Same sh*t differnt source:
- A History Of Necrophilia -
Before we explore a history of necrophilia we need to establish an understanding in the genetic traits of humans as it relates to reproduction and evolution. Focus for a moment on humans being placed on this planet for reproduction and less on our cultural development. Every instinct, impulse, desire, feeling and compulsion we have is aimed at perpetuating your individual genetic traits through procreation with another. That's called survival of the fittest; men and women are bound by the natural instinct to reproduce.. not collectively as a species but individually. ALL our biological functions, from eating to masturbating, has a role toward ensuring our individual dominance and struggle to pass our genetic seed. We laugh about the inherent behavioral differences between men and women and we joke about placing the blame for certain actions or inactions as being genetic, suggesting it was beyond our control to change. In reality there's some truth to that. Men are predisposed to exhibit sexual desire and fantasy as an action toward the female since it's the male's orgasm that starts the reproduction process. Women by nature tend to be sexually submissive in the act by comparison. Sexual fetishes are an outgrowth of sexual fantasies, for both sexes, but for the most part the dominance/submissive sexual roles are maintained in those feelings.
Back when our species was developing on the plains of Africa mortality was far greater than it is now; the life expectancy somewhere in the 20's-30's. This is one reason why nature makes females sexually mature at the age of 10-11 (was probably even younger in those days). There was a natural interest in death because death was so much a part of life. And sadness over the death of a mate was no doubt quite common as it was a survival necessity in child raising. One theory is that copulation with a dead female was an attempt to 'revive' them... the act of sex being in itself an emotional release providing a bond and the male seed a way of creating life. Quite obviously if males spent all their time copulating with dead females we'd not be here today. So we can say that certain necrophilic events did occur and probably evolved into religious rites over the millennia. You have to remember that our early ancestors were more in tune with their environments and with their own roles in life than we are today. Life was survival.. scrounging for food, fighting the environment.. and always geared toward procreation; producing and raising offspring. By comparison we concern ourselves just as much with recreation and material conveniences.. and controlling our natural sexual urges through social guilt and intimidation. But the old natural instincts are still with us.
Necrophilia, or hints of necrophilia, can be seen throughout civilization. The pottery of the Moche civilization in Peru, active in the first seven centuries of our era, reflect a common scene of skeletal figures known as carcanchas engaging in sexual acts with humans or among themselves, sometimes in orgies. The modern day Asmats of Irian Jaya involve placing a human skull against the genitals for up to three days, the purpose being to absorb the sexual power of the skull's owner.
The ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, mentions that in Egypt, neither the wives of high-ranking men nor the bodies of beautiful women are delivered straight to the embalmers upnon their death, but allowed to putrefy for three or four days first. This was done so that the embalmers would loose any sexual interest in these women. Apparently one embalmer had been caught mounted upon a fresh female corpse, and was exposed by a fellow worker, thus setting the three-day waiting period.
To this day the various professions dealing with the preparation and handling of corpses have the highest incidence of necrophilic activity. An incredible incident related by a doctor of the Sorbonne in 1802 illustrates this.
A young monk stopped at an inn which was mourning the loss of the innkeeper's daughter. They asked the young monk to do a wake over her, and he agreed. That night the monk had sex with the girl and departed the following morning. Later that day, while they were putting the coffin in the ground, someone heard movement; the casket was opened and the young girl is put back to bed and nursed to health. A short time later the first signs of pregnancy appeared and at the end of nine months she gave birth to a baby, all the while claiming her virginity. Several years later the monk renounced his vows for various reasons and soon his affairs brought him back to the inn. Finding the "deceased" alive and a mother, he confessed his actions and married the girl.
Magic and cult worship have long been linked to death and can contain elements of necrophilia. The alchemist, Thomas Vaughan, hints very delicately at having sex with his wife on the day of her death. Some disciplines of Indian Tantra reportedly mingled sex and death in their rituals. Shivaite sects, which were influenced by Shakta worship, such as the Kapalikas, or skull men, were known to live among the ashes of the dead, wear jewelery made of human bones and drink from skull cups. Some sects had rituals involving the practitioner sitting in a graveyard or cremation ground with a skull pressed against his genitals. Other rituals had the man laying prostrate or squatting on a cadaver until the flesh decays, whereupon he eats the flesh. In the mythical black rituals of Tantra the adept sits astride the male corpse and "animates" the body through magical force. The body twitches and turns, its tongue protrudes, the penis becomes erect and eventually ejaculates. The semenal fluid was then collected.
Aside from the occult operations of the various magi and adepts, sex with the dead has even been touted for healing. Medieval Europeans believed that hermaphrodites could be cured by sexual interecourse with a recently deceased virgin.
Whatever the purported claims and cure of necrophilia, the experience of such intimate contact with the dead can undoubtedly be intense. The Frenchman, Henri Blot, entered the Saint-Ouen cemetary one night seeking a corpse of a recently deceased ballerina. Following intercourse with her remains he fell into a trance-like state and had to be roused by cemetary guards the following day.
Sergeant Bertrand, a handsome ladies' man active in the mid-19th century, is one of history's most memorable necrophiles. his passion for young female corpses was so intense that he once swam across a lake in the dead of winter to get to a cemetary. Another time he was shot by a booby trap yet still had the stamina to dig up and have sex with a female corpse.
So, remember that necrophilia is as old as man (or woman) himself. Sometimes the practice was kept silent, other times it was part of cultural worship.
