Why kiss the dead?

[thaiboxerken]

I see this happen in movies and tv often where a person kills a dead person, usually recently deceased within the scene. But why do they do it? Do people do this in real life? Do people think the dead person will benefit? What gives? I think it's kind of gross.

[Ducky]

I see this happen in movies and tv often where a person kills a dead person, usually recently deceased within the scene. But why do they do it? Do people do this in real life? Do people think the dead person will benefit? What gives? I think it's kind of gross.



I dunno. Sentiment? Something to make the person still living feel better?

Got me.



Who's gonna be the first to make the necrophiliac joke?

[LostAngeles]

Because they're still warm!

(Happy fowl?)

[Ducky]

Because they're still warm!

(Happy fowl?)


Where's the applause smilie?

[shemp]

Indeed. Why kiss the dead, when you can eat them instead?

[David Swidler]

Be sure to roast them properly. Lotsa microbes.

[Rufo]

Most likely a way to say goodbye. Too late, obviously (few, even of those who believe in a soul and afterlife, would say a dead person can actually feel a kiss), but it's the same reason why people sometimes keep on waving at someone who's leaving though it's obvious the person is too far away to see them. People have a need to say farewell, whether it's a mutual farewell or not.

Where's the applause smilie?
Here is one... :clap:

DISCLAIMER: I take no responsability for the use of this smilie.

[mummymonkey]

I kissed my late father shortly after he died. It was the only time I ever kissed him.

[brodski]

I kissed my sister after she died, to say goodby.I didn't see anything strange abbout it.

[brodski]

I see this happen in movies and tv often where a person kills a dead person.
Now that would be a trick!

[clarsct]

Same reason we have funerals.

To give closure to the living.

[Fengirl]

We kiss our loved-ones goodbye after death because we loved them.
We do it because we miss them and want to feel close to them one last time.
We do it because it eases our grief and comforts us to do so.

What gives? I think it's kind of gross.

I’m sorry that you find it pointless or “gross”. Personally, I find it a little insensitive of you to label another’s chosen mode of grief-expression “gross” just because you have never felt the same emotions they have. :confused: Then again, maybe I'm over-sensitive, having experienced more than my fair share of family bereavement.

It's not something that has a logical or rational explanation. It's an expression of emotion.

[Ipecac]

I don't find it gross either. If any of my family died, I would undoubtedly kiss them one last time.

[bjb]

In my family, we don't even want an open-casket funeral. We want people to remember us the way we were when we were alive, not as a dead body in a coffin. My dad expressed his feelings about this when I was very small and I thought he was weird, but now that I'm older, I think he's absolutely right. Now when I go to funerals, I won't even look into the casket, not because I'm afraid, but because I don't want to have that memory of them in my head. Anyway, if I am going to recieve a kiss, I'd rather have it when I was still alive to appreciate it.

[wastepanel]

At my funeral, I'm going to have the funeral director turn the lights low, turn on some strobes, colored lights, a fog machine, and start playing some loud techno music. At that point, my body will be raised out of the coffin by wires and I will begin to dance.

[ceo_esq]

In the classic Joanne Woodward movie The Three Faces of Eve, it turned out that her character's multiple personality disorder could be traced to a traumatic childhood episode where the little girl was forced to kiss her dead grandmother.

[uruk]

Because they can't stop you from kissing them.
If it wasn't for dead people I would'nt be getting any.








Ok. Altogether. EEEWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!

[Soapy Sam]

Movie conventions.

A cowboy's six shooter holds up to 140 rounds. When it finally goes empty, he looks at it in surprise and then disgustedly throws it away.

All cars explode on crashing, except "General Lee".

Two cops sitting in a car, parked in the street outside the headquarters of the Mafia, are completely invisible.

Movie binoculars have a lazy eight shaped field of view.

There are a thousand more. Kissing the recently deceased seems to be one of them. Possibly since talking to a dead person is prima facie evidence of lunacy, it's just how they conventionally indicate grief on the actor's part? This avoids the need for any actual acting ability.

[slingblade]

What exactly do we do for the dead that we aren't really doing for ourselves? The dead don't even care if they get buried.

It's easy: people kiss the dead to say goodbye. My grandmother tried to make me kiss my grandfather's corpse in the casket, back when I was 10, and I've hated funerals ever since. My mother was furious. I was freaked out, and refused. Screaming.

[Morris Cod]

I agree, it is a beautiful way to say goodbye, I kissed my sis goodbye,after all her struggles, she looked really peaceful, and truly beautiful. It is something I'm glad I did, alasting memory, etched on my consciousness.

Gotta say that I would'nt understand how it makes you feel unless i'd had the experience.Wonderful.

[slingblade]

Well, maybe if I had known it was a custom to do so, and maybe if Grandpa hadn't been scarily rock hard and ice cold, and maybe if anyone had asked me beforehand if I wanted to kiss him, it would have been different.

I would kiss my mom goodbye, though.

[Ducky]

I can understand the sentiment, but I don't think I could. The closest I came was adjusting my grandfather's suit in the casket at his funeral. I just remember thinking that he'd be really irritated if his nice double breasted suit wasn't perfectly neat.

