Necrophilia
[3] The plural term "nécrophiles" was coined by Belgian physician Joseph Guislain in his lecture series, Leçons Orales Sur Les Phrénopathies, given around 1850, about the contemporary necrophiliac François Bertrand:[4] It is within the category of the destructive madmen [aliénés destructeurs] that one needs to situate certain patients to whom I would like to give the name of necrophiliacs [nécrophiles].
The ancients, in speaking about lycanthropy, have cited examples to which one can more or less relate the case which has just now attracted the public attention so strongly.Psychiatrist Bénédict Morel popularised the term about a decade later when discussing Bertrand.
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.
[12] In what is now Northeast China, the ethnic Xianbei emperor Murong Xi (385–407) of the Later Yan state had intercourse with the corpse of his beloved empress Fu Xunying after the latter was already cold and put into the coffin.
[13] In Renaissance Italy, following the reputed moral collapse brought about by the Black Death and before the Roman Inquisition of the Counter-Reformation, literature was replete with sexual references; these include necrophilia, as in the epic poem Orlando Innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo, first published in 1483.
When his attempts failed, and his male victim died, he would keep the corpse until it decomposed beyond recognition,[15] masturbating and performing sexual intercourse on the body.
[20] Havelock Ellis, in his 1903 volume of Studies of the Psychology of Sex, believed that necrophilia was related to algolagnia, in that both involve the transformation of a supposed negative emotion, such as anger, fear, disgust, or grief, into sexual desire.
The sample was divided into genuine necrophiliacs, who had a persistent attraction to corpses, and pseudo-necrophiliacs, who acted out of opportunity, sadism, or transient interest.
57% of the genuine necrophiliacs had occupational access to corpses, with morgue attendants, hospital orderly, and cemetery employees being the most common jobs.
The researchers theorized that either of the following situations could be antecedents to necrophilia:[26] The most common motive for necrophiliacs is the possession of a partner who is unable to resist or reject them.
[27] The authors reported that of their sample of 34 genuine necrophiliacs:[28] Lesser common motives include: IQ data was limited, but not abnormally low.
Rosman and Resnick concluded that their data challenged the conventional view of necrophiliacs as generally psychotic, mentally deficient, or unable to obtain a consenting partner.
[31] In 1960, Robert Dickerman described necrophilia in ground squirrels, which he termed "Davian behavior" after a limerick about a necrophiliac miner named Dave.
Kees Moeliker observed while he was sitting in his office at the Natural History Museum Rotterdam when he heard the distinctive thud of a bird hitting the glass facade of the building.
The act of necrophilia lasted for about 75 minutes, at which time, according to Moeliker, the living drake took two short breaks before resuming copulating behavior.
Moeliker surmised that at the time of the collision with the window, the two mallards were engaged in a common pattern in duck behavior called "attempted rape flight".
Approximately ten minutes later, the sea lion became disturbed by the researcher's presence, dragged the corpse of the seal into the water, and swam away while holding it.
[53] In one study of black and white tegu lizards, two different males were observed attempting to court and copulate with a single female corpse on two consecutive days.
[56][57] The prairie rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) and Helicops carinicauda snake have both been seen attempting to mate with decapitated females, presumably attracted by still-active sex pheromones.
[63] The Amazonian frog Rhinella proboscidea sometimes practices what has been termed "functional necrophilia": a male grasps the corpse of a dead female and squeezes it until its oocytes are ejected before fertilizing them.
[70][71][72] In unguarded, taped interviews with his defense attorney Wendy Patrickus, Dahmer explicitly stated that he had sex with his victims before and after their deaths.
He also confessed to participating in necrophilic acts, claiming to have chosen secluded disposal sites for his victims' bodies specifically for post-mortem sexual intercourse.
[74] In 1987, Karen Greenlee gave a detailed interview called "The Unrepentant Necrophile" for Jim Morton's (edited by Adam Parfrey) book Apocalypse Culture.
[75] Dennis Nilsen (1945–2018) was a Scottish serial killer who had developed a connection between death and intimacy, later finding posing as a corpse a source of sexual arousal.
However, the court's interpretation suggested that it could potentially fall under Section 297, which pertains to causing "indignity to any human corpse" when someone trespasses into a place used for funeral rites or storing the remains of the deceased.
Necrophilia falls under the regulations against abusing a corpse or grave (Brott mot griftefrid), which carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
