I’ve been browsing antique jewelry a lot lately and wonder about this. With jewelry specifically I think about hair, coral, pearls.
Then that extends out to animal skins, bones, human relics, etc.
What makes one thing gross but the other okay?
My line is at wet specimens.
I don’t even mind handling dead mice for my snake to eat, and I have a few small taxidermies around. I’ve even handled human teeth and had one of my own that had to get pulled (tooth fairy stole it though)
But wet specimens creep me TF out, especially if they’ve been diaphonized. I hate to say it but I’ve even seen wet human specimens (stillborns), that is a HELL FUCKING NO from me
Wait till you think about where your water’s been.
Water is created and destroyed by nature, non-stop since forever.
Photosynthesis:
6CO2 + 6H2O + light energy → C6H12O6 + 6O2
The water that I shoot at my butt or the water I put in my mouth?
Running through Belgians like cheap beer!
I have no issues with drinking recycled water. I’ve even had beer made from treated wastewater. Never again! (Because I’m gluten intolerant.)
I mean… how far down the rabbit hole are we going with ‘once part of a living being?’ Leather/wool/down?
Paper?
Cotton? Oil?
Plastic?
Well done! Rubber/latex?
That’s a plant. Not an animal.
was once part of a living being
He did not say animal.
Limestone
I think that’s my question, but I am realizing it could be two or more questions.
Does owning/using something that was part of a living being gross you out?
Either way, what do you consider to have been part of a living being? I think this is an especially interesting question if you do say it does gross you out.
If some things gross you out but others don’t, why?
Ethics are the big line for me. The human remains market is pretty infamous for having dubiously sourced parts - people who did not consent to having their body bought and sold.
The exhibit Body Worlds, which travels to different museums, is an example of this. Some of the bodies are likely executed prisoners, who did not consent to have their bodies displayed in this way. The US has a horrible history of treating indigenous peoples corpses with disrespect. Two of the children who died in the MOVE bombing ended up in a universities collection without the knowledge or consent of their relatives.
I would be willing to have a skeleton or preserved organs as teaching materials, if I knew the individual involved gave their consent for that use. If I ever can afford a hysterectomy I would love to preserve my uterus for that purpose. I’d love to be an articulated skeleton in a science classroom after I’m done here on earth.
The necklace made of human ears my grandpa brought back from Vietnam is totally disgusting because they’re all really shriveled up so they look like little kids’ ears now.
But he also made one from human teeth, and that’s less disturbing because maybe he just got them from a dentist’s office in Saigon, you know? I never asked him while he was still alive.
Insertable sex toys and nothing else I can think of
I think human parts are a hard no for me, but I’m general good with anything, though usually much less so if the product isn’t being produced incidentally.
This means cow leather is generally a okay, but crocodile is something I’ll shy away from.
Same for human parts for me.
Weirdly enough, I still think my preferred way to dispose of my eventual cadaver is being made into a book.
I wouldn’t want to own book me, but I love the idea of being a book. Not like a gruesome one where someone could tell right off, something more boring than that.
You would have to check the legality of that in your jurisdiction. Aaaand find someone willing to do it. It would be dope tho… As for me, I would prefer a sky burial… Return to nature man, also metal as fuck.
Oh yeah, being turned into a book is unlikely to be worth the headache for anyone involved. The tree burials that are legal in some spots is a reasonable option. Or just donation to science.
Whatever is cheapest/lowest fuss is fine. If that means I get reused or recycled great! If not, just don’t let me be a bother.
Sky burial is also awesome. Hopefully there are enough vultures to keep that up in at least some places. There’s a 99% Invisible episode that talks about collapsing vulture populations resulting in issues with doing it in India.
Oh crap, I didn’t know that. D:
I think human parts are a hard no for me
I’m pretty confident we still have the kids’ baby teeth stored somewhere in a box of mementos in the basement (where all our treasured family memories / water heater are stored). I think that is my personal threshold.
You might want to move your memories some place else a little safer. You know, just in case you have an incident with your water heater.
Here’s a fun story… Mark Gruenwald, the creator of the Marvel superhero team “Squadron Supreme” (a pastiche of DC’s Justice League) passed away.
As part of his will, he requested that he be cremated and his ashes mixed in with the black ink on a reprint of Squadron Supreme.
https://screenrant.com/marvel-comic-printed-creators-ashes-squadron-supreme-gruenwald/
His wife was also stamping his signature in books with the ash ink.
https://teddyandtheyeti.blogspot.com/2019/05/mark-gruenwalds-ash-o-graph-in-squadron.html?m=1
Okay, that’s quite a cool memento. I might not mind that.
I’ve discussed with family members how it would be awesome to have jewelery made from each others bones. My sister said she’d like to have my dad’s skeleton, prepped like for an anatomy class and he was up for it, but it seemed very complicated (and possibly just not allowed) and unsurprisingly expensive.
I don’t think we’re particularly morbid or gothy, just not grossed out by stuff like that. And I think having a smooth bone ring is a nicer way to remember someone you cared about than an ugly urn full of ashes.
Heck I don’t even eat food that was part of animals
I’m vegan btw
Depends on how liquidy it is.
Skin and organs are no-no
Dried skeleton, maybe.
If its “artificial life forms” like a non-carbon based robot, I’d happily gouge its “eyes” (cameras) and put then in a necklace.
If I look at an object and I’m reminded that it comes from a dead human or creature i probably wont keep it.
An old jacket is ok because i just see a cool jacked but a tiger skin rug would always remind me of a dead tiger.
What about a tiger skin jacket with the head as a hood?
Yeah i’ll pass on wearing a corpse around.
If it still looks like it did when it was alive: Shrimp with tails on, whole fish, that sort of thing is too far.
What about a death mask?
I’ve never eaten one, what’s that?
No need to eat it.
Okay, but all the other things I listed were foods, I thought this was a continuation on that theme.
No problem :-)
But the fish head is the best part :c
Imagine a sentient tree looking around your home at the table, the chairs, the cabinets, the books…
I mean historically we wore the skin of an animal while killing the rest of it’s family so
“You mean you build a desk out of my brothers’ flesh. Then you pack that desk into a container made of more of my brothers’ flesh. Then you sit at that desk and use an instrument made of my brothers’ flesh to write on a sheet of my brothers’ flesh. Is there anything you don’t use our flesh for?”
“Just please don’t go into the bathroom.”
was once part of a living being
When you drink a glass of water, about a hundred molecules of that water come from the pee of Isaac Newton from the specific day the apple fell on his head. Generally, every single atom surrounding us has been part of some living being or other thousands of times. Only drink pristine water harvested from interstellar comets!
Also: you might like Caitlin Doughty/Ask A Mortician’s videos and/or books. A lot of discussion about different cultures’ approaches to death and how people’s attitudes have evolved over time.
