Why is necrophilia illegal?

[MisterMaggot]

As a mortician I know this is a controversial issue, however I feel it needs to be discussed.

After death we are legally allowed to leave our possessions to our loved ones, this includes property and money. We are also allowed to donate our organs for use by other humans, as well as for medical science. Why are we not permitted to donate/sell our corpse for the sexual gratification of necrophiliacs?

We live in a secular society in which Church and state are separate, therefore religion cannot be used to justify current laws regarding necrophilia.

Necrophilia poses no great risk to ones health. Also regular sex between the living can result in AIDS and other STDs.

This being the case what are the legal justifications for the criminalization of necrophilia?

[earmuffs]

Quote:I feel it needs to be discussed.

Why?
Why on earth do you feel it needs to be discussed?
Is it really that big of an issue for you?

Are you mentally handicapped?

[Free Thought]

I have said it about people being sexually attracted to cars, I have said it about people being sexually attracted to other species, and I'll say it again about people who are sexually attracted to corpses.

That shit aint right!

[Svengali]

Because it is disgusting.

[Aseptic Skeptic]

Legal justification? There might not be any.

But as for separation of church and state, that's really only on paper. The lawmakers are often very non-secular in their personal lives and most of them believe they get their morality from a higher source. Most of them believe they will continue existing after death. And most of them don't want to think about some creep molesting their earthly remains while they proceed on to this afterlife, probably aware of the molestation.

Come to think of it, I'm kinda ooky about the idea of some necrophiliac having his way with my meat after I'm dead and I don't believe in an afterlife at all. I'd just rather assume I get burned and done.

That doesn't justify a law, but maybe what does is this: imagine the outcry if some young woman dies. Her body is then used as a sex toy by necrophiliacs. Her mother is personally horrified and outraged and marches on the governor's office demanding justice, demanding new laws. Who would take her side? Who would side with the necrophiliacs? Imagine how short that governor's career would be if he sided with the necrophiliacs and then ran for office next term. If there's enough public sentiment against something, even if it's rationally unjustifiable, the elected officials have no choice but to enact laws supporting that sentiment or that sentiment will not support their next election. It is probably just that simple.

[earmuffs]

Quote:Legal justification? There might not be any.

Can a corpse give consent (for sexual relations)?
Nope.
Hence it's rape.
Hence there is your legal justification.

[Free Thought]

That is disturbingly succint, Muffs. And yet, it works so well. Here I was thinking a rule of concensus kinda thing: Majority don't want it, thereby it is legally justified to mke the act illegal...
One of the very few times where majority rule would actually work....

[Anjele]

Is this Namiloveyou's twin?

[bemore]

There is a disease you can get from having sex with dead bodies. I remember reading a newspaper article about a woman who went to her doctors and actually got arrested when she went for her test results. It turns out her husband worked in a mortuary and was the one having sex with dead bodies and had passed it onto her.

[Aseptic Skeptic]

(08-01-2013 08:33 AM)earmuffs Wrote:  

Quote:Legal justification? There might not be any.

Can a corpse give consent (for sexual relations)?
Nope.
Hence it's rape.
Hence there is your legal justification.

I dunno, there's some gray area there. I understand the legal definition of rape to be (fairly simplified here) "sexual commission with another person without consent". I think the gray area is whether a corpse is a person. No doubt, it used to be. But that person is dead. Now the corpse is no longer a person. That might completely invalidate any accusations of rape, from a legal standpoint.

I'm no lawyer, I could be way off on that, but if Bill Clinton could quibble over the meaning of the word "is" in court, I think there's room to quibble over the meaning of the word "person" as it relates to a corpse.