The Science of Necrophilia

this one is a really fun topic to research. I thought that the episode came together perfectly and we we were were able to demystify the topic takes something that is often seen is just you know, utterly repellent. You just you don't even want to look closer. Maybe you maybe you do, but in a gruesome car exc But but when you strip away the human complexities that the actual science is really fascinating as well. Yeah, and I just you know, want to know, we talked about this

up front in the episode. I believe, but don't don't think that this is going to be some like gross out fest or anything like that. We approach this the way we do all of our other episodes with a lot of research, and uh, with a modicum of dignity, I guess is what I would say, the same monicum of dignity that we we we dust off for every episode.

Yeah yeah, but like organic food. Yeah exactly. So without further ado, let's jump into it, all right, So we're gonna start off by just by discussing necrophilia in in the animal kingdom. I mean generally, that's the way it goes with these things. We can talk about a simpler model of what's going on with the animals before we dare throw in the complications of the human mind and human culture. And what I was the most shocked about with this as we did the research was how prevalent

it is. I mean, We've got at least what like five or six examples of different animals h that practice necrophilia today, and I'm sure there are dozens more out there that have just not been cataloged. And because we'll find with the penguin, it was and then that research was redacted basically for cultural reasons. It was just too shocking to share. I mean, but essentially you can sum it all up in a bumper sticker like, necrophilia happens, and yes, and the more you you just sort of

acclimatized to that reality, the easier going everything else. Is that it's not something that is not necessarily an act that is just a defilement before the gods, as much as a thing that occurs in the natural order of things, and often as an accident. But accidents happen, and uh, and then human culture just makes it a little more complicated. You know. What just occurred to me, Robert, is that we're assuming that our audience automatically knows what necrophilia is.

That's true. Yeah, so maybe we should just, i mean throw out a very basic definition which is in fact, and this was one of the things that surprised me doing the research. In the case of necrophilia, it is not the act of having sex with a dead body, with a corpse. It is the desire to right, Yeah, just the desire to alone. The fantasy of necrophilia is enough to classify one as a necrophilia um, and the

term itself is actually pretty new. Necrophilia is an entirely nineteenth century term, but of course the practice it describes the sexual abuse of courses it's quite ancient myths going back as far as human memory, probably because it you know, it gets down to a lot of the key problems

with dealing of death. Um. But of course you have to sort of define what is sex too before we write, because of course, human intercourse is essentially the physical act that allows the exchange of genetic information to mix everything around and create a new organism as offspring. Right. Yeah, And that's what makes our first example in sort of the quote unquote animal world interesting because it's so alien

to how we understand intercourse. It almost seems like it wouldn't be categorized as necrophilia technically, but it's referred to as such in the literature, right, And I'm sure in the science headlines I didn't. I mean, maybe not yet, But it's just waiting for the right paper to come out and then all the various science blogs will really run with the headline that will include the phrase bacterial necrophilia. Um. Of course, bacteria they don't actually need to engage in

intercourse in order to reproduce. Instead, they tend to swallow up DNA from other bacteria just as they move around, and they'll even absorb it from dead bacterial cells, they exchange new DNA fragments from the dead with their own, and then by shuffling all this around, they're essentially mating with the dead, uh, in a way that most higher

creatures fail to achieve. Yeah. The stuff that I read about this, in particular, I'm going to be honest, was so dense that I had a hard time understanding it. It seems like it's its own very special niche field, uh, that that has its own language, and that I don't know necessarily that they're using necrofile or necrophilia sort of in the same way that we understand it when we're applying it, certainly to human beings but also to other animals.

But it is how it is described in the literature. Yeah, it is a genetic exchange between the living and the dead. Um. So, yeah, it's almost its own thing because it doesn't really match up with most of the models of of biological higher organism necrophilia, but it's important to include here, especially I think it's a it's perfect to include at the top, But if you want to move on, we can get into what what Robert has coined here as the duck

of death. And I'm sure, a lot of people are familiar with this one from the Ignoble Prizes, particularly the the Ignoble Prize for Biology in two thousand three. Now, just to rehash, uh, the Ignoble Prizes, this comes out, These come out every year. This was new to me

and you explained it to me before the podcast. Yeah, it's, uh, it's easy to mistake it for like a mockery, but it's really a celebration of of weird science papers and some you know, science papers that study the strange or just the just the the the weird minutia that often gets, you know, and and is inherently picked up in scientific literature. As as science expands like a slime mold through the labyrinth of of existence, you know, you're gonna pick up

some weird topics. And they celebrate these topics. And so the two thousand three award went to um Keys moliker Um who's a Dutch writer and curator of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam. Uh and he he won this paper for his uh his recorded uh his first scientifically

recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the Mallard Duck. Yeah, and before we get into the details here there's I want to back up a second because one of the things that I read was that apparently mallards in the Netherlands are particularly known for what are called attempted rape flight, and that this isn't necessarily from from what I was reading, it's not necessarily heterosexual or homosexual. It's just more like these ducks just go for it while they're flying, and

it's somewhat regardless of gender. But one in ten of these attempted rape flights is homosexual, and that it's two male ducks. Uh, And that basically what we're looking at here in this example from Mullicker is that one of the ducks died midflight, either from injuries due to their struggle or maybe it ran into something, and the other duck just landed and kept going. It's ending. It's hard not. I laughed a little bit. It's so it's hard not, you know what. I think it's okay for you to laugh.

