# Why is necrophilia usually considered worse than actual murder or rape? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 13, 2017, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516 "2017-05-13T05:32:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/21 "2017-05-13T19:36:18Z")
The penalty for necrophilia doesn’t seem that severe, at least in Ohio. There was a morgue worker in Cincinnati who admitted performing [sex acts with up to 100 corpses](http://time.com/3135722/ohio-morgue-sex-kenneth-douglas/)\*, and he only wound up with a six-year prison sentence. \*contrary to popular belief, “Sex Acts With Up To 100 Corpses” was not the title of Rob Zombie’s first film. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/22 "2017-05-14T03:11:39Z")
Winston-McCauley Funeral Home ad: [https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/funeral-home/2859830?snl=1](https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/funeral-home/2859830?snl=1) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/23 "2017-05-14T04:12:00Z")
Oh, and I seriously have to wonder where the OP is getting statistics on a million (or more) different acts of necrophilia. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/24 "2017-05-14T04:27:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 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.” I don’t understand how this incentivizes either crime. 99.9999% of the time, murder is punished more severely than rape. If the rapist murders the victim to keep the victim quiet, that entails a worse penalty than rape. If the criminal has sex with a corpse, why would there be the claim, “The victim was \*not \*dead when I had sex?”, implying there was murder involved? If the murderer raped \*and \*murdered the victim, then it makes little sense to worry about the legal penalties for rape, when you have an even heavier charge - homicide - to worry about being convicted on. The rape charge is almost redundant in that instance; murder without rape is punished pretty much the same as murder with rape. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/25 "2017-05-14T12:22:24Z")
OK, suppose that you find a corpse dumped in the woods, with semen in the bodily orifices. The corpse itself is the primary piece of evidence. The natural conclusion is that some sicko raped and then murdered the victim. The police DNA test the semen, and find a match. But the defendant claims “I was just out hiking in the woods when I found the corpse and had sex with it. I don’t know who killed her.” ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/26 "2017-05-14T15:28:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, suppose that you find a corpse dumped in the woods, with semen in the bodily orifices. The corpse itself is the primary piece of evidence. The natural conclusion is that some sicko raped and then murdered the victim. The police DNA test the semen, and find a match. But the defendant claims “I was just out hiking in the woods when I found the corpse and had sex with it. I don’t know who killed her.” I really don’t buy this idea that blanket criminalization of necrophilia as equivalent to rape is justified, just to make it easier to prosecute rapist/murderers. The moral aspect. Let’s say that, by the reasoning you outline above, necrophilia always attracts the same sentence as rape, even though we agree that the sentence is not justified by the act itself. Suppose a true necrophiliac digs up a long-dead body to do his thing, when it’s absolutely certain that he could not have killed the person. Should we punish him for a crime that he could possibly have committed, just to make it easier to prosecute unrelated cases? [Blackstone’s Formulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation) has always been a fundamental principle of our justice system. The pragmatic aspect. How _frequently_ has an accused rapist/murderer used the necrophilia defense that you outline? It seems highly implausible to me. Isn’t it far more likely that the accused would claim to have had consensual sex with the victim earlier that night, but did not subsequently murder her? Either way, surely it’s up to the trial process (including the rest of the forensic evidence) to determine whether the defense is credible. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/27 "2017-05-14T15:56:23Z")
> [@](#): > > The pragmatic aspect. How frequently has an accused rapist/murderer used the necrophilia defense that you outline? One scumbag who tried this defence was Mark Dixie > **[Mark Dixie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Dixie)** > > Mark Philip Dixie (born 24 September 1970) is a British serial rapist and a murderer who was convicted on 22 February 2008 of murdering 18-year-old singer and model Sally Anne Bowman on 25 September 2005 in South Croydon, London. He has 17 other criminal convictions. He was known by various pseudonyms. > Dixie was born in Streatham, South London. His parents separated when he was 18 months old. When he was eight, his mother remarried; she had two sons by her new husband. Dixie admits to having ... It does not state this in the link, however he treid to claim this very thing - you’ll find more about this toad around the net ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/28 "2017-05-14T16:06:24Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > One scumbag who tried this defence was Mark Dixie > > [Mark Dixie - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Dixie) > > It does not state this in the link, however he treid to claim this very thing - you’ll find more about this toad around the net But he _was_ still convicted of murder. So, presumably, the system worked as it should - the jury did not find the defense credible. Based the Wiki article, he had no history of necrophilia, but plenty of rape and violence. