August 27, 2009
The not so grateful dead:
If you suddenly find your web filter is blocking Mind Hacks, it's because this post is about necrophilia. A paper just published in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine has proposed the first classification of sexual attraction to death and the dead.
I maintain an amateur interest in the forensic psychology literature because there is nothing that lays out the full range of human behaviour in such stark contrast and nothing which will challenge your assumptions about the things society feels least comfortable talking about.
This paper is a good example. You can probably think of nothing more revolting than necrophilia but the review makes clear that the link between sexual arousal and death can include consenting adults acting out B-movie fantasies to people who are unable to get aroused except by anything corpses, with almost everything in between.
Apparently, there was previously too little research in the area to allow a coherent classification of the different types and this is the first paper that attempts to map the range of sexual attraction to death.
There is nothing gratuitous in the article and it is a seriously scholarly piece, but if you're not comfortable with some of the darker corners of human existence you may find it hard going.
Link to paper on the classification of necrophilia.
Link to PubMed entry for same.