I think it's okay for the people listening to lad you gotta have a little bit of literal gallows you with this in order to get through it. Yeah, I mean they are justist ducks in this case doing what ducks do to each other. Yeah, and as we're gonna find too. You know, this kind of uh sexual behavior is fairly common in a lot of animals, birds especially, but yeah, these ducks, Um, it seems like I didn't get the impression because I read the actual account for Muliker.

I don't know that he knew how the first duck died. It sounded like maybe it crashed into something. But basically there was this this duck corpse, and he saw the second duck mounted and began to peck at it and proceed for quite some time. I mean, he recorded pretty precisely how long everything lasted, and I believe it was like I don't have it in the notes here, but I want to say it was like forty five or

seventy five minutes or something like that. So it wasn't like this duck didn't realize what was happening, then realized it's you know, it's a partner was dead, and stopped it really you know, made a habit of it. Yeah, And I think that's one of the reasons that the the paper won the egg Nobel Prize and was so everyone enjoyed it so much, is that it is this meticulous look at this horrible thing then that you know,

most people might want to turn their eyes away from. Well, that's the thing about it, right, is that Mullicker sat there and watched this for let's say seventy five minutes, and I'm assuming, with like a pad of paper and just wrote it all down. And he actually, from what I was reading, it was after that, after the second I believe that this there were two instances of it

with the same deceased duck. Uh, he kind of shoot away the other bird and finally took the corpse of the mallard and um, you know, brought it inside, and that other duck hung around kind of making noises for a while afterwards. So it's an interesting case. I would not be the person who would be so intent upon, you know, cataloging this that I would be able to hang out there for seventy five minutes. But yeah, it's

an example of the unflinching gaze of science. Now our next case though, is it's more of an example of the the definitely the flinch. Yeah. George Murray Levic, Yeah, he was the medical officer on Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole in nineteen ten, and he recorded the sexual activity of the Adeli penguins uh in in detail, and he was he was somewhat shocked by much of what he saw. And a lot of this really has to do with with him falling into the

trap of seeing penguins as little people. You know, they were little people in tuxedos instead of just bipedal birds. Do you know what this movie? Do you know what this article made me think of? Have you ever seen that movie March of the Penguins narrated by Morgan Freeman. I have not seen any of the various penguin related movies that have come out. I I saw it, gosh, must have been eleven years ago now or something like that. Whenever it first came out. I saw it in the theater.

Is the one where they surf? Right? No? No, no, this is like a documentary. This isn't the c G I Happy I think you're thinking of Happy feat But then came from what's his name, director of Mad Max, So oh oh yeah that's right, George Miller. Yeah that's true. Yeah. Well, anyway, for those of you out there who have seen much of the penguins, and I think there is a whole kind of genre of documentary film about Penguin's. One of the things that bothered me about that movie at the

time is how much it personified the penguins. And clearly from reading this like Levick, they must have left some of the more animalistic behaviors of Penguin's out of the cut so that it fit the sort of humanized narrative that they established. As Morgan Freeman read to us, you know,

over the over this very nice footage of Penguin's. Yeah, there's an article that came out on the BBC in two thousand twelve titled Depraved sex Acts by Penguins Shock Polar Explorer and uh it's it's a wonderful little read on. Included link to it on the landing page for this episode.

But there's a quote there. Um. They they interviewed Douglas Russell, who's creator of Eggs and Nest at the Natural History Museum, and uh, he says, what is happening here is not in any way analogus to necrophilia in the human context. It is the male seeing the positioning that is causing them to have a sexual reaction. They're not distinguishing between live females who are awaiting congress in the colony, and dead penguin's from the previous year, which just happened to

be in the same position, and so um. As the article lays outge George Murray Levick, in writing about these penguins, was so shocked that the the stuff about necrophilia he essentially redacted only some of his peers and the individuals that they shared it with. We're able to read the full unedited account of penguin atrocities. Yeah, and in fact,

like that, it goes beyond just the necrophilia too. I believe these penguins, similar to the mallards, you know, sort of engage in in like a habitualized gang rape, is what it sounded like, because there's lots of these male penguins surrounding female penguins, and what ends up happening in these situations situations is there so brutal that they accidentally killed the partner. Yeah, I mean really, it should come as no surprise, right that in a brutal environment, creatures

will behave brutally in order to survive. Um, which leads us to HP Lovecraft. Yeah, this was I don't know about you, but when I when I was reading this, I started thinking about At the Mountains of Madness, his novella which I just reread sometime in the last couple of years, Like, it's kind of fresh, it's great. That's one of my favorite Lovecraft pieces. It's a little bit longer than his other ones, but yeah, yeah, one of

his later works. Definitely definitely science fiction. It's it's a work that he conducted a lot of scientific research for. He was Lovecraft of the guy who if he were around today, you know, he would be hitting all the science blogs. Who would be reading some of the journals. He'd have a subscription to to several of the magazines. He'd probably have a podcast at house of work. I

would hope so. And uh he uh. But he makes several mention mentions of the penguin, like numerous mentions of penguins, often describing them as grotesque penguins. And he probably would have have read about about about Levis thoughts on the penguins. And I'm probably not the unedited content, but he certainly

makes reference to Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition in the story. Yeah, and if I remember correctly, in that story, those penguins were somewhat gigantic, right, there was something to do with that. They were sort of like prehistoric holdover penguins. And we know, I believe from what I've I've read an other research instances that that's a thing that that penguins did used to be considerably larger than they are now. Yeah, I almost feel like they come off more repellent in that

