As the title says, why is necrophilia usually regarded as one of the most horrible crimes, even though it harms literally zero people or animals, unless it’s one of those cases where people are actually murdered beforehand. I’ve heard many people saying that it’s literally the worst crime to exist, even though in 99.9999% of the time, no one is actually harmed for the ‘cause’ of necrophilia, unlike literally every other sexual crime.
Revulsion about the dead, or corpses.
Let’s use biting as a related analogy instead. Which do you think society would find grosser, someone biting a live person (which Luis Suarez, a Uruguayan athlete, has actually done in soccer games,) or someone who bites a dead corpse?
Or how about kissing. Which does society find grosser, a man who kisses a woman without her permission, or a man who kisses a dead corpse?
Compare the criminal sanction for murder and rape versus necrophilla and then decide if it’s thought of as “worse”.
I’ve gotta say, I’ve never heard necrophilia defended for any reason, much less the idea that it is a victimless crime. I believe it is considered as bad as murder or rape because it is horrible to contemplate. Anyone who would commit necrophilia is truly unlikely to have any hesitance to do perhaps any crime. Like baby rape, only true sociopaths need apply.
I question your premise. “Worst” crime in what sense? It may be a crime that generates extreme revulsion, because we have strong (and well-founded) instincts to avoid rotting flesh. But I don’t think that it should attract extreme punishment, it’s not remotely close to rape in severity. Am I out of line with the majority in holding that view?
Cite please? There is a specific small subset of homicidal necrophiliacs. But what’s your basis for claiming that more general necrophiliac paraphilia is correlated with an inclination to harm living humans or with psychopathy?
I agree with it, for what it’s worth. There are different types of bad. For murder, how bad it is depends largely on the context and why. I think most of us have wanted to harm someone or wished someone was dead even if we had no intention to actually do it. For rape, the person is horrible but we can comprehend the selfishness/sadism of it. For necrophilia, it’s so alien, eldritch, that it doesn’t compute.
For sure, that part I don’t deny.
But would you seek to punish a necrophiliac (who had committed no harm to any living human or any other crime) as severely as a rapist?
No, I would think psychiatric/psychological treatment would be more appropriate than punishment.
Yeah, I can’t imagine arguing it is the worst crime in an absolute sense. If I were in a position where I could prevent a murder, a rape, or an act of necrophilia, necrophilia would be a distant third.
Heck, it would be a distant third if I were in a position to prevent jaywalking, copyright infringement, or necrophilia.
Now that I think about it, assuming a corpse is ethically sourced (that being the rub, so to speak) I don’t know that I’d even think it should be a crime.
Now, I would find it personally extremely repulsive that someone would want to have sex with a dead person. But there are all kinds of behaviors I find extremely repulsive without feeling they are extremely criminal.
There is also the possibility that the murder takes place to facilitate the necrophilia, one very notorious serial killer was John Christie who murdered a number of women so that he could do this.
I disagree with the initial formulation of the question.
There are several problems with it, aside from the most obvious that there is only the OP’s assertion that necrophilia is “considered worse than murder or rape.”
Another assertion, which I would suggest is false, is that “it harms literally zero people or animals, unless it’s one of those cases where people are actually murdered beforehand.” In order to make that assertion, the detailed acts involved with the crime, have to be taken entirely out of the context of our lives where they take place. Do that to almost any crime, and the acts can be said to be “harmless.” Taking something that doesn’t belong to you is only theft within the specific context where the ownership of the taken item is generally agreed upon by the society, and where taking it is generally believed to cause significant harm either to the individual or to the society at large.
In the case of necrophilia, as rape, the number of elements of the society's sensibilities and values which are trampled and assaulted, is tremendous. If you ignore everything except the measurable financial cost of a crime, then someone stabbing you would be seen as identical to their taking the amount of money required to return you to good health again out of your savings. But it isn't seen that way, because of the rest of the context.
As I understand it, the primary reason for necrophilia laws is rape-murder cases, where it’s sometimes impossible to prosecute the rape portion, because the prosecution can’t prove that it happened before the murder. And you really don’t want to create an extra incentive for rapists to murder their victims, either. So you criminalize the sex regardless of whether it happened before or after the murder.
“They’ll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothes. And if we’re very, very lucky, they’ll do it in that order.”
eeeeeeeeeeeew! :eek:
I disagree with the premise of the question. Necrophilia is certainly regarded as repulsive to the vast majority of people but it isn’t even illegal in several states as a separate crime. Murder is generally regarded as the highest ranked crime in social terms followed by rape. Necrophilia is way down the list and generally not something most people think about.
Those examples aren’t comprehensive. Necrophilia is rare enough that it sometimes never makes it a legislative or punitive priority in some states.
I disagree that it is victimless though. How would you feel if you found out that the mortician screwed your grandmother before the funeral or someone dug up your son’s grave to satisfy a sexual urge?
I too disagree with GQ, as to IMHO, of query, unless any criminal repercussions of “worse” can be adduced.
But aren’t there a bunch of laws about desecrating corpses? I don’t think that the “sacral” persists in our secular vocabulary, but the point is the same; actually, wonder if the word, and challenges to it, is present much in any of laws.
ETA: ninja cited
One thing - it’s true
Cold Ethyl I am stuck on you
And everything is my way
Ethyl don’t have much to say
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Plus extra for the sourcing kicker. Shows your proper morality.
Cite?
I think it’s a quote referencing the Reapers from the Firefly serenity TV show. I don’t watch it, I just googled the quote.