Kin (can I call you Kin?) you have stepped so far out on this limb, there is no coming back.
I understand your points regarding the feelings of dead things, but come on … you really think necrophilia - even just in theory, not even in practice - is perfectly hunky-dory? I have no love for anything born of tradition, symbolism, emotionalism or any of that hand-over-the-heart shit – but fuck, man.
This isn’t so much about respect for me as much as it is about how fucking disgusting it is.
But …
You seem to be saying that honor killing doesn’t hurt anybody but those who have their feelings hurt.
I mean … you’re not really saying that are you? I refer you to the word “killing”. That tends to hurt a little.
Of course not. All my posts so far have mentioned this, haven’t they? It’s not honky-dory. Not just because it’s offensive to our culture and because it shows a lack of respect (and I agree that it is both of those things). It’s also not healthy for the perp for one, I’m certain it’s unsanitary. It speaks volumes of some mental problems which could be bad for the person, or even bad for society. And it’s someone else’s property to boot. The person has no right.
So punishment warranted? Of course! But on the level of MURDER or rape of an actual LIVING person? Hecks no!
Again, I agree. It is disgusting. But since when is disgusting reason enough for punishment worthy of the better part of a decade in jail? I should amend that. That’s pretty much been the status quo for humanity for, well, time immemorial. Instead I should say that it should NOT be reason for such a high penalty, not in a civilized, modern, enlightened society. Help for the perp would be preferable, IMHO.
No, the punishment is abhorrent. The killing of those involved in the INITIAL “crime”, whether that be homosexual acts, premarital sex, what have you are I’m talking about when I say they don’t hurt anyone except the sensibilities of the culture/the feelings of the families, individuals involved.
Honestly, I’m confused as to why so many people feel the need to respect a dead hunk of meat. Not saying there is anything wrong with it, but it baffles me. When I’m dead and gone, you can turn my head into a toilet for all I care - I’m dead! Seriously, do we all live in ancient Egypt (I never got the memo!) and everyone somehow thinks that an intact and/or undefiled body is needed to pass on to what’s next?
FTR, before anyone jumps down my throat, I had a sister die in my arms 7 years ago this past May. She was - after her death - burned into tiny pieces and spread out in a garden…where dogs shit. :eek: That has absolutely no bearing on what her life was like or the amount of respect I had for her while she was alive.
In case you hadn’t already guessed it, chalk me up as one who disagrees with jail time for necros. Intense psychiatric therapy all the way.
No, the punishment is abhorrent. It’s not the killing of those involved in the INITIAL “crime” that I was referring to, but rather the initial “crime” itself, whether that be homosexual acts, premarital sex, or what have you. That’s what I’m talking about when I say they don’t hurt anyone except the sensibilities of the culture/the feelings of the families/individuals involved. In other words, in those cases too, the punishment is completely out of whack for the crime AND the same excuse is used to justify that punishment: “It hurts our feelings/honor/culture”, as there is no other substantial reason for it.
And me. Anyone who goes around screwing dead bodies needs serious psychological help. This isn’t some sort of disrespect for the law or what have you–it’s a sign of a very fucked up thought process. A necrophile who has acted on his urges needs treatment, not punishment.
Would it be upsetting and disturbing for a family to find out their dead loved one’s corpse had been abused? Likely. Is it in any way akin to rape? No. To liken someone sexually using a corpse to rape is an insult to life itself and rather misogynistic. When I was sexually assaulted, my family was upset, but they got over it long before I did and couldn’t even hope to fathom how I was feeling. It was my experience that mattered, because I was the one who’d lived through it. To say that the crime of defiling a corpse is akin to rape–when the “victim” is a slab of meat–is essentially claiming the family members are the real victims of rape.
They are not. In that case, they are the victims of someone abusing a body they have a sentimental attachment to. It is abhorrent and sad, but it is not rape, should not be accompanied by prison time, and sure as hell shouldn’t carry a stiffer (no pun intended) penalty than abuses on living people.
Thats a cultural difference that I don’t understand or agree with on the muslim side. Its also not really my concern.
Don’t be too sure about breaking anyone’s jaw, friend. Especially if you were screwing the corpse of a dead family member. But we don’t need to measure dicks in a pointless “I could beat you up” discussion. Maybe I could, maybe I couldn’t, but if you were having sex with my dead mother, sister, wife or loved oner and I caught you…well, You may not ever have been angry enough to use violence in your life and if so, you’re a lucky person. I’ve seen tiny guys beat the crap out of dudes twice their size when angry enough.
I didn’t say necrophilia was worse than slaying the necrophiliac, but a person in a rage doesn’t think about things like that. If you caught a nutjob fucking the corpse of your mother/sister/whatever, what would you do? Just say “Hey, Stop that?”. Most people would probably go batshit crazy on the spot. If you wouldn’t I applaud your ability to not lose it. Personally I cannot imagine not going nuclear. Now hunting down or otherwise finding a necro-bastard after he had done the deed would be wrong. (maybe beating him up a bit wouldn’t be as wrong, but…) My mother died 20 years ago and I was pretty broken up about it. If some crazy had done that to her corpse I would have lost it, honestly. (and I was a lot less stable back then…worse temper and thats saying something…I don’t even want to think about how I might have reacted.) I can totally understand how FarmerChick feels about it if it swwere her son.
Well, we have differing opinions on that. He can get a doctor in prison, but I don’t want a fruitcake like that on the street. If he’d do a corpse what else is he capable of? He could be another fucking Dahmer. Sure Dahmer was killed in prison, but boo fucking hoo…he ate people. I can’t work up too much sympathy. I will admit that 2 or 3 years in prison would be more appropriate than 7 but if a guy did my mother/sister/whatever’s corpse i sure wouldn’t protest him getting 7 years. There are people getting harsh sentences for lesser crimes that I can spend my concern on.