story than like the show goths. Oh yeah, they're they're they're terrifying. Um. So let's move on to reptiles. Yeah. So we've got a bunch of exa amples of of reptiles in action performing necrophilia. And one of the first ones that I found was from an article called It was published this year called corpse Bride Irresistible. A dead female tagu lizard courted by males for two days at an urban park in southeastern Brazil. It's very specific that title. I love the pool quote on this one from a

zoologist who observed this act and process. It's very similar to the to the Mallard duck. This guy just sat there and watched quote. I felt a sense of wonder, Well, I'll go through this and then we can hit upon some of the other lizards he provided a very detailed account of what happened here with this tagu lizard. Apparently, it mounted a recently dead female, gained hold by biting the skin of her neck and attempting to mate with her. The same male just kept biting the neck and rubbing

its left hind limbs on her body. And then this basically was like I think a two day dead female. So it wasn't, you know, as it wasn't similar to the Mallard case where it'd like just happened. Um. Then another smaller male came by and also held the neck of it, and they seems to be, you know, biting seems to be a major part of tagu lizard sex practice, because they just were opening their jaws kind of biting

and putting their mouths around the whole head of this animal. Uh. And then after a while it ceased its attempts, and he this is exactly from his his figure description. The male tongue flicked the female's head and scratched her hind bodies with the right hind limb. So there you have it, necrophilia between tagu lizards. I love though about this case.

One of the things I love about this case is that the analysis of what's happening here goes deeper than just oh, it's a stupid animal and it made a stupid mistake and tried to mate with something that it cannot mate with. They they point out that, first of all, lizards of course cold blooded creatures. So it's not uh so the creature that it's attempting to have sex with though dead, uh you know, it's it's ambient body heat.

The body heat is essentially going to be that of the ambient air, and uh pheromones are still going to be in play even though it's dead. So there are there are enough signals saying yes, I'm alive for the you know, the dominating male to then come in and try and do its thing. Yeah. I think that's an important thing to distinguish here as well, too, is like, consider that these animals are relying on senses that they are very different than ours to distinguish what's what's available

and what's alive. I'm thinking it's probably less like, um, you know, if if a human were to go to a bar and try to chat up someone who's just a corpse just propped up. Yeah, it's more like if you're driving down the interstate and you see a sign for a gas station and you pull in to get gas. It said gas station. You know, pull the car up, actually get out to fill up, and then realize that

the place is closed, exactly like the existing signs. The major signs that we care about in this rather simplistic ordeal are saying yes, we're open for business, when in the fact the lizards dead. It's possible this table lizard didn't even realize it at all, you know, even even afterwards. It sounded like the same with a mallard. We've also got this with another reptile, the Amazonian frog. I'm gonna

have trouble pronouncing this Latin name, right, ryan Ella probuscda. Yes, And this one is fabulous because, as a two thirteen study reveals, this is functional necrophilia. This is something that pretty much every other organism out there, it's an impossibility because necrophilia. We've often discussed this, we've discussed it so far in lizards and birds. It's a mistake that cannot

possibly work. But in this frog, in proboscidia here are proboscidia, uh, we actually see reproduct occurring through necrophilia, right, So they extract eggs from their dead sexual partners, right, and and then they fertilize them. They don't fertilize them and then extract them. Right. This is so how this happened. And it's not not to say they primarily or only reproduced through neck, but on the table as as as a

viable option. So the males form a big mating ball they make, you know, consist of you know, dozens of frogs, and they're all just ready to go. And then along comes a female and they essentially all began fighting on top of her for the rights to mate with her. And in some of the cases, she ends up drowning at the bottom of this uh, this mating ball, um, you know, and so it ends up with you end

up with cases where um. Researchers, particularly in this case, uh Thiago Izzo from Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian Research. He's analyzing the results of this breeding. He finds counting, yeah, he's counting him like a hundred males to twenty dead females in one in another one fifty males and five dead females. But then when he starts dissecting the females, there are no eggs. So he's trying to figure out where did the eggs go, how did this what could

have possibly happened, and then he observed the act itself. Yeah, and so like from what I had read that there's this is unique I believe to this particular kind of frog. But that one of the one of the articles that I read on this, which was called necrophiliac behavior in the career U toad, which is a different kind of toad,

but it also references this instance. It says that it's been documented that in all groups of terrestrial tetrapods that this kind of uh necrophilia happens, and that the basically scientists just account for it as a lack of proper recognition by males during reproductive season. So in in this case with the Probisidia, that sounds like they do recognize it though, and they say, okay, we've got to take

these eggs so that you know something actually happens with it. Yeah, or at least they've they've reached the point in their evolution to where it still works. So it's I mean, it's it's been selected. Um, because Yeah, what happens is the male squeeze the dead female's body the eggs pop out, the male quickly fertilizes the eggs, and then they eventually develop into healthy embryos. So like, where do they where do they put these eggs while they're fertilizing. They just

have like a storage area. I got the impression from from being the paper that they just kind of pop out and it's just done. The beat is done right there. Okay, So it's just like the egg is next to the corpse of the female frog. Okay, Okay, I guess I was imagining something a little bit more fantastic where these like hundreds of bearded them away. Yeah, these rugs are bringing these these these eggs back to their layer. I

believe Izzio did. Um he did observe like and when at least one of the cases of the frog moving the body to a location where he would be able to have his way with it undisturbed by the other

other male frogs. All right, but but yeah, the fascinating thing here is that it's believed that this provides a reproductive advantage to both the deathborate outnumbered male who can't get his hands on a live mate, as well as the dead female because you know, even in her case she's died through this rather brutal breathing process, but she's still going to be able to fulfill the genetic mission. Yeah,

that is the fascinating part. And certainly, uh, it seems like, at least in all the examples that we have here of animals, that that reproduction is still the goal, right that, Like, that's what seems to be going on in the heads of these mallards or these frogs or teng google lizards or penguins or whatever. And it makes me wonder too.

