The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer by Brian Masters

Author:Brian Masters [Masters, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Biography & Autobiography, Non-Fiction, Horror, Murder, True Crime, Serial Killers, Criminals & Outlaws, Biography
ISBN: 9780340938331
Publisher: Hodder Paperback
Published: 1993-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The Frenzy

Necrophilia is not against the law, in so far as there is no statute which proscribes it. Legislators have presumably thought it so rare or inconceivable that it was not worth forbidding, rather like Queen Victoria, who, refusing to believe that lesbianism was possible, struck all reference to it from the bill Parliament had put before her for royal signature in 1885; in consequence, male homosexuals were made criminals per se while female homosexuals, protected by ignorance, could behave as they chose. Likewise, our understanding of necrophilia is so limited that Jeffrey Dahmer could only be tried for murder, which he did not deny, while the real clue to his conduct was given muddled attention because it did not constitute an offence.

The Greek words nekros (corpse) and philia (love, liking, friendship) combine to make a condition loosely translated as ‘love of the dead’. It covers a variety of forms and has been the subject of many attempts at definition. One instance of it is a refusal to accept the fact of death, as Romeo displayed so dramatically when he leapt into Juliet’s tomb and held her body to his breast. In this case, ‘love of the dead’ is a desperate extension of mourning and is not unknown to history. According to Herodotus, Periander continued to have intercourse with his wife after her death, and another story has King Herod sleeping with the corpse of his for seven years. Similarly, in parts of central Europe until the seventeenth century it was permissible for a man to consummate his marriage by sexual intercourse even if his bride had died before her wedding-day. This is clearly not the branch of necrophilia with which we have to deal here.

The more perverse necrophile does not so much deny death as embrace it. Far from grieving over a lost love, he celebrates a new-found one, for he cannot love, or at least go through the physical manifestations of love, unless his partner is dead. This is to put the case at its most extreme, for the desire to behave in a necrophilic manner is far more widespread than most people care to admit. There are brothels in Paris wherein the whore will obligingly make herself up to look corpse-like and lie in a coffin waiting to be ravaged; such places do not want for customers. Less overt is the man who asks his wife to ‘play dead’ and keep quiet while he performs the act of love without her assistance; I know some happily married women who are pleased to gratify their spouses in this way and simply be ‘taken’. I have already had cause to point out that one of the first sexual fantasies that occurs to the pubescent boy is that of a girl who will simply lie there and let him explore her body; mutuality in sex comes at the next stage, once his confidence has been established. In this sense, non-active necrophilia is a kind of arrested development, a child-like fear of the dangers of sharing, and as such is not in itself harmful.

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