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| A lovely logo for a not-very-lovely topic. |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).
The article: "Necrophilia: Love of the Dead." Originally published in Party Time (Gallery Press), vol. 2, no. 1, February/March 1973. Credited to "Dick Trent."
Excerpt: "Necrophilia can be a gruesome study. Variations in how the necrophiliac derives pleasure does much to increase the macabre circumstances. Most necrophiliacs take a more passive attitude and are content to simply commit intercourse, cunnilingus or onanism (masturbate) with the cadaver, or at least in the presence of the cadaver. Others are not content unless they also hack the body to pieces."
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| Eddie's graphic book about the topic. |
Reflections: How far are you willing to go in your pursuit of Edward D. Wood, Jr.? It's a question I've asked before, but I think it bears repeating today. Some fans stick to his better-known movies from the 1950s, preferring his more mainstream sci-fi/horror efforts such as Bride of the Monster (1955) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). Others are willing to go a little further and explore Ed's adult film work from the '60s and '70s, just as long as the movies aren't too explicit or raunchy.
I'd say, however, that the ultimate loyalty test for any Ed Wood fan is his writing—the novels, magazine articles, and nonfiction books Eddie penned during his darkest, drunkest years. Not only is most of this material pornographic in nature, often explicitly so, it's also Ed's most extreme in terms of subject matter. On the page, even more than on the screen, Ed Wood explored the dark side of sex. This includes detailed descriptions of various kinks, fetishes, and even violent crimes. It's understandable that some fans will not want to expose themselves to this kind of material.
No matter what your cutoff point for Ed Wood is, however, you've definitely seen evidence of Ed's career-long obsession with necrophilia, i.e. an erotic fixation on corpses. It's at the heart of Plan 9 from Outer Space, after all. It's woven throughout Orgy of the Dead (1965) and Necromania (1971), too. But, again, it's in his writing that Ed really runs wild with this topic. Under the pseudonym "V.N. Jensen," he wrote an entire, quite graphic book about necrophilia: The Love of the Dead (1968). He also discussed this unseemly topic in his other pseudo-educational paperbacks like Suburbia Confidential (1967) and Bloodiest Sex Crimes of History (1967).
The 1973 article "Necrophilia: The Love of the Dead" is in this same, disturbing vein—story after story of those who defile corpses for sexual pleasure and gratification. You'll notice the similarity to the title of his 1968 book. Eddie also manages to work in a plug for Necromania while he's at it. (This is one of the strangest examples of cross-promotion in showbiz history.) He does not hold back when it comes to gruesome, unpleasant details. One of the victims described in this article, for instance, is a three-year-old girl. Another dies after having a "sharp stake" thrust "into her rectum and vagina." The necrophiles in this story engage in all sorts of disgusting acts, including drinking urine and ejaculating on dead bodies. Some are also cannibals.
Bob Blackburn, who compiled When the Topic is Sex, warned me about this article in advance:
The necrophilia article is/was to me the most challenging of all 80 in the book. I think you and folks who've read it or will read it will understand. Of course it's totally in Ed's bailiwick. When I was re-reading it for the final edit/proofreading, I was kinda shocked at the graphicness of it. But, hey, it's pure Ed Wood.
When he said that, I knew I had to revisit Ed's Love of the Dead book. When I read it a few months ago, I was steamrolling my way through as many of Ed's written works as possible, one after another in a short span of time. Under those circumstances, it didn't seem all that different from many of Ed's other adult paperbacks of the era—maybe a little kinkier, but not too outrageous.
Returning to the book now, though, I was taken aback by the way Ed truly wallows (what other word is there?) in the stomach-churning details of these violent sex crimes. Given how often he revisits the topic throughout his career, I have to wonder what was happening in Ed Wood's mind. I mean, who thinks about necrophilia that much? Bob is right that this is "Ed's bailiwick," but what a weird goddamned bailiwick it is. The saving grace of an article like this is its brevity. Sure, it's an unpleasant topic, but it's over after a few pages. If you can survive "Necrophilia: The Love of the Dead," you can handle just about anything Ed writes.
Ed tries to lend some credence to this article by quoting a few experts. One is Dr. James McCary, presumably the same one who wrote Sexual Myths and Fallacies (1971). Another is Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Stekel (1868-1940), a disciple of Sigmund Freud. (Freud himself is not mentioned in this article but is namechecked in the Love of the Dead book.) As for the "Dr. Zugmund Siegel" who relates the story of a female necrophile who claims to have been impregnated by her dead husband, I can't find any evidence that he ever existed.
Next: "Sorcery and Sex" (1970)