Like I said at the top, I'm sure there are many other instances of other animals in the wild that have done this, and he means have probably already documented it. But like our friend with the penguins, they maybe don't

want to get that research. That's that's not the first paper they're going to submit for publication, right, right, Yeah, I get the impression that it's it's kind of an understudied area of human behavior, but but certainly there's any Yeah, certainly an understudied area of of animal behavior, but but there's some there's some interesting work there. Nonetheless, so I believe that this frog is a perfect way for us

to transition into human necrophiles. Um. Now, before we get into anything to disturbing though, um, we should remind you that like, basically human necrophilia can be achieved in a way that is far less ethically sketchy and horrendous and you know and on a front to the gods, etcetera. And that is of course in the form of posthumous sperm retrieval and posthumous egg retrieval, which is similar to

the frogs that we were just speaking exactly. Like, it's like, basically it's the frog scenario carried out, um, you know, far less brutally in human culture. Uh, the same thing that the frog has been it has evolved to deal with. Human technology allows us to do the same thing to remove viable sperm or egg from a brain dead or even recently the deceased individual and then utilize it uh

in reproduction in a in a healthy body. Yeah. I had never heard of this before this before researching this episode, but it seems perfectly plausible to me, and I could sort of understand the motivation for some people as well. Yeah, it's not you know, it's not it's almost a disservice to call it necro to refer to it all as necrophilia because it's it's certainly not you know, an abuse

of a body. It's there are allowed. There's some ethical concerns and you know, most of them concerned legality and consent of the individual whose reproductive material is being taken. But but at at heart it is a reproductive act occurring between a living individual and a dead individual. Almost like when we're going back to that bacteria, right, they're similarly mention line with the bacterial model that we discussed earlier. Um.

And we've had this technology for a little bit. Um. Yeah, we've we've been carrying out the posthumous sperm retrieval for a while, and in two thousand eleven we actually saw the the the first um use of of of effective posthumous egg retrieval. There's a paper with a kind of horrible title, um that came out two twelve Michigan State Law Review, Dying to be many using intentional parenthood as a proxy for consent in posthumous egg retrieval case. Yeah,

that definitely sounds like something that I've noticed. That's a that's a law article to Michigan State Law Review. It sounds like a case of using a title to UM kind of kind of make it a little bit more sexy so it's more attractive to the publishers. Yeah, it was. It feels a little weird, but but I mean at hard it's I think it's a very sensible, UM, very sensible procedure to carry out, provided you consent is clear

and established. You know, you have a sudden death that occurs between two people who who want to uh to have offspring, and here is a scientific way of achieving that. And it sounds like this article was specifically about uh an example in Israel where magistrates set a legal precedent for this um for the harvesting and freezing of a posthumous human being sax. Yeah, and I know some of you are probably wondering, well, how how dead UH can

the individual be? I did find some stats on sperm retrieval from a from two thousand six paper uh into titled a Posthumous Sperm Retrieval Analysis of Time Interval to Harvest Sperm and this is published in the journal Human Reproduction. It said, quote, viable sperm is obtainable with ps R. That's posthumous sperm retrieval well after the currently recommended twenty four hour time interval PSR should be considered up to

thirty six hours after death following appropriate evaluation. No quote, no correlation was found between cause of death and chance for successful sperm retrieval. So that's sperm in particular, not not not eggs. Yeah, okay, Yeah, So I wonder if there's a paper out there that's about the time limits on eggs as well. Yeah, I wonder if it's, uh, if it's if it's about the same, or or maybe it's if there's a little shorter. I'm not sure that. If anybody out there knows, please tell us. Yeah, yeah,

we'll throw that information in there. Um. So this seems like the moment for us to go down what probably most of you thought you were going to be hearing when you clicked on an episode that had necrophilia in the title, which and we're going to call it classic necrophilia. This is what you think of when you hear that word. Yeah, and this is you know, if you want to get off the train at this point, this is your stop,

because it's all human necrophilia from here. Yeah, this is where it gets a bit spooky, but not as you know, what I'm going to qualify that not as not as a spooky or creepy as I thought it was going

to be. I mean, especially once you crunch the examples that we've gone through already kind of demystifies and you know, de horrifies the situation and that I find And there's even some aspects of the human psychology that I can I don't relate to or identify with, but I can I can sympathize with with somebody, for instance, who misses their dead loved one, which seems to be one of

the examples. We'll get into that, but I think what we should really start with is is this one paper that came out in seven which seems to be cited in all of the research that's done on the psychology of necrophilia. It is called Sexual Attraction to Corpses. A Psychiatric Review of Necrophilia, is written by Jonathan P. Rossman and Philip J. Resnick Uh And basically, these guys explored a hundred and twenty two cases of necrophilia and they found what is the eighty eight of them were from

world literature and thirty four were unpublished cases. What I want to know and I actually downloaded the whole article. I gotta go back through and look at the methodology. I don't think they explained it in there though. Where where do you get these cases? It's they make it sound like you just go to the library and you're like, yes, I would like all of the world literature cases on necliphilia. Please. Yeah. I don't recall seeing that specified in the paper either.

