Having sex with dead people not punishable in India: Why do people commit necrophilia, which countries criminalise it?

It might come as a shocker but necrophilia is not considered rape in India. Observing that attendants appointed to guard bodies in mortuaries of many government and private hospitals indulge in “sexual intercourse” on the corpses, it called for the amendment of the Indian Penal Code under the definition of the offence of unnatural sex or introduce a new provision in IPC to make necrophilia an offence. “It is high time for the Union government, in order to maintain right to dignity of the dead person/woman, to amend the provisions of Section 377 of IPC to include dead body of any man, woman or animal or to introduce a separate provision as offence against dead woman as necrophilia or sadism” as has been done in other countries to ensure the dignity of the dead person, the bench observed. It found the “most common motive for necrophilia was ‘possession of an unresisting and unrejecting partner’, rather than explicit psychopathic tendencies… The authors said necrophiles – as they are also called – often chose occupations that put them in contact with corpses.” People with such tendencies could take up jobs at a mortuary or funeral home. The most common motive for necrophilia is the possession of an unresisting and unrejecting partner,” says a 1989 study titled “Sexual attraction to corpses: A psychiatric review of necrophilia”.