What is your personal threshold for being grossed out by owning an object that was once part of a living being, and why?

[tauzero@mander.xyz]

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!

[spankmonkey@lemmy.world]

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.

[awesomelowlander@sh.itjust.works]

Limestone

[nemo@slrpnk.net]

If it still looks like it did when it was alive: Shrimp with tails on, whole fish, that sort of thing is too far.

[hperrin@lemmy.ca]

If it’s generally socially acceptable, and I’ve gotten used to it, I’ll usually be ok with it. Otherwise, I’ll probably be grossed out by it. I know that’s dumb, but at least I’m being honest.

[hperrin@lemmy.ca]

“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.”

[deathbybigsad@sh.itjust.works]

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.

[flax_vert@feddit.uk]

If it's human

[dontnoodles@discuss.tchncs.de]

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.

[eponymousbosh@awful.systems]

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.)

[eponymousbosh@awful.systems]

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.

[paraplu@piefed.social]

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.

[fizz@lemmy.nz]

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.

[knight_alva@lemmy.world]

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.

[lemminary@lemmy.world]

I don't mind it as long as it wasn't part of their body, like their skull. That does freak me out.

[stopspazzing@lemmy.world]

Wait till you think about where your water's been.

[twice_hatch@midwest.social]

Heck I don't even eat food that was part of animals

[grantuseyes@lemmy.zip]

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.

[horsey@lemmy.world]

Insertable sex toys and nothing else I can think of

[mrsdoyle@sh.itjust.works]

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.