But but you know, they had a lot to two on they did, and they they used it to basically create some categorizations, some classifications of types of necrophilia. Right, so we've got and they came up with three. Whether first of all, they're two, they're they're sort of a line in the stand that they draw initially between necrophilia and pseudo necrophilia, and pseudo necrophilia is you know, this consists of of transient attraction to human corpses, but it's not.

But it with with these individuals with pseudo necrophiliacs, sex with the corps is not the central part of their fantasies. They're primarily interested in living sexual partners. But you know they're they're not averse to uh to to going after something dead. This group includes uh sadistic opportunistic and transitory cases of necrophilia. And again, like let's distinguish here. Necrophilia is the desire to have sex with a dead body, not the act of having sex with a dead body.

Some of these lead to that, obviously, but some of these necrophilix that they're referring to in the literature didn't act upon their fantasies. Yeah, Like I could see someone being tricked and being classified as a pseudo necrophiliac, you know, like they have a drink in them and you're just talking to them instead, would you, And under these circumstances, and then eventually they break and say well, I don't know, maybe, and then and then all of a sudden they're in

study on necrophilia. That's where they got them all. So okay, the first one is the first categorization that they came up with is I think what a lot of people think of when they hear the word necrophilia, but they

categorize it as a type called necrophilic homicide. So what we're talking about here this is sort of the Jeffrey Dahmer model of an individual murders somebody in order to obtain a corpse for their necrophilic fantasies, and from from what I was reading about Dahmer, and I mean, that's a whole another rabbit hole that we could go down

for the other episode. And I think Ted Bundy also partook in this, but that the idea was that those those men could not uh feel sexual pleasure unless the part of their quote unquote partner it's a terrible word for it, in this situation was was dead or at least like de humanized, and to a significant degree because I believe Dahmer tried to create essentially zombies out of by drilling into their their skull. But but it kind

of comes down to the same thing. They need needed a person devoid of will, and the easiest way to achieve that is, of course to kill the individual. Yeah, the key here seems to be that what these people are looking for is a partner who is quote and this is from the text unresisting and unrejecting. So I don't know necessarily that it's like it. Maybe it is in some cases that the act of killing sort of

sexualizes the situation. But what they're looking for is somebody who won't reject them, and somebody who isn't going to resist them. Right, we'll break down more on the motives for all these cases. Yeah, And one fact that I wanted to throw out there that wasn't in these studies but was another study came out was this woman Michelle Stein from the John J. College of Criminal Justice in

New York. She reviewed two hundred and eleven sexual homicides and she found that only eight percent of those involved necrophilia. So when we're talking about you know, sexual deviancy, sexual prime and necrophilia, it's actually quite rare. I mean, first of all, these these deviant situations are rare, That's why we call them deviant. But then also that within that structure, the actual act of sex with a dead body is

fairly rare as well. Within within these uh criminal acts, Yeah, I mean you also can imagine the ven diagram right of the of the the psychotic murder or wentless murder, and the type of individual who would want sexual contact with a dead bye. Yeah, it seems as such, and I think that, yeah, the ven diagram sliver is probably fairly small. So don't listen to this episode and think, oh my god, they're everywhere that that's not the case,

at least from what the research says. Now, the next classification under a genuine necrophilia is a regular necrophilia, and this is I like to think that this is the scavenger approach, entitling the use of entailing the use of an already dead body for sex, so, um, you know it's will explore late are a lot of this happens to to line up with one's job. You're in a job where you're in close contact with dead bodies and the opportunity simply presents itself. Yeah. Yeah, And I suspect

that that is probably the situation. Referring back to the sexual homicides and the necrophilia like sort of numbers, I suspect that this is a bit more common, actually far more common. I think it's extremely rare to have somebody like a Jeffrey Dahmer type. And then the third one that they categorize and this is sixty eight percent of the people that they categorize as necrophiliacs is necrophilic fantasy. So this is basically getting back to the pseudo necrophilia.

This is the idea that it's a it's a fantasy they have of having sex with a corpse, but they don't actually do it um and they sort of I think that, and by day I mean that the researchers here think that these necrophiles often choose occupations that will put them in can attact with corpses. So I don't know, working in a morgue or a hospital or maybe a grave digger, I don't know, Yeah, hospitals, graves in some cases. You know, we'll look at some of the stats in

a bit. I think like clerics and even soldiers come up. Basically, any kind of profession you can imagine in which you would find yourself in proximity to a dead body. And here's a couple of numbers to break this down of the necrophiles wanted to be reunited with the dead partner.

So this is the one that I was saying earlier that I can sort of not that I would participate in this, like my wife died or something like that, but I can I feel emotion for these people who are so saddened by the loss of their life partner that they fantasize. They're not even actually acting upon it,

they're just fantasizing about being reunited with them. It reminds me of the old Irish ballad that particularly Shane O'Connor did a version of this, and also Dead Can Dance to the Fact was version of this, I'm stretched on your grave and will lie there forever about someone who's lost their beloved and there just lying on their grave. Yes, very modeling. Sounds quite light with my experience with Irish folk songs that kind of attitude, and I think all of us can relate to it on at least that

level of sorrow. I think um, okay, fift percent of them were just attracted to corpses. Twelve percent had a power trip over this, right, so twelve percent of the people that they looked at saw that they very much like how we think about I think sexual assault is that it's a power strategy more than it is a