My father was a closed casket because he shot himself in the head. Given the chance, I probably would have punched the sonofabitch.

[ImaginalDisc]

I kind of dislike the coustom of kissing the dead, and open caskets, but maybe that's because my aunt and grandmother had an open casket for my grandfather's funeral. after they'd each kissed him, they placed a cross in his casket.

He was a loud, obnoxious atheist. If he were alive to protest, he would have.

[Mercutio]

Zombie pinups (http://www.zombiepinups.com/gallery/)

[Complexity]

I'm going to be burned and dumped in the trash. No funeral, no memorial service, no obituary, no grave.

If anyone has anything nice to say about me, they can bloody well say it while I'm alive.

The cult of death bores me.

[Silly Green Monkey]

It's probably for the same purpose as closing the eyes of the dead, so the living don't get freaked out by the stare. A means for the living to feel better about having lost someone they loved.

[T'ai Chi]

It will be a last kiss before they get buried or cremated.

[CFLarsen]

It will be a last kiss before they get buried or cremated.
Leave it to you to state the bleedin' obvious, without stating what you actually mean.

What is your point?

[Pyrrho]

I see this happen in movies and tv often where a person kills a dead person, usually recently deceased within the scene. But why do they do it? Do people do this in real life? Do people think the dead person will benefit? What gives? I think it's kind of gross.
My grandfather kissed my grandmother just before they closed the coffin. It was love, that's all.

[T'ai Chi]

This thread is talking about people, but it also applies to pets. Some people kiss them if found recently dead, because they love them so much.

[TimmyBerry]

I'll go with the closure argument.
From a personal experience, kissing a dead person just makes you realize that they are no longer alive. Basically, a form in shape of your loved one, but not loved one. I think, that realization may result in a certain amount of revultion (as in "Who did they put in that coffin? Certainly noone _I_ know!"), which makes it easier to mourn in the end.

[orangenblue2]

But why do they do it? Do people do this in real life? Do people think the dead person will benefit? What gives? I think it's kind of gross.

Interesting thread. I can only speak for myself, so here goes: I lost my infant daughter a year ago. I spent the next 18 hours in the hospital holding, caressing, and kissing her lifeless body. I spent many more hours over the next 48 doing the same things. Why would I do such a thing? For me, it was cathartic. As an avowed atheist, I know that I won't be seeing, holding, and kissing my baby girl in some mythical place called "heaven". That time that I had to kiss her tiny body was the only chance I'd ever have again. My two surviving children (F-age 12, M-age 8) were initially hesitant to hold and kiss their baby sister. I never pushed them, and guess what? Within 6 hours they were asking to hold her. We all, as a family, got to share in the love that we had for her. One of those ways was by touching, kissing, etc.. People in this country have developed an irrational fear of death. In times gone past, people would set their deceased loved ones up in the living room; and people could come pay their respects by talking to, touching, and yes even kissing the dead goodbye. Now, it seems that we want to have the dead just go away. I'm sorry that you feel it is "gross", however, to me it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever done...:)

[Beerina]

I see this happen in movies and tv often where a person kills a dead person, usually recently deceased within the scene. But why do they do it? Do people do this in real life? Do people think the dead person will benefit? What gives? I think it's kind of gross.

You've gotta be careful with Hollywood. According to Hollywood, the proper thing to do with your girlfriend when she's just heard her father died and is bawling, is to have sex with her.

In Hollywood, men bet each other to see who can go 30 days without having sex.

In Hollywood, the older the man, the younger his "true love of his life". (The recent Steve Martin movie where Claire Danes plays his love interest so totally grossed me out I started hating Steve Martin. His followup raping of Peter Sellers' corpse finished the job.)

[ImaginalDisc]

His followup raping of Peter Sellers' corpse finished the job.)

This didn't start out as a necrophillia thread, but I'm not surprised it got there. :-p

[ceo_esq]

Interesting thread. I can only speak for myself, so here goes: I lost my infant daughter a year ago.

I'm very sorry you lost her. Clearly she spent her too-short life in an environment of powerful affection, and the way you treated her body after her life's conclusion was just the natural extension and reflection of that environment. I find nothing especially unnatural about it.

[orangenblue2]

I'm very sorry you lost her. Clearly she spent her too-short life in an environment of powerful affection, and the way you treated her body after her life's conclusion was just the natural extension and reflection of that environment. I find nothing especially unnatural about it.

Thanks for the comment. I don't feel "unnatural" at all. I happen to think that most people would feel better about death if they weren't so afraid of it...Course, that's just my opinion...Peace...

[Jas]

I don't particularly have any issues with dead bodies, I've spent a fair amount of time with them (great hair clients, btw), in various stages of decomp, but I don't really associate them with people.

The only time I did was at one funeral, where the funeral director messed up on her makeup, and chose a couple shades too dark...it looked like she had spent the past couple hours in a tanning bed. And I brushed her bangs aside and gave her a kiss goodbye on the forehead.

At the time it just seemed like a normal thing to do.

[Jas]

Er, I just thought that maybe I should clarify - this was with a girl I knew, not a client.