necrosexuality and epistophilia
So I'm reading a queer essay on necrophilia (great way to ring in the New Year, I know... actually I'm just trying to squeeze in some research before dinner with my parents and then I'm off to celebrate with friends).
The author is describing how deriving pleasure from dissecting a corpse could mark someone who is clinically insane, classified as a necrophiliac... or a forensic pathologist, noting: "The relationship is contingent with the use-function of the corpse in relation to 'pleasure'. The sexual psychopath 'uses' the corpse differently to the scientist. The former is a necrophiliac, the latter perhaps an epistophiliac" (Patricia MacCormack in Queering the Non/Human, 343).
I find the notion of epistophilia to be very alluring. Episto = knowledge/knowing, philia = love. To be in love with learning to know, finding out how to know... what an amazing idea! We academics should consider ourselves epistophiliacs, but really, shouldn't every citizen of the world? Albeit with differences in how we prioritize and pursue knowing/knowledge?
The author is describing how deriving pleasure from dissecting a corpse could mark someone who is clinically insane, classified as a necrophiliac... or a forensic pathologist, noting: "The relationship is contingent with the use-function of the corpse in relation to 'pleasure'. The sexual psychopath 'uses' the corpse differently to the scientist. The former is a necrophiliac, the latter perhaps an epistophiliac" (Patricia MacCormack in Queering the Non/Human, 343).
I find the notion of epistophilia to be very alluring. Episto = knowledge/knowing, philia = love. To be in love with learning to know, finding out how to know... what an amazing idea! We academics should consider ourselves epistophiliacs, but really, shouldn't every citizen of the world? Albeit with differences in how we prioritize and pursue knowing/knowledge?