sexual uh motivated crime. You know, I can't help but particularly in the whole idea about being attracted to corpses, I can't help but think of individuals growing up in the age of VHS, you know where you know, nowadays, if someone has access to the Internet, they can find just about an the example of sexual activity they want. Sure, you know, if the appropriate supervision isn't there. But when I was growing up, Like the easiest way to to see uh, you know more kind of adult content was

through horror movies and science fiction movies. You know. So you know, you're not gonna go to the video store and rent something, you know, from the adult section, but you can certainly rent alien. You can rent rent a Return of the Living Dead, which of course has a naked zombie in it. So, like, I wondered to what it's you know, that's an important time in one sexual there's a there's a culturals like guyst around that that's

somewhat maybe encourages such fantasies. I wonder. Yeah, like because imagine there are a lot of people out there who have their you know, their their sexual development kind of crosses into this horror genre and then and there they just sort of burned their mind or various sexy zombies, you know, like what and that's been a trope for at least the last couple of years. Is the whole zombie thing turned into a boom? I think there was a lot of like, let's make cash off of this

by making those zombie zombies sexy as well. Yeah, um so this makes me think of you know, it's no surprise to the listeners. Both Robert and I are big horror fans. I was on Bloody Disgusting I think it was Bloody Disgusting, which is a you know, horror fan website, the other day and they had a list of, like I think it was like the top ten scenes of necrophilia in horror movies, uh, you know, overall, And I

was shocked that there were so many. And then as I kind of went through it, I went, oh, some of these are actually like tasteful movies that tasteful horror movies that had, you know, a scene that had to do with the the character of the plot. It wasn't just thrown in there to be shocking or to you know Garner, you know, cult status. I guess yeah, growing up, I remember, we're not growing up. It was more like college. I remember hearing about Necromantic. I think it was a

German film. Yeah, it's like kind of a video nasty classification, you know, banned a lot of places. I never saw it, but it was. It's it's kind of I think it's held up there as one of the earlier that might have been on the list. I'm trying to remember some of them I'm sure a d and Twenty Days of Sawdom was on there. Um, but I've never seen that slou And I believe there's I believe there's necrophilia and that. Um god, I don't remember. I actually saw it in

the last year for the first time. Yeah, because one of our coworkers owns it. U because I mean, it's uh, I'm gonna have fun guessing who that is later, But it's uh. I mean, it's it's an interesting film, and that it is highly controversial, but it's it's uh, it's artistically well made. It's it's a work of troubling art. Yeah, like the I mean the director was stabbed to death shortly after it. I didn't know that really, And it's it's a I ended up not watching it in full, Like,

I just could not watch a lot of it. I never saw it. But I remember when I was in college, I had a girlfriend who was in a film class and they had a signed say Low as something that they had to watch for class, and she was mortified. Um, and just I don't I don't think she was able to make it through. It was you know, probably part of the class was a part of the exercise was to see whether or not people could make it through

that movie. Getting back to the actual you know, necrophilic fantasies, power trips come into it as you as you would suspect um. And then you know, as we referred to earlier, that the homicidal necrophiliacs. That's again only twelve percent of the cases they surveyed. So it's quite a small sliver. Twelve percent out of what what are these guys? They had a hundred and twenty two cases. And then with the other case, it was out of two hundred and

eleven sexual homicides, it was only eight percent that involved necrophilia. Okay, So one last part to this study that they did, they also developed a model to help understand what kind of events led to these you know, psychological categorizations, and this is what they found. They found four um as you would imagine, poor self esteem, largely due to a significant loss in their life. Um. So that would probably bring us back to the you know, who wanted to

be reunited with their dead partners. Uh. As you would expect, they're usually male, uh And there are men who have a fear of being rejected by women. And so as we discussed earlier, they desire a sex sex object that is incapable of rejecting them. The third is that they some of them actually have like a fear of the dead. They're scared of being around dead bodies, and this like as a way of conquering that, I suppose transform It transforms that fear into a desire um, which I think

is fairly common transition, not necessarily with dead bodies. I think most people don't experience it on that level. But being afraid of something is also titillating, you know. That's why we watch horror movies exactly. Uh. And then the last one is just you know, the the fantasy of some It sometimes begins after you've just had your first exposure to a corpse, whether that's you know, as a child or an adult. Um. Yeah, it's a shocking and

and and and it makes an impact absolutely. Uh. So there is there's there's a there's another pretty widely cited study by a guy named I believe this is pronounced a nil Agra wall uh and he he published this in two thousand nine, and I I believe from what I saw was that this was used to subsequently create a new DSM entry on necrophilia and his His study was called a New Classification for Necrophilia, was published in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine in two thousand nine,

and he came up with ten categories. Okay, we'll go through these. First up, role players, people who get aroused from pretending their live partner is dead during sexual activity. Okay. And then we have romantic necrophilia acts. These are these are what we were discussing before, bereaved people who remain attached to their dead lover's body, so they're you know, this is about sorrow. Then the number three necrophiliac fantasize.

