Case 1
Necrophilia: someone who has sexual relations with a corpse or parts of a corpse (partialism). Some men are pseudo-necrophiles, or persons who pretend to have sex with the dead. John has fantasized about being with a dead person for some time. He has attended several funerals and often reads literature about funeral parlors, death, cremation, and burials. He understands that digging up women after they have died and been buried is a crime, but his urge to be with a corpse is overpowering. John finds his outlet online where he can enter chat rooms that focus on death. He also has used prostitutes to go with him to cemeteries to have sex on the graves of deceased women. Sometimes he pays prostitutes who specialize in paraphilia to ice themselves down so their skin is cold to the touch and cover themselves in white powder to simulate the appearance of a corpse. She crawls into a coffin, and John is then able to join her for a sexual encounter where the “corpse” does nothing except to simulate being dead. There is no rejection toward John, something he deeply fears, and no humiliation for potential underperforming. From the perspective of the prostitute, she is performing a service that keeps John from committing real acts of necrophilia. She compares her services to that of any prostitute who gets paid to be a sex worker.
- Identify the case study you selected.
- Answer the following questions:
- Is the situation or behaviors in your case study non-criminal paraphilia or criminal paraphilia? Support your rationale.
- Would committing this crime classify the offender as a sexual predator or a sexual offender? Explain your response.
- How has the Internet and social media influenced paraphilic behavior?
- Support your response with evidence from your Learning Resources or other academic sources.
