Oct. 30 - For some, there's nothing more ghastly than the idea of having their mortal remains embalmed, sealed in a metal and plastic casket and buried in a cement vault. They'd prefer to be buried "au naturel." So some companies are thinking outside of the box and offering Earth-friendly burials amid the earth, trees and sea. 

When his father died, Dr. Billy Campbell wanted to bury him in simple pine box instead of a fancy casket. But having grown up with the family that ran the local funeral home, he was persuaded to choose the deluxe model. "So Billy's dad was buried in the casket used by Hoss Cartwright from 'Bonanza,'" his wife, Kimberley Campbell, recalls, laughing. "It was supposedly more masculine and manly and made out of the most luxurious Spanish oak, right off the Ponderosa." Bearing an engraved Italianate scroll inscribed with his name, the heavy metal vault was sealed tight because "your mom wouldn't want the worms climbing in." Yet all Billy really wanted was to have his father lying in the earth surrounded by nature. 

This experience left him so cold that, in 1996, the couple decided to create a truly nature-friendly burial option, with none of the hallmarks of a modern cemetery. At Memorial Ecosystems, located on the Campbells' 32-acre Ramsey Creek Preserve in Westminster, S.C., there are no flat, manicured lawns, marble monoliths or metal vaults. Bodies cannot be embalmed, caskets must be biodegradable and graves are marked only with simple, flat stones. The couple manages the land and its streams, wildflowers and forests as a "nature preserve first, cemetery second," they say. THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX Ramsey Creek is the first example in the United States of "green burial," but Memorial Ecosystems hopes to establish a nationwide network of memorial preserves over the next decade. 
What we leave behind... 
Each year in U.S. cemeteries, we bury: 
827,060 gallons of embalming fluid 
1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete 
104,272 tons of steel 
2,700 tons of copper and bronze 
30 million board feet of hardwoods

Glendale Memorial Nature Preserve , a 350-acre area composed of fields, creeks, ponds and woods in the Florida panhandle, has set aside 70 acres for a memorial park and is currently awaiting approval from the Florida Board of Cemeteries. The practice is sparking interest outside of the Southeast as well, says Mary Woodsen, vice president of the Pre-Posthumous Society, a recently formed organization based in Ithaca, N.Y., that is interested in starting memorial nature preserves in New York state. Woodsen has tracked seeds of interest in a dozen states, including California, Ohio, Wisconsin and Washington. "If there were a national association, there would be many jumping on board," she says. Meanwhile, the movement has already gained significant ground in England, where more than 120 such preserves have been built and 50 more planned, according to the London-based Natural Death Centre.

As you would expect, taking the dead body of your loved one home with you does provide certain 'opportunites'.  While that doesn't make it legal in the technical sense, it's not likely you'd get caught anyway providing you followed the entire body disposition process according to the law.  Of course we are talking about expressing your last moments with a loved one in a final sexual intimacy.  You certainly don't need to have a necrophilic interest to decide to share in this manner.  We are human beings and we tend to express ourselves sexually with those we love.  It's only natural to want to do that after death in a final act of closeness doing something you both enjoyed while alive.  Given the condition of the body, the surroundings, the environment, and your personal grief, you would certainly have enough privacy to decide to do whatever you wished.

If you are male and wish to make love with your loved one you could conceivably leave your semen within an orifice as a symbol of your eternal presence within them.  If vaginal and/or rectal you can simply insert some cotton inside to form a plug thus reducing the embarrassment of seepage to outer garments during a wake.  In the mouth... perhaps some cotton there if you are unable to close the mouth entirely.
If you are female you obviously don't have the disposition of your own body fluids to worry about if you find it practical to engage in sex with your loved one.  You might want to refer to Section 11B  regarding sex with a dead guy.

If you are planning on using the services of a mortician you could make your feelings and intentions known and simply ask how you can perform your last act of intimacy the way you wish.  There's certainly nothing wrong in asking.  I do know for a fact that some morticians, if asked, may try and accomodate in some form in spite of the questionable legalities or implied ethics.  Those that I have chatted with have a strong sense of compassion and understand these feelings with relatives and hold these feelings above what others might feel is morally questionable.  Frankly, it's no one else's business.  But do remember that strictly speaking your actions, whether done at home or under the auspices of a friendly mortician, still may be illegal in your state.

But intimacy can come in many forms not sexual as well.  Simply bathing and dressing your loved one one last time can show your love.  But how you may react when you are there at that moment no one can predict.