>>6696898Cemeteries are not for the dead, but for the living. The dead will not thank us for the coffins made to their specifications, nor compliment us on the choice of flowers or gravestones. They cannot do so, since they are, by definition, dead: they feel nothing, they cannot communicate, they are no longer living. That is why we should find the concept of abusing the dead, specifically necrophilia, a bizarre topic. It’s not bizarre because of people having sex with inanimate objects. This occurs frequently and frankly it shouldn’t concern us that some people find, say, toasters sexy. What’s bizarre is what we’re prepared to do and the attitudes we’re prepared to dredge up in cases where those inanimate sexual objects once happened to be living humans.
Like incest, we may find the act of having sex with corpses disgusting, but we can’t let that be the only determinate of an appropriate response. Take the case of Richard Sanden, from Ohio, who was accused of necrophilia (or rather negligent necrophilia since he “didn’t know” his sex partner was dead). He was initially charged with “abuse of a corpse”, after he notified the police that his partner was dead. However, after police watched a video he had tried to hide, he was charged with necrophilia.
The case is made easier (or more ridiculous) by the fact that Mr Sanden did not “intend” to have sex with a corpse. But intention is not important for now. What matters is the overarching idea of whether or not it is possible to abuse, harm, or in some way offend the dead.
