Hello Dan, Mr. Savage, Sir, or your Holiness if you prefer. First things first; long time reader, first time e-mailer. I saw a hypothetical a few weeks ago and thought that I would try one as well. Sorry it took so long but I am guilty of procrasturbation; see if it appears in your column it will catch on. Now for my inquiry: Let' say that my current partner is interested in necrophilia (I know you are against it, but bear with me), and I have lung cancer from smoking (a disgusting habit). As a final "I Love You" before I die—and to be GGG—I leave my body to him or her in my will. If my partner were to use my corpse to satisfy his or her curiosity, would that be wrong? After all I gave my consent in my will.Solving This Inquiry From Fan
My answer—including a call for legal advice—is after the jump...
Even if I didn't think there was something wrong with it, STIFF, I'm pretty sure police, prosecutors, judges, and juries all would. Laws governing the proper disposal of a corpse, and laws that criminalize the abuse of a corpse, don't include exceptions for quasi-consensual necrophilia, I'm guessing (any lawyers reading today?), so even with your written consent—in the form of a will (easily challenged by outraged relatives)—your partner would land in hot water (and necrophiliacs prefer ice-cold water, I'm told). Necrophilia is illegal so the consent of the dead is irrelevant. Just as a person can't consent to be murdered, a person can't consent to be fucked to death after death.
You could argue that necrophilia with the deceased's consent is a victimless crime, unlike murder, and you could further argue that the deceased's body was the deceased's to dispose of and if the deceased wanted to gift his or her remains to a necrophiliac, where's the harm? Hard to say. One could make the case that the deceased's other relatives would be deeply traumatized when they discovered why there wasn't a body at the memorial service, I suppose, but my first boyfriend's parents were deeply traumatized when they discovered that I was sodomizing their son and I certainly don't think that should've been illegal.
And, no, I'm not sure how one squares any of this with the whole donating-your-body-to-science thing... except that when a body is donated to science it benefits all of humanity whereas a body donated to a necrophiliac benefits just one pervert.
And I suspect that all of this is moot because HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A CANCER-RAVAGED CORPSE?
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