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/29 "2017-05-14T16:07:50Z")
Necrophilia is certainly weirder than rape or murder, but I doubt most people would consider it even remotely equally _evil_. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/30 "2017-05-14T16:21:57Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > 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? I question the premise as well. I don’t think that most people consider necrophilia worse than murder or raping a living victim. However, I do think that most people consider any kind of corpse desecration to be criminal. I don’t know if it’s true, but I have heard about some medical students who were dismissed for posing anatomy corpses in amusing ways, with costume pieces, and photographing them. This may be an urban legend, but my point in telling it is that I have heard this story told several times, and never once has anyone ever said the punishment was too severe; on the other hand, if anyone has said anything, it’s usually that they should have faced criminal charges. Cemetery vandalism is taken pretty seriously too. It’s a victimless crime, more or less, in a way that crimes against property being used by the living are not, but it really upsets people. I think corpses, like babies and very disabled people, represent a state of humanity that cannot defend itself. Nevermind that they also cannot feel, or have any idea of what is happening to them, and never will, and that the body will decay away pretty soon, unlike other helpless people. There is still an impulse to protect. It is irrational, but there it is. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/31 "2017-05-14T23:02:44Z")
\*I love the dead before they’re cold Their bluing flesh for me to hold Cadaver eyes upon me see Nothing I love the dead before they rise No farewells, no goodbyes I never even knew your rotting face While friends and lovers mourn your silly grave I have other uses for you, darling …\* So at least one notable human being is not exactly shocked by the idea. So lets look at it for a moment. First thought? Gross, repulsive. Why? Because it’s dead, dead stuff is creepy/ smelly/ slimy/ scary. Even the coroner will agree, dead bodies stink. But beyond that, what is there actually? Be you Jew, Christian, Muslin, Atheist, insert belief here, i think most of us will agree that the lump of formaldehyde smelling “meat in the box” there is no longer me. I have left the building, me and Elvis are going to pick up a 6 pack and go hang out with Buddy Holley. And since that aint me in the box, you can not say that the person has actually harmed or violated me. Unless you also subscribe to the belief that i am trapped in a dead body stuck in a box, in which case i have more horrible things than uninvited sex to look forward to, like **ROTTING**? Ok, so far the person is guilty of having sex with a piece of no longer living meat in an undescribed state of decomposition. What does the law prescribe as the punishment being being “Eww Yuck” ? Because you simply can not punish the person for violating me, i was not there. I can not be violated when i am not there to violate right? Now, we may have some minor things to work through. How did he get me? Did he dig me up? Well that probably is trespassing, and criminal damaging? I am not sure if taking the body is theft per se? I do not know how the law sees a human body as far as property? I am a person, i can not be owned, so technically no one can own by body. But i have abandoned it, and abandoned property can be claimed. So being that ive abandoned my body and am not around to say Sod off my body, no one gets it, there might be something there to charge. But none of these things are the necrophilia itself where the crime exists. Now it goes with out saying, you can not have caused my demise to pork my dead corpse because that has it’s own obvious crime. So let us say that weird guy just found me lying around, i dropped dead on a bench in the woods somewhere. He has his fun, and leaves me otherwise as he found me. What harm has he caused that was not to himself? The Rapist, the Murderer, we know what harm they have caused. They definitely had victims, the victim was alive and inhabiting the body at the time. The victim felt many unpleasant things during the violation. Me, dead guy on a bench? Not so much, i already left the building, i was not present as the scene of my “violation” So if i am not there, i can not really be violated, can i? So if i can not be violated, hurt or harmed in any way, is it really justice to put the act on the same level as say a Rape or a Murder? Justice is to be blind, fair, impartial is it not? Devoid of the things that would vary widely from one person to the next so that you have one simple and fair justice for all people. Making the act on par with the others both lessens the others, and reinjects those personal feelings back into the equation again. No, i am not advocating “_Return of the Living Corpse Porkers_” or opening Cold Ethel’s Corpse Ranch in Vegas. Though i think i could get Alice to do an opening night show ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/32 "2017-05-14T23:19:00Z")