There's people who fantasize about necrophilia but never actually have sex with a corpse. And there's tactile necrophiliacs, people who are aroused by touching or just stroking a corpse without engaging an intercourse. I seem to remember that there was an extremely creepy episode of that TV show Millennium where there was a guy who that was his particular thing was just like showing up to funerals and pretending to be a friend of the family just so I could

touch the corps. Number five is a fetishistic necrophiliacs. These are people who remove objects or body parts, even from a corpse, for sexual purposes, but without engaging an intercourse. Okay, and then as you as you can see where kind of this this list is getting worse as we're progressing. Uh necro mutual omaniacs. These are people, I know that sounds like a made up thing, but this is actually sounds like for sure, people who derive pleasure from mutilating

a corpse while masturbating but not engaging in intercourse. Number seven Opportunistic necrophiliacs. These are people who normally have no interest in necrophilia, but they if they have the opportunity, they're going to take it. So yeah, I mean, I don't I'm having a really hard time imagining this scenario where this would happen. But I guess when you're left alone with a dead body for some reason and yeah, I don't know, maybe you're maybe you're performing an autopsy

or something. I'm not sure. Uh, regular NECROPHILIAX. That's people who preferably, you know, just want to have sex with the dead. So kind of back to that other model that we talked about before, Like they would even probably tell you look I'm not one of those exciting kind of necrophiles. I'm just old school necrophile. Uh. And they're again they're not killing people, right, let's be clear about that.

That's the next one. Yeah. Number nine is homicidal necrophiliacs that we've discussed already, people who want to who want to commit in order to have sex with the dead. And then there is the tenth one, which is exclusive necrophiliacs, people who have an exclusive interest in sex with the

dead and cannot perform at all for living partners. Now, this is what I think they categorized Jeffrey dahmeraz that like in his case, this was the only way that he could perform to have any kind of sexual gratification, and subsequently led to him both being homicidal necrophiliac and exclusive necrophiliac. Now, I have some other stats here just to roll through from that Rossman and Resnick paper, just to give you a little more idea about who necrophiles are and uh in why they do what they do.

Sex in that study were male. Um, yeah, and I found one rare female case was cited. Uh, And I didn't have the time to be able to look up the case study on this, but her name was Karen green Lee, so apparently she's a well known female necrophiliacy.

The mean age was thirty four, which makes sense. You know, you need to be young enough to get around and not have anything tying you down, but also your sexual appetite needs to have had time to reach this point right right, And also probably you would need to be you know, as we know about like them taking employment in situations that put them to your dead bodies, you would need to be of age in order to kind

of have a job like that. Um, next up i Q. And this is really interesting because there's there has long been and still kind of remains, the stereotype of the necrofile as being essentially, you know, mentally deficient, that they're you know, almost like the example of a stupid reptile just engaging with this because they don't know anymore better.

But in uh in Rosmann Resnics paper, they point out that all of the individuals that they profiled had i q s above eighty and sixty nine percent had i qs above a hundred and just to put that frame of reference, normal to average intelligence is nine two d and nine. So these for the most part we're not dealing with the with unintelligent individuals. This isn't technically like a disability and mental disability. This is deviant behavior. And among true necrophiles, s percent had i q s above

a hundred um. Sixty percent of the cases there was a prior history of statistic acts. Uh. Sexual orientation attention was pretty much comparable to the general population sent heterosexual, thirteen bisexual, nine percent homosexual. There is not really surprising um underlying mental problems. This is interesting because this also gets into the idea that not only this preconceived notion that necrophiles are all going to be both mentally deficient

and crazy. Only seventeen percent were psychotic, eleven percent among true necrophiles had personality of disorders had unusual belief systems, though seventy percent seventy three of pseudo necrophiles did, which you know, makes sense. If you're fantasizing about sex with the dead, you probably have, you know, a different worldview

from your average Yeah, that's fair. Of those pseudo necrophiles consumed alcohol compared to forty of true necrophiles, So I guess that's just I wonder what they mean by that. If it's like alcoholism or just you know, they they did, they didn't imbibe at all. It kind of I guess I kind of think of it in terms of, you know,

I'm gonna need a drink for this. Um. So maybe the true necrophiles you actually don't see as much alcohol consumption because it is like they are, they're kind of enough in the necrophilia camp that there's no need for liquid courage, Whereas if it's just your fantasy, then maybe it's the kind of thing that you have to decompress to get down to the point where you're fantasizing about it,

you know. Well. And then fifty seven percent of necrophiles were found to be in an employed profession that gave them access to dead bodies. We've got a list here, hospital orderlies, more attendant, cemetery employees, funeral parlor workers, and

as you said earlier, clerics and soldiers. I found two other studies that I feel like I need to be mentioned, but I'm a little dubious of the reporting here, and I'd like to see some more research or maybe if anybody out there has experienced with this kind of research or psychological experience, maybe they can tell us what they think. But these two studies basically connected the symptoms of necrophilia

to both autism and asperger syndrome. Both these studies came out in twleven and basically it seemed like their conclusions were drawn from the fact that there was a similar lack of empathy between those with Asperger's and those who were interested in necrophilia. Uh, that was about it, um. One of them, one of these studies said that they they suggested something called autistic psychopathy lead to experimentation with chemistry, poisons,

and killing, which subsequently they kind of tied into necrophilia. Uh. These studies were the first one is called necrophilia and autistic psychopathy and the other one is necrophilia and serial killers. Is there evidence for Asperger's syndrome? So, I mean this is published research. I wanted to mention it, but I'm also a little wary of making a connection between these two different kind of mental states just based on the

lack of empathy. Yeah, I mean, there are only two studies and it's such a a hotbed um topic that I would uh yeah, I would hate to spend too much time on it, but you know, hey, if we see more more papers come out. Um, you know, maybe

we'll come back to it now. Another interesting thing about necrophilia is when you get into illegal issues involved here, because of course corpses are not really people, right, So these are crimes that often fall through the cracks unless there's a specific necrophilia law on the books, and without such a law in place, it often proves difficult to prosecute uh necrophiles. Yeah, and so this is, you know, something that I guess I never thought about and sort

