Necrophilia

Necrophilia, also known as necrophilism, necrolagnia, necrocoitus, necrochlesis, and thanatophilia, is a sexual attraction or sexual act which involves corpses. It is classified as a paraphilia by ICD10 published by the WHO and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association.The term 'necrophilia' is thought to have been coined by Belgian physician Joseph Guislain in his Leçons Orales sur les Phrénopathies, in a lecture given around 1850, in reference to contemporary necrophile François Bertrand:It is within the category of the destructive madmen that one needs to situate certain patients to whom I would like to give the name of necrophiliacs . The alienists have adopted, as a new form, the case of Sergeant Bertrand, the disinterrer of cadavers on whom all the newspapers have recently reported. However, don't think that we are dealing here with a form of phrenopathy which appears for the first time. The ancients, in speaking about lycanthropy, have cited examples to which one can more or less relate the case which has just attracted the public attention so strongly.In the ancient world, sailors returning corpses to their home country were often accused of necrophilia. Singular accounts of necrophilia in history are sporadic, though written records suggest the practice was present within Ancient Egypt. Herodotus writes in The Histories that, to discourage intercourse with a corpse, ancient Egyptians left deceased beautiful women to decay for 'three or four days' before giving them to the embalmers. Herodotus also alluded to suggestions that Greek tyrant Periander had defiled the corpse of his wife, employing a metaphor: 'Periander baked his bread in a cold oven.' Acts of necrophilia are depicted on ceramics from the Moche culture, which reigned in northern Peru from the first to eighth century CE. A common theme in these artifacts is the masturbation of a male skeleton by a living woman. Hittite law from the 16th century BC through to the 13th century BC explicitly permitted sex with the dead. In what is now Northeast China, the ethnic Xianbei emperor Murong Xi (385–407) of the Later Yan state had intercourse with the corpse of his beloved empress Fu Xunying, after the latter was already cold and put into the coffin.In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), recurrent, intense sexual interest in corpses can be diagnosed under Other Specified Paraphilic Disorder (necrophilia) when it causes marked distress or impairment in important areas of functioning. A ten-tier classification of necrophilia exists:Necrophilia is often assumed to be rare, but no data for its prevalence in the general population exists. Some necrophiles only fantasize about the act, without carrying it out. In 1958, Klaf and Brown commented that, although rarely described, necrophiliac fantasies may occur more often than is generally supposed.Necrophilia is not explicitly mentioned in Australian law, however, under the Crimes Act 1900 - Sect 81C it states misconduct with regard to corpses is any person who:Art. 212 - To abuse a cadaver or its ashes:Penalty: detention, from 1 to 3 years, plus fine.Whoever, with the intention of wounding the feelings of any person, or of insulting the religion of any person, or with the knowledge that the feelings of any person are likely to be wounded, or that the religion of any person is likely to be insulted thereby,commits any trespass in any place of worship or on any place of sculpture, or any place set apart from the performance of funeral rites or as a depository for the remains of the dead, or offers any indignity to any human corpse, or causes disturbance to any persons assembled for the performance of funeral ceremonies, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.