Consensual Necrophilia

Thanks to Jifpop for his somewhat abbreviated post, and I hope that we can still engage in a good debate given these limitations (sometimes, DDO just screws things up). Anyway, before I begin getting into some refutation, I will point out that Con chose not to engage in any rebuttal this round, meaning that my case stands firm. All of the benefits of these people being a real part of society in a meaningful way, their sense of belonging and ability to engage in meaningful relationships, their esteem, and their ability to reach self-actualization have demonstrable effects on society, and as Con does not contest these, these arguments stand as very important within the debate. His only real response is in the subtext " he's essentially stating that this is too small of a problem to worry about. As he cannot source his assertion that the numbers are small, I have tried to find the information on my own, with little in the way of results. I think we can assume it's low, but to say it's 40 out of the entire 300,000,000 population of the U.S. is a bit presumptive. Of all the data I found, the most successful studies used literature and previously unreported cases as a source of investigation, coming to 122 cases total.[1] We can assume that the number is at least ten times that, as the majority of the people who are necrophiliacs would be very unlikely to give up that information willingly. As such, I'd say at least 1200 cases exist in the U.S. at any given time. Even that is rather low, I confess. However, Con is evaluating their presence numerically. What he's misunderstanding is that their importance is not reflected solely in their prevalence. Few other populations are known for such a long list of criminal activities.[2] That effect, therefore, goes well beyond the small number provided. These are kidnappers, serial killers, and torturers. I would argue that a large part of the reason they engaged in these activities was because they were ostracized from society due to their necrophilia. They weren't given an outlet to express their desire, and were treated like freaks and terrors. This is what the process of ostracizing does, and it's worse here than with most, as the U.S. has classed this act as a misdemeanor or felony nearly across the whole country.[3] It's not just frowned upon, it's criminalized. They exist solely in the shadows of society, and when one knows that their most basic desire is a criminal offense if ever acted upon, it becomes difficult to interact with the world on anything resembling a normal level. Now, onto some rebuttal. Case 1: It would dilute society This seems to be more of a case against exposing children to "men sick enough to sack their dead wife," in Con's words. Multiple responses. 1) They're exposed now. Necrophiliacs don't stop existing just because you've criminalized their activities. 2) This law wouldn't expose them to anything. Con is treating this as though it's now fine and dandy to go screw a corpse in the middle of the street or on TV. The basic laws of public decency still apply. In other words, just like sex, it's still censored. 3) Exposing kids to the realities that such people exist is necessary for these people to feel accepted by society. Without doing so, it remains taboo, incurring all the harms I've stated. 4) Con doesn't impact this at all. What's the harm of letting kids know that there are necrophiliacs engaging in an entirely legal sexual relationship with a corpse? He never says. 5) On this same basic reasoning, kids should never be exposed to sex either. That also hurts their fragile little minds. Given that, should we now outlaw sex in order to prevent it? 6) I'd say the status quo is worse. Not only do we have more serial killers around as a result of corpse raping (their only means of expressing their necrophilia), but it's splattered across the news every time. You might call what they produce "censored," but it hardly does a child's mind much good. In the event that this became legal, it might be news for a short while, but then it would disappear off the radar, and it would be far less graphic. Case 2: The necessity is few and far between. Con has to do more here. He doesn't warrant the statement that it's a useless law, instead just saying that it's too few people to matter. Two responses. 1) This is a reason to vote Pro. Con is essentially stating that the legal system should only focus on groups of people of a certain size, which means all of the current legislation illegalizing consensual necrophilia is also weakening other laws. All of those laws should be repealed, and those systems should be replaced with this, which places less of a burden on society in general by requiring less law enforcement and having fewer criminal activities. 2) I wasn't aware that a law became useless when it applied to 600 people or fewer. It seems like an awfully arbitrary cutoff for saying whether a law matters or not, and Con has given no reason why this specific amount constitutes a small enough minority to call it useless. I would argue that the effect of these people goes well beyond their numbers, but moreover that this view is detrimental to society. It allows us to repress and criminalize any minority we deem too small to care about. It doesn't really matter whether one of the parties is dead or not. Their legal rights don't disappear immediately at death, just like any will they produce must be abided. They're still a legally relevant party in this. Now, Con mentiosn three big problems that he deems to be demonstrable enough not to implement this policy. I'll go through each: 1) A media frenzy You mean like every single time a criminalized necrophiliac engages in mass slaughter? I think we can bear the media frenzy that results from this far better. More importantly, I don't see the harm in a frenzy. Let's bring the conversation back out into the open and actually discuss this policy. We push it to the back all the time, and it's about time we had a frenzy. 2) A fierce congressional debate, allocated with government budget money I'm not sure how much Con thinks it will cost for Congress to meet, something they should be doing anyway, but these costs are relatively insignificant. By comparison to the cost of bringing these people to trial just for engaging in necrophilia, we should be thankful that this is all that would be incurred. 3) A rise of bigots or hate groups taking vocal or even violent stances on the issue First off, no necrophiliac is required to come out. They have every right to keep their desire a secret, and therefore anyone who does come out will do so knowing full well the consequences. Second, I don't think it's reasonable to say that they should kowtow to hate groups. Many people said the same for minority groups of all sorts who fought for rights in this country, and the fight for rights should not flag in the face of such hatred. Third, having more vocal stances means that these hate groups will come out of the woodwork. In the status quo, many necrophiliacs are treated poorly and hated upon. Nearly every time we hear from opponents of gay marriage, they're saying that legal necrophilia is the next logical step in debauchery. The hate is here to stay. If we suddenly know which groups are most vocal, that will give police a better chance of enforcing the law to protect these people more effectively. Case 3: The Court System may be exploited I'm not quite sure what Con is getting at here. Maybe he's saying that cases will pop up regarding this law that will cost the state money, or try to sue someone for having sex with their dead relative without their consent. I think this system adequately protects against the latter, and the former is a bigger problem in status quo, as anyone who engages in these sorts of sexual acts is guaranteed to go before the court. Case 4: Public health concerns I knew this was coming. The simple response is that it can't get any worse than it is now. Con will probably state a number of possible harms that can occur from having sex with a corpse. Those are all currently magnified. A person might have sex with a corpse that hasn't been kept as fresh as possible, as is the case here. This might occur outside the one week time frame. It might happen in any number of locations for the sake of expedience, rather than occurring in a more sterile environment. They are certainly likely not to know the health risks they face, or the methods available to ameliorate those concerns. Sure, there's always the possibility that someone will get some disease from it. But that is mitigated on so many levels. The only thing Con might argue here is that it might increase the incidence of necrophilia, but he'll have to warrant that carefully, as I don't see that as likely. Case 5: Necrophilia legalization will spur more crime I'd say my case straight turns this. Legalization will reduce the amount of crime by allowing these people to step out of the shadows and into the light of day. Perhaps as Con explains this, we will see some reasoning as to why the legalization of an act that is carefully regulated is somehow going to spur more crime, but this just doesn't make any sense to me as is. Conclusion: The reality is that these people are here to stay, whether we like it or not. They're not going to disappear anytime soon. The best thing we can do is accept their presence and ensure that their behavior is engaged in at the safest possible level. By continuing to spurn them, we are certain to see the harms I've outlined continue, to both them and society at large. So let's put our gut reactions and biases aside. Vote Pro. With that, I leave it to Con to wind up the debate. 1. http://www.jaapl.org... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org... 3. http://en.wikipedia.org...