What is your personal threshold for being grossed out by owning an object that was once part of a living being, and why?
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?
What we find gross is mostly arbitrary and emotional. It’s loosely based on the perception of filth but most people who find something gross will continue to find that thing gross even if they know it’s clean. If someone feels like snakes are gross, they watch you take a snake and scrub it clean with soap and water (don’t actually do this obviously) and you try to hand them the scrubbed snake, most people would continue to call it gross. Furthermore, if you ask most people why they find something gross, they won’t be able to give you a real answer. (Food seems to be an exception but we mean something entirely different and much more specific when calling food gross unless we are saying that the food is somehow foul or unclean)
In most cases, when someone calls something gross, they are doing so as a reaction to a feeling it gives them. Whatever they say after that tends to be some form of post-hoc justification to legitimize that feeling.
I remember seeing an informal test on this. An actor crafted a free drink in front of participants, then unwrapped a factory-new toilet brush in front of the person. They made a point of cleaning the freshly unwrapped brush in the bar sink, to ensure there wasn’t any factory-gunk on it. Then they used the brand new toilet brush to mix the drink.
Nobody would touch the drink. Even though they knew it was clean, they couldn’t overcome the instinctual disgust that was caused by seeing it mixed with a toilet brush.
Insertable sex toys and nothing else I can think of
I mean... how far down the rabbit hole are we going with 'once part of a living being?' Leather/wool/down?
Paper?
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?
Heck I don't even eat food that was part of animals
I'm vegan btw
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.
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.
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 ever were to lose a limb like a finger (and if it couldn't be reattached) I would like to keep it like preserved in an alcohol jar or just the bone part as a good terrible conversation piece
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.
I've been pondering this myself. We had to have one of my cats (the one in my profile pic) put down last month, and we got a fur clipping, as well as her ashes. I'd like a piece of memorial jewelry or glass and I'm finding I'm OK with stuff that includes the fur, but not OK with cremation jewelry/cremation glass, and I don't really know how to articulate why. I think part of it is that fur and hair are shed throughout a lifetime anyway, but dividing up someone's bones or ashes almost feels like commodification to me.
(To be clear: I'm not judging other people who do this with their loved ones' remains, be they human or animal; this is just, like, my opinion, man.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I got a cool looking salt shaker that looks like a crow and is made of buffalo horn. I'm fine with it sitting on my shelf but don't see myself using it for its intended purpose on my dining table.
If it's human
Does that include the ashes of people in urns?
Mostly, yes. I saw someone say something about wearing a deceased loved-one. That's understandable. But if you somehow obtained the remains of some random person, that's... Eugh
Although in my culture we don't really cremate but I understand that others do
Imagine a sentient tree looking around your home at the table, the chairs, the cabinets, the books...
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!
I think it's more about presentation for me. For instance I have a turtle skull covered in snake skin on my desk. It make it look like a sick dragon head. So like a slab of human meat would be disgusting just sitting there. However if it was old skin preserved using a specific technique and presented in an artful way then I'd be down with it
I mean, what else should we expect from cryptTurtle?
None? Owning a mummy would be dope, although the storage and care required wouldn't be.
You just need it to be not too humid and in the dark. I have seen mummies stored like under a bench FWIW.
Anything not cured because it's sticky and stinky.
My house is basically just taxidermy, skulls, and antlers for decoration.
I bought a pretty shell necklace in Samoa, and then asked the seller what shells it was made from.
He said... "Dolphin's teeth."
When I reeled back in horror, he chuckled and said, "Yum yum."
I have various bits of jewellery made from beef bone, I happily wear leather, but there was something intimate about teeth that made it gross, plus eating dolphins, argh.
I personally think keeping things that used to be part of someone else is a bit creepy at best. Bones, skin, feathers, fur, it's all not something I need to have in my home. For example, I saw this guy had turned a family member's bones into a guitar once and it just squicked me the fuck out.
Hello comrade 😊
Of the examples I gave pearl and coral are a hard no, but I was kind of surprised by how horrified I was at the idea of owning something with human hair in it. It made me wonder how other people draw that line.
I would also like to avoid bones, plz.
My only concern for body parts and specimens is/would be: were they ethically sourced? There are laws arround that thankfully.
Lampshades made of human skin. How about no.
I dislike things where taxidermied animals parts are used for something because it looks weird. Like animal legs and feet for tables. Basically if it makes me think the animal suffered I dislike it.
Yes I eat meat and wear leather and other stuff from animals that often makes them suffer, but I also spent a large amount of time on grandpa's farm and the idea that ethical use of animals can exist overrides my knowledge that they are often abused in my day to day decision making.
I think learning about Nazis making human skin stuff out of their holocaust victims put me off for things made out of human parts. Like bone is bone, but my first knowledge of human parts being used was Nazi ahit. Didn't find out about the religious human remains stuff till later.
Mostly everything from an animal is gross. I still have some stuff like leather shoes or Merino Wool Underwear for hiking but that's only because I haven't found vailable alternatives.
I don't mind it as long as it wasn't part of their body, like their skull. That does freak me out.
Stuff I associate with prolonged suffering would be my threshold. I know the solemn nature of killing for food and survival. In that experience, limiting suffering is essential. It is an experience that often pushes me more towards veganism. Things that remind me of the failures to limit suffering in any being conjure great melancholic empathy that I would struggle to ameliorate.
No limits, but no interest, either.
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
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.)
The water that I shoot at my butt or the water I put in my mouth?