The date was May 23, 1999.
While driving down a rough, windy, and wet road in the early morning hours, Jane's vehicle slid completely out of control. Jane's vehicle plummeted over the mountain flipping several times and finally stopped when it struck a tree. Jane died on contact. It was mere hours before another motorist saw the bright light over the mountain and heard the constant sounding of the horn. The unidentified motorist quickly called the police and they came, investigated and cleaned up the accident scene.
The police had Jane's body sent to their morgue, for the family to identify.After identifying Jane as their daughter, the Henderson family had a local funeral home arrange the post death activities. The police released Jane's body to the funeral home. At the funeral home, all regular activities were expected.
However, instead of quickly taking care of the body, one of the mortuary attendants working there found Jane attractive and performed sexual acts to her deceased body. Specifically the male attendant participated in oral stimulation of Jane's breasts as well as vaginal penetration with Jane. The family, police, or other mortuary attendants knew none of this.This poses a great question. Are the events that took place immoral and deviant? It is my position to try to answer these questions. Before we can answer these questions logically and not solely emotionally based, we have to look at what this action is, and what the definition is.
The action simply is necrophilia. Dictionary. com states that necrophilia is "an irresistible sexual attraction to dead bodies. " The definition of necrophilia reaches beyond that very broad definition though. "Necrophilia is defined as sexual gratification obtained from corpses.
" (Tollison and Adams (1979). Sexual Disorders.Gardner Press, INC, New York. ) Therefore, in simplest terms, necrophilia is having sex with the dead. In defining necrophilia, another question arises.
Who commits this act of sex with the dead, more over what kind of person commits this act. "The necrophiliac is a psychopath. He is of decidedly perverse and abnormal sensuality. Certain individuals afflicted with this malady are led to copulate with the dead and to commit acts of moral degeneracy upon or in the presence of a dead body because of a fetish (necro-fetishim). All of these individuals are mentally and morally depraved.
" (Paul De River, J. 2000).The Sexual Criminal. Bloat, Burbank, California.
) In this description of a person that commits necrophilia, controversy arises between an actual case study the book conducted and their own definition. In their case study D. W. they find the subject "is well orientated in all spheres, and he performs all mental tests correctly. His wealth of knowledge is good.
He is decidedly emotionally unstable and is subject to spells of moodiness. He does not make friends easily and does not care to. He is anti-social. He is a student of history and he also enjoys all works of psychological nature.
From his neurological examination nothing of importance was elicited. " (Paul De River, J. (2000). The Sexual Criminal.
Bloat, Burbank, California. ) For an author to claim to be an "expert" in the field of sexual deviance, it pains me to see the author contradict himself. However, there is not significant research as to the type or person who commits this act of sexual deviance. In the case studies in the book, both subjects are white males, but that does not paint a picture that all necrophiles are white males. When discussing who does this act, another question might surface.
Why commit this act.In an interview conducted with Karen Greenlee (an unrepentant necrophile), Jim Morton asked the question "How does she do it", Karen then replied, "Yes, that's the question! People ask questions like that-even people who seem pretty cool, seem to have open minds-then when you tell them, they say, "That's very interesting," then don't want to have much to do with me. I don't mind telling people how I do it. It doesn't matter to me, but anyone adept sexually shouldn't have to ask. People have this misconception that there has to be penetration for sexual gratification, which is bull!The most sensitive part of woman is the front area anyway and that is what needs to be stimulated.
Besides, there are different aspects of sexual expression: touchy-feely, 69, even holding hands. That body is just lying there, but it has what it takes to make me happy. The cold, the aura of death, the smell of death, the funeral surroundings, it all contributes. " (http://www. csua. berkeley.
edu/~aspolito/) This section of the interview with an admitted necrophile clearly points out that not all perpetrators are white males, however it also does not give us a universal reason as to why people commit this act.It seems that no one can answer the question of why someone does it accurately and precise enough to apply it to every case or even the majority of cases for that matter. Another question that comes up is where does this activity or act of necrophilia most commonly occur? In both case studies in the book The Sexual Criminal, the perpetrators used morgues and mortuaries as an outlet for their pleasure with dead bodies. This is also the case when Karen Greenlee was asked where she committed her acts of necrophilia.
At the beginning of the paper I posed a question, Is this act necrophilia immoral and deviant.First, let us look at its deviance. Deviance is defined as "differing from a norm, or from the accepted standards of a society. " (www. dictionary. com) Worldwide, deviance is recognized as breaking of norms or standards.
So yes, this act of necrophilia is deviant. As far as immoral, what constitutes as immoral? "Contrary to established moral principles. " (www. dictionary.
com) By this definition, society decides what is moral and immoral, and based on research that I have found, no one condones the behavior of necrophilia, and no one (except the ones that do it) find that it is moral and just.