I know some people say “It just a hunk of dead meat…why be so upset”. It does boil down to respect. If you loved the person then you don’t want their mortal remains to be treated as a sex toy for some pervert. I don’t want anyone’s mortal remains to be treated like that. My mind boggles at how anyone can not be upset about it.
Sometimes the degree of permissiveness argued for around here baffles me, and I’m a far-left liberal. I’m siding with the “that’s a horrible, disgusting thing to do, and the family is forever scarred” position here.
Since that’s not enough for some of you, though, how about this. A severe punishment in this sort of case, like a cannibalism case, is preferred because it’s a behavior that we want, as a society, to discourage to the maximum amount. You guys are agreeing that it’s a disgusting behavior requiring psychological help. Why? If it’s just a “piece of meat”, why wouldn’t a lot of sane people take advantage of the opportunity of some random dead family member to munch down or stick it in? (For the record, I just made myself nauseous typing that.)
The best answers I’ve seen for this are:
Death is a very important event to us, regardless of our religious beliefs, so abuse of a corpse is disrespectful. This includes those very few societies (historically or otherwise) where cannibalism was allowed; in all cases that I’ve read about those were shows of respect, religious observances, or absorbing the power of an enemy. You didn’t go out hunting people for meat.
It is contrary to the cohesiveness of the society as a whole. While I usually find “slippery slope” arguments ridiculous, in this case, I agree that destroying the “respect for a corpse” taboo would lead to people killing others and otherwise behaving unwisely for the continuation of the group.
As for my answer the main reason I feel they need any kind of help at all is that it is a notably UNhealthy practice. I’m speaking in the physical sense here; if you’re screwing a corpse you have no way of knowing if there are any diseases to worry about; not to mention if it’s a dead body that you have dug up from an older grave, or just stumbled across in the woods, there’s decomposition to worry about.
On the psychological end of the spectrum, I’m curious as to why this person feels the need to have sex with a corpse. Do they feel that unattractive? Is it the “danger/taboo” aspect? Were they abused to somehow think this is acceptable?
I do get the point that dead people can’t feel anything, so being raped while dead seems not comparable to being raped alive from the victim’s point of view, because dead people don’t have a point of view anymore.
When I read the link, I did immediately mentally characterize this as rape though. My line of reasoning: In the years I’ve been on line I’ve been mostly pleasantly surprised. However, I’ve been unpleasantly surprised that there really are real guys out there who think of women as vaginas that unfortunately have a personality attached and that it is SO UNFAIR that that personality needs to be tricked to get to what women are really about i.e. their cunts. Granted, it’s a minority of men, but that minority tends to be very vocal as rape apologists in rape discussions.(not so much here, I’m talking about my usenet lurking days). I am talking about the kind of guy who thinks that if a woman has that pesky personality temporarily disabled because she is passed out, she is just asking to be fucked because hey, she shouldn’t have left her cunt be unattended. That’s a signal to access right? She shouldn’t have gotten drunk, should have chosen her friends more carefully, should have watched her drink better, you know the drill.
Now I grant that when I am dead, I won’t be around to care. But while alive, I very much care that being dead and having one’s personality permanently disabled is not suddently viewed as a mitigating circumstance for the rapist either.
So you’re still acknowledging that this is unacceptable behavior, but are arguing that the taboo is for health reasons? When ancient peoples had no idea about contagion and reasonably often had fresh corpses around? That just doesn’t make any sense. Why are we making this anything but an ethical issue?
I don’t take my morality from fantasy novels, but the following quote still seemed oddly pertinent to this entire discussion.
I don’t think the taboo exists for health reasons. I’m pretty sure it exists because people think it’s yucky and evil. That defiling a corpse is somehow “wrong.” I agree with you that it is - overall - an ethical issue. On the flip side of that coin, my own personal reasons for disagreeing with the concept of necrophilia are A) it’s not very sanitary, and B) I can’t grasp how a properly mentally functioning adult would think that a corpse was his/her best option. If someone can point me to a cite that proves sex with the dead poses no risk of infection, and expalin to me if it’s possible for an otherwise normal - key phrase, that - person to get off on necrophilia, then I’ll retract my views and go so far as to say that I see nothing wrong with it at all. Is it something I’d do? Fuck no, I like 'em alive and kicking, thankyaverymuch. But if someone here on the Dope (to use an example) that had a reputation for being intelligent and “normal”, admitted to me that they liked the dead girls, then I certainly wouldn’t hold it against them.
I think the only person here who has implied that sex with the dead could even potentially be okie dokie is freekalette. Other than that, I’ve seen two basic views: 1) necrophilia is an abomination and should be punished with jail time and 2) necrophilia is the act of a diseased mind and should be treated as a symptom of mental illness. Saying something is the act of a mentally ill person is hardly the same as being permissive of it.
I think it’s horrible, likely indicative of a mental disturbance far greater than that seen in most other sex crimes, and not the same as rape. Let’s put them away and give them treatment before they escalate to doing worse things. I cannot imagine the horror of losing a loved one, only to have her body abused, and my immediate, visceral response would probably be to beat the man to death. However, I don’t think a vengeance based justice system works. The goal is to reduce crime and suffering, which would be better served by psychiatric help in this situation.
Offhand I can’t think of any animals that routinely have sex with their own dead. I can think of a lot of animals that routinely eat their own dead though. Nature may not be a good basis from which to establish societal norms.
What if cannibalism turns you on? Would that be better or worse than plain vanilla necrophilia?
