Necrophilia

Necrophilia, a sexual attraction to corpses, is an example of the extreme diversity in human sexuality and sexual preference that is evident across different cultures and different historical periods. The word is derived from a combination of necro, meaning corpse, and philia, meaning attachment. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (APA 2000), necrophilia is classified as a "paraphilia not otherwise specified." The essential features of a paraphilia are recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors that typically involve inhuman objects, children or other nonconsenting persons, or suffering or humiliating of oneself or one's partner, and that occur over a period of at least six months. Necrophilic acts are assumed to be nonconsensual; that is, the belief is that the person would not have consented to the act while alive. Of approximately thirty paraphilias that have been identified, necrophilia is considered to be one of the most unusual and also one of the most repugnant. It is also generally regarded as being very rare, although some authors (e.g., Burg 1982) have questioned this assumption.

Necrophilia has been reported since ancient times, although virtually all societies have condemned the practice. In the writings of the fifth century bce Greek historian Herodotus, the ancient Egyptians did not permit the corpses of wives of men of rank to be given to the embalmers until a few days after death, lest the embalmers violate the corpses. There is also a legend about Herod, the king of Judea (r. 37–4 bce), who apparently had sex with his wife for seven years after her death.

While not explicitly necrophilic, romantic connections between love and death have been a common theme in Western artistic expression. For example, scholars have highlighted frequent necrophilic themes in nineteenth-century French literature. In popular culture, references to necrophilia have been made in films and rock music, particularly in the punk and heavy metal genres of the latter.

It is difficult to quantify the incidence of necrophilia in pornography. A 2001 study of randomly selected Internet sites that carried pornographic images reported that necrophilic images were extremely rare. There are, however, web sites devoted to necrophilic pornography.

The psychiatric literature on necrophilia consists largely of individual case studies. In 1989 Jonathan P. Rosman and Phillip J. Resnick described 122 cases of individuals who had a history of either necrophilic acts or fantasies, and differentiated two types: the genuine or "true" necrophilic, characterized by persistent sexual attraction to corpses, and the "pseudo-necrophilic," who has only a transient attraction to corpses, rather than a fixed erotic preference for them. These authors also distinguished three types of "genuine" necrophilia: necrophilic homicide (involving murder to obtain a corpse), "regular" necrophilia (use of already dead bodies for sexual purposes), and necrophilic fantasies (in which the individual fantasizes about necrophilic acts but does not act on the fantasies).

Most cases in the literature have been males, aged between twenty and fifty years old and heterosexual, although homosexual cases exist. A consistent observation has been that necrophilic individuals often choose an occupation that provides them ready access to corpses (e.g., cemetery or mortuary attendants, hospital orderlies). The necrophilic behaviors engaged in range from kissing and caressing to actual vaginal or anal intercourse; in rare cases, mutilation of the corpse, vampirism (drinking the corpse's blood), and cannibalism occurs.

Regarding the psychology of necrophilia, numerous explanations (mainly psychoanalytic) have been put forward, but, given the low incidence of the phenomenon, these are very difficult to evaluate. Although necrophilic individuals have often been characterized as psychotic or sadistic, the limited empirical data suggests that sadism, psychosis, and subnormal intelligence are not essential features of necrophilia. Nevertheless, associated paraphilias, such as zoophilia (sexual attraction by a human to nonhuman animals) or voyeurism (observing sexual activity), have been reported in necrophilic individuals. Similarly, to overcome inhibitions and be able to carry out necrophilic acts, individuals may use alcohol or drugs, but this is not always the case. Apart from advocating treatment of the associated psychopathology, there has been very little published literature on the treatment of necrophilia.

In the aforementioned Rosman and Resnick study, some necrophiles provided motives for their behavior. The most common stated motive was to possess a partner who was both unresisting and "unrejecting." Other motives that were described included reuniting with a romantic partner, gaining comfort or overcoming feelings of isolation, and increasing self-esteem. A common observation in the clinical case reports has been that necrophiles have very low self-esteem. Necrophilia has also been a motive for some serial killers (e.g., Jeffrey Dahmer, who ate his victims after killing them).

see also Cannibalism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Psychiatric Association (APA). 2000. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV-TR. 4th edition, text revision. Washington, DC.

Burg, Barry R. 1982. "The Sick and the Dead: The Development of Psychological Theory on Necrophilia from Krafft-Ebing to the Present." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 18(3): 242-254.

Hucker, Stephen J., and Lana Stermac. 1992. "The Evaluation and Treatment of Sexual Violence, Necrophilia, and Asphyxiophilia." Psychiatric Clinics of North America 15(3): 703-719.

Rosman, Jonathan P., and Phillip J. Resnick. 1989. "Sexual Attraction to Corpses: A Psychiatric Review of Necrophilia." Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 17(2): 153-163.

                                         Cynthia A. Graham