising possession of depictions of necrophilia. This is defined as depictions of "sexual interference with a human corpse" (as opposed to only penetration), and would cover "depictions which appear to be real acts" as well as actual scenes (see also extreme pornography).

Legality in India

Section 297 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) entitled "Trespassing on burial places, etc", states as follows:

Whoever, with the intention of wounding the feelings of any person, or of insulting the religion of any person, or with the knowledge that the feelings of any person are likely to be wounded, or that the religion of any person is likely to be insulted thereby,

commits any trespass in any place of worship or on any place of sculpture, or any place set apart from the performance of funeral rites or as a depository for the remains of the dead, or offers any indignity to any human corpse, or causes disturbance to any persons assembled for the performance of funeral ceremonies,

shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.

Although Necrophilia is not explicitly stated in IPC, a necrophiliac may be convicted under the above section in the Indian Penal Code. There have been several allegations by relatives of dead women, that the dead bodies of their kin were defiled in the night by mortuary attendants, but none have been proved. The possibility of such an act taking place on a regular basis is not impossible to imagine.

In some cases, where a woman was alleged to have been raped and murdered and the autopsy surgeon failed to find any signs of rape, the relatives have approached the authorities for a second postmortem. The second postmortem is invariably conducted at a different hospital, often necessitating the deposit of the body overnight at the mortuary of the second hospital. In cases, where the second autopsy surgeon finds signs of rape, the defendants have been known to allege that the dead body was defiled by drunk mortuary attendants at night. None of such allegations have been proved in a court of law however.

References

Roach, Mary. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. New York: Norton and Company , 2003.

See also

• Necrophilia in popular culture
• Somnophilia

External links

• RNF: Table of Contents