Necrophilia is really ‘Ewww’ because it involves two subjects that are taboo or controversial in nearly all societies: Sex and Death. Either of them is an exciting item, and subject of many legal controls, social inhibitions & traditions, and individual & family attitudes. And necrophilia involves both of them! Really disturbing. But I agree with many here that it isn’t “worse” in a legal sense – the penalties are lower than for many other criminal acts. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/33 "2017-05-14T23:38:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Riemann** : > > I really don’t buy this idea that blanket criminalization of necrophilia as equivalent to rape is justified, just to make it easier to prosecute rapist/murderers. To be clear, I never said that that rationale was morally justified (that’s a GD question, anyway, not GQ). I said that that was in fact the rationale behind anti-necrophilia laws, in jurisdictions where they exist. I take no stance on the morality of the question. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/34 "2017-05-14T23:40:25Z")
Dispute the premise, etc. I think part of it is that most people can sorta imagine being a rapist or murderer if somehow their moral inhibition units malfunctioned. Getting rid of an inconvenient person is practical. Sex whenever you like is nice. But for necrophilia, I think it’s hard for most people to imagine the kind of brain state needed to make that desirable. You’re talking much lower-level mechanisms related to the things we find disgusting. Never mind that it’s a much milder morality violation; it pegs the gross-meter and that overrides the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/35 "2017-05-15T00:17:31Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > …But for necrophilia, I think it’s hard for most people to imagine the kind of brain state needed to make that desirable. You’re talking much lower-level mechanisms related to the things we find disgusting. Never mind that it’s a much milder morality violation; it pegs the gross-meter and that overrides the rest. The disgust element is huge, of course. But setting that aside, the paraphilia itself seems far _less_ weird and incomprehensible to me than many others. After all, at least the object of attraction bears some resemblance to a conventional sexual partner. > **[List of paraphilias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paraphilias)** > > Paraphilias are sexual interests in objects, situations, or individuals that are atypical. The American Psychiatric Association, in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM), draws a distinction between paraphilias (which it describes as atypical sexual interests) and paraphilic disorders (which additionally require the experience of distress, impairment in functioning, and/or the desire to act on them with a nonconsenting person). Some paraphilias have more than one term t In ... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/36 "2017-05-15T01:34:47Z")
On the other hand, most people don’t feel any discomfort at all in being in the same room as, handling, etc., a watermelon or whatever. But most people do feel discomfort at doing the same things with a corpse, even without the sex angle. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516/37 "2017-05-16T03:25:48Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > I think corpses, like babies and very disabled people, represent a state of humanity that cannot defend itself. Nevermind that they also cannot feel, or have any idea of what is happening to them, and never will, and that the body will decay away pretty soon, unlike other helpless people. There is still an impulse to protect. It is irrational, but there it is. Interesting. I think you’re right. On one hand, I don’t really care what happens to my body after I’m dead, except that I want them to take any parts that might be useful to someone else. On the other hand, my body is special to me - it may just be a meat shell, but it’s the one I’ve been using for 46 years, and I’d prefer to have it treated with respect. Using it as a fleshlight is NOT treating it with respect. But having my corpse violated would be preferable to a still-living person being raped or murdered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-necrophilia-usually-considered-worse-than-actual-murder-or-rape/786516.md?page=1)