Necrophilia is a paraphilia characterized by a sexual attraction to nonresponsive persons, including the comatose and corpses. Necrophilia is a primary motive behind the use of incapacitating chemicals (such as GHB) to commit date rape. The most sensationalized form of necrophilia is when it involves sex with the dead, and in colloquial use "necrophilia" normally involves the dead.

Figuratively, the term "necrophilia" describes an inordinate desire to control another person, usually in the context of a romantic or interpersonal relationship; the accusation is that the person is so interpersonally controlling as to be better-suited to relationships with nonresponsive people.

Necrophilia has also been a motive for some serial killers, including murderers Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, who ate his victims after killing them. 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.

In some cases, necrophiliacs work in the funeral business, presumably for the facile access to human corpses.

Legal status

As psychological abnormalities, necrophiliac attractions and fantasies are not specifically illegal, and "necro porn" does not have the same status as child pornography (almost invariantly illegal and outrage-provoking). It would be impossible, in most cases, to infer death or nonresponsivity, with legal proof, from a pornographic image. BDSM or role-playing practices that simulate nonresponsivity on the part of one person are completely legal.

However, having sex with a dead person is outlawed in most localities (and socially accepted almost nowhere.) Drugging a living person into a nonresponsive state for sexual purposes is usually classified as rape and punished severely. If the person dies as a result of the drug, the party responsible can also be tried for murder.

The United Kingdom outlawed sexual penetration of a corpse in the Sexual Offenses Act 2003, making the act punishable by up to two years in prison. Many U.S. states prohibit such acts, though often under vague terms outlawing "abuse of a corpse".

Until 2004, California had laws against mutilation of corpses and grave robbery, but none specifically against sex with corpses. On September 10, 2004, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill making such acts a felony, with maximum sentence of eight years in prison. [1] (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=6208717)

Consensuality issue

A sexual act with a corpse is generally considered socially unacceptable; the presumption being that the person would not have consented to the act while alive, it amounts to the rape of a dead person. Virtually all human societies condemn abuse of the dead as a form of symbolic disrespect. In rare cases, however, necrophiliac acts can be consensual: for example, in the Armin Meiwes case, the victim gave his consent to the mutilation and death inflicted upon him.

Necrophilia in the arts

Romantic connections between love and death are a frequent theme in Western artistic expression. The Shakespeare tragedy Romeo and Juliet ends with the young lovers united in death. Edgar Allen Poe once described the death of a beautiful young woman to be one of the most beautiful images. (By this, he was not saying that it is a good thing for young women to die; to him melancholy and pain were sources of beauty.) Many alternative rock artists also focus on the connection between romantic love and death, despair, and the occult; in Europe, the most notable example is Him, and more generally the artists of the love metal movement. A comparable American analogue might be Stabbing Westward, a gothic rock band whose songs dealt with despair, drug abuse, sexual abuse, death, and romantic love, often in conjunction.

An extension of the emotional connection between love and death is love for a person, which remains after death. Some ghost stories focus on a deceased person's undying love for a living individual, manifest literally in the form of a palpable ghost or poltergeist. While it is considered a romantic image for a person to die "in the arms" of a lover, sexual activity with the dead is usually considered taboo, but has appeared in recent film and music.

Resurrection erotica is a set of artistic sub-genres wherein a person is brought back from a nonresponsive state (death, or a coma) by an expression, sometimes graphically physical, of romantic or sexual love. An example of this in fairy tale is the Sleeping Beauty parable.

The controversial German film Nekromantik offers a graphic portrayal of sexual necrophilia, and the Canadian film Kissed is about a woman who works in a morgue and finds herself erotically drawn to the corpses she deals with. In the 1970s, shock rocker Alice Cooper recorded a couple of songs about necrophilia, "I Love the Dead", and "Cold Ethyl". In the 1980s and '90s, necrophilia emerged in the genre of goregrind. In 1993, a music video for Tom Petty's hit song "Last Dance with Mary-Jane" featured the singer simulating various romantic poses with a dead woman (played by Kim Basinger).

See also

• Ed Gein
• Jeffrey Dahmer
• Paraphilia
• Sexuality

External links

• Necrophilia as a sexual term (http://www.bigeye.com/sexeducation/necrophilia.html)
• Pro-necrophilia (http://www.pervscan.com/archives/cat_necrophilia.php) (as a sexual term)
• UK law against sexual penetration of a corpse (http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2003/30042--b.htm#70)
• Necrophilia and September 11 (http://www.division42.org/MembersArea/IPfiles/IPSum_2002/articles/911/fromm.html)

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