of assumed would be on the books. But obviously it's yeah, exactly. But there was a case, you know, kind of one of the leading cases was in Wisconsin in two thousand six. Uh. It turned out there was a case where three men were caught while they were trying to exhume a dead woman for sex. Uh. The men admitted to it, but another reason they know is that they brought a box of condoms. I remember this. I think I blogged about it. That's where I read about it. It was you were

the source for this one for me. But so what ended up happening was technically their lawyers argued there was no crime committed because there was no law on the books that said that it was against the law. So this prompted Wisconsin Supreme Court two years later in two thousand eight, to finally decide on a law that forbid copulating with the deceased. So that's one example. I'm sure there are many other examples, but it's one of those things where I guess, like, until it actually happens and

they need to prosecute, they don't put it on the books. Yeah, are you going to be the weird politician who brings up just necrophilia laws when there's no apparent need, right, Yeah, that's gonna kill your presidential aspects. Incidentally, that blog post was one of the first ones I did for How Stuff Works right after we started the blogs, and and it was like immediately they had to hide it because they were like, I don't know, there are a lot of eyes in the blog. Let's not have this be

one of the top posts. That's too bad. I liked it. Well. Uh. One of the other things that came out of this when I was looking at the research here, is specifically about the legality is many of the families who are involved with incidents like this where a family member's corpse is a victim of necrophilia. They have a problem of it because they sort of psychologically think of the corpse

as being their property. Right, So, like, as you're saying before, yes, it's not technically a living human being, some people would probably argue, I wouldn't. This is a victimless crime, right, But uh, it's not in that that the family members see this as being their loved one and technically property

even though it's not a living person. Yeah, it kind of comes down to just what a somewhat a complicated area it occupies in our in our understanding of of our life and our our biological life, even because it's it's that it's our loved one, but it's not our loved one. It's that it's a person, but it's not really a person. Still. Yeah, And I mean, like I said at the beginning, to you know, this is considered

to be the ultimate transgression in our culture, one of them. Uh, and therefore it's something that we both have a hard time talking about in sort of empirical terms like we're trying to do today, or in legal terms. And then at the same time, it's so sensationalized that we can't seem to stop talking about it. Whenever it comes up. Right, I'm sure if you googled Wisconsin necrophilia, there's probably two hundred newspaper articles out there from two thousands six when

this happened. You know, everybody was covering it that week. Yeah, and then yet when you start thinking about it, it's like if you have a deranged individual and if they were to you know, put the question to you, Hey, I'm going to do one of two things this weekend. Which should I do? Should I dig up a corpse and copulate with it, or should I kill somebody? Or should I even just assault somebody? Like obviously you're gonna pick the corpse one because it is in a sense

of the victim was crime. Yeah, I would probably, uh, you know, call the police. Well, yes, that's the correct that's the correct answer, you know, even if it's a covering myself legally here, No matter how good of a friend. I always when I think about this topic now, I always come back to Cornt McCarthy's novel Child of God, where the central character, Lester Ballard is a necrophile. Okay,

I haven't read that. It's it's exceedingly good. It's one of those books I keep coming back to Um, because it's this character is a very dark character, but you're so close to him in the book. You do sympathize with his with it, with his his psyche to a large extent. It's it's so so very well presented. I think in I was trying to think of fictional examples for this episode. The only one I can remember is, do you remember that Marquis Assad movie that had Jeffrey

Rush playing the Marquis Assad. I remember when it came out, but I've never seen it in full. There's I believe a scene in that in which Joaquin Phoenix engages in necrophilia with Kate Winslet's corpse um And I think, you know, obviously, because it's about the Marquis Assad, there's a certain amount of of bacchanalia to the whole ring, right, Um. But it's but it's if I remember the plot correctly. It's

been a long time since I've seen that movie. I believe it was because like he was grieving for her and they were, you know, sort of in love. Interesting. I should maybe see it at some point. I've read that. I don't remember it being bad. I've read the sod I find him to be a fascinating character. Yeah, yeah, I think he's interesting in small doses. I have a hundred and twenty Days of Sodom, and I can only read like maybe like two or three pages. I see,

I tried to read the whole thing. The problem with a hundred twenty days is that, um, it's basically incomplete, and so the further you get into the book, it eventually breaks down into just an outline of what he intended to finish. Yeah, I think they were originally published the unreadable pamphlets, Is that right, like a series of pamphlets. I think that. I think it's the one that he secretly wrote in a prison cellf So it was it was, it was hidden away for a while, but I never

officially finished. So it's just in terms, and not only it's the content often to fficult to read, but it becomes increasingly unreadable as a word, because it's just a complete Yeah. Well yeah, that's mine market assad and you've got Cormac McCarthy to have literally great, it's a great book. Um. James Franco made a movie version, which I've heard good things about. I'll probably never see it, just because it's

it's a book I love so much. I have such a crystal you know, it's a kind of mar your imaginary Yeah, but I hear good things, so you know, maybe our you know, listeners out there who aren't is into uh into reading reading, want to just you know, see a film, maybe check it out. If it's true to the book, then it'll it'll do. It does a

good job. So there you have it, one from the vaults, one we're really proud of, and one that we thought everyone wouldn't it would either not mind listening to a second time, or you know, here's a chance to discover it for the first time. If you're a new or listener. Yeah, and if you've got some thoughts that you want to share with us now about necrophilia and what you learned in this episode, don't forget to write us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com for more

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