Partly, it’s really “disturbing the peace of the dead['s living relatives and friends]“. I mean, most people wouldn’t want some perverted stranger using their /normal/ possessions that way, right? So why would a body that used to /be/ a person you cared about not be at least as bad?

And in any case, people digging up the dead is a) theft – from the cemetery or the next of kin I’m not sure, but it’s definitely theft to take a gravestone or a corpse’s gold teeth, so why would it be ok to take other body parts or whole bodies? and b) *incredibly* unsanitary – there are laws against just shipping them around because of the public health issue, even if it’s actually at the request of the dead person’s instructions and family. The health issue is only that much worse if you go having sex with them. So having a law against it is still sensible even from an atheist-materialist perspective.

There was also a Victorian tradition of taking a dead person’s hair (or sometimes a live loved one’s) and weaving it into jewelry; you can find the antique ones on ebay sometimes. I found at least one website where someone has revived the technique: http://www.victorianhairjewelry.com/ … they also wove longer hair into bracelets/watch fobs, though that website’s owner apparently doesn’t do that one. So there’s another method.

Tada! You’re dead-people art/jewelry! And it’s all perfectly legal and even borderline normal.

They also used to occasionally tan human skin as leather to bind books – almost exclusively anatomy texts and momentos (momenti?) mori, AFAIK. I worked in Brown’s special collections library one summer, and actually got to handle all three of the ones they have (bonus “awesome work story” points: they kept one of them in an honest-to-God, big-spinny-lock-like-a-bank-in-the-movies underground vault… and this is the same place with the world’s largest Lovecraft collection!) But they used the skins of criminals and such for that, and I don’t think anyone is currently doing it, or that it’s remotely legal, outside of maybe some godawful third world dictatorships. And I recall hearing that the Nazis did the same thing for lampshades (not to Godwin the thread or anything, just giving it as an example, though this may well be /why/ human leather is such a no-go now). If I ever got published as a poet, I think it would be kind of cool to have the “master copy” of my work bound that way, with my blood used for ink for good measure… but I may just be having an attack of ZOMGoth on that one.

And then there’s the Sedlec Ossuary: link goes to the ossuary photogallery on the official website (English version) of the place. http://www.ossuary.eu/index.php/en/fotogalerie-kostnice-en/category/5-ossuary
Obviously you can’t have that done with your own remains, but as long as we’re talking about art-made-of-dead-bodies, it’s just too freaking awesome not to mention. Seriously, go look at these pictures, they’re AMAZING.

That is all.

You’ve got me going now – I’m going to draw up a document specifying uses for my body parts.  Yeah, real tiger balls!  True, powdered rhino horn!

Along those lines, Louis CK jokes that we should be allowed to rent our own dead bodies to these necro types so they can get their needs met without having to involve the more reluctant folks. :)

But if there is, and someone can prove it, I’ll cancel my plan to be fed to the fish, and look forward to some post mortem action.