The Techinical Side
Just What Is Embalming Fluid and the Risks?

Well, first off, here's what's in it...
Emblaming fluids are predominately formaldehyde, phenol, and alcohol, and water. Some may contain humectants (usually plant or lanolin extracts, used to counteract the harsh, drying nature of formaldehyde), methanol (to reduce edematous tissue) or tracing agents (visible under black light, allowing you to actually see distribution).

The Technical Side
What is Rigor Mortis?

While searching the net looking for an explanation into the clinical definition I came across this reply by an MD in a message board.  Rigor Mortis The key players are actin, myosin, and ATP. Actin and myosin are proteins in your muscles; the best way to describe them is by using an analogy. Imagine stretching a rope between two cars that are maybe 100 feet apart. The rope is actin in our analogy. Now you and a bunch of your friends gather at the center of the rope, half of you facing one car, and half the other. You all start to pull on the rope, with a hand over hand motion, and sure enough, the cars move towards you. You and each one of your friends are acting very much like individual myosin molecules all working together in your muscles. In our analogy, the movement of the cars towards each other is like a muscle contraction. In muscles, myosin "walks" along actin with a grasp, pull, release action. Each cycle requires that a myosin molecule bind and break down one ATP molecule for energy. 

Okay, the doc's techie explanation aside, rigor begins to take hold in a body within an hour or so, but as usual, depending on the environment the body is in (temperature mostly) affecting the speed of decomposition.  When rigor occurs the limbs stiffen and it can be very difficult to bend and manipulate to any position.  I've seen an embalmer put his whole upper body weight on a corpse simply to get it to lay flat in some manner. Advanced rigor can last from 2-3 hours after which the muscles 'relax' more and the body becomes more floppy and limp.  Female breasts do not get harder or firmer as a result of rigor but rather the result of blood beginning to clot, or in the case of embalming, the pressure of the fluid inside the body.  If you are having sex with a body in rigor the only difficulty might be positioning the limbs, spreading the legs, or moving into position.  Since there are really no muscles inside a vagina the feeling when penetrated would very likely not be 'tighter' as some legends might suggest... but rather the same as if the person were alive.  The rectum is similar.  While there are sphincter muscles they don't constrict in the same manner but rather retain the shape at time of death.

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The Technical Side
Can You Catch Anything from Diddling with the Dead?
Answer: Of course.
But the explanation comes in two parts.

Risks with a normal decomposing body..
Decomposition is a natural process in nature and as such it is our friend.  It gives us garden mulch and cheddar cheese (among the myriad of other far more important things in life).  The process of decomposition is simply the breakdown of organic waste by the various strains of bacteria.  A human body begins decomposition almost immediately at first but it can take a while to be readily detected.  A first visual sign of decomposition is rigor mortis.

When we discuss the bacteria risks in having sex with a corpse the risks are determined based at what point in the decompositon process we wish to engage... and all that is determined by the environment surrounding the body, especially temperature.  The warmer the temperature surrounding the body the quicker the bactieria can grow and start feeding on the organs and tissue.  This is why morgues and funeral homes will store a body inside a cooler as the cold retards bacteria growth.  Obviously a freshly dead corpse will have less decomposition bacteria growing.  But the interesting thing about bacteria is that there are many thousands of varieties but maybe only a hundred prove toxic (either simply an irritant or fatal) to man in some form.  Now that is not to suggest that all one hundred are languishing inside a dead human body nor does it suggest that a dead body is totally free of bacterial toxins.  But common sense would suggest that the fresher a body the less the risk for picking up some bacterial infection.  A 'fresh' body could mean anything from 1 hour to 48 hours... maybe longer.  The effects of rigor mortis don't suggest the body is bacterially risky... just another phase in decomposition being reached.

Depending on the time frame in the decompositon process the body orifices, typically the rectum, vagina, and eyes, can have some fluid seepage.. again, it's part of the decomposition process but generally that's more advanced decomposition.  Probably a good sign to be wary is to listen to nature... if our senses see something strange, smell something strange, or taste something strange then best to avoid it... or use a condom, either on yourself or the dead body.
(There are those people who do find the smell of decomposition part of the sexual arousal so their personal risk may be reduced with common protection.)

Risks of picking up a disease...
Common sense, if dead Aunt Edna was carrying the common cold virus at time of her death she just may have it on her for a time after she died as well and can still pass it on.  Catching something from sexual intercourse, or even in common contact with a corpse, doesn't always have to manifest itself as some loathsome 'disease of the dead'.  In fact, most typical diseases and viruses tend to die off quickly as the body cools.  Again, it all relates back to body temperature but in this case cold tends to kill off or suspend or make inert many diseases.  I understand though that some of the nastier diseases like Ebola, etc. can lay dormant for unspecified duration until some temperature level is again sufficient to trigger it back to life.  But for those of you wondering about HIV... I am told that typically (again based on body temperature) that the virus can last from 1 to 3days in a dead body.  But the transferrence risk during sex is no different as if they were alive.  After a couple days then it appears the risk might be minimal.  That's a personal decision that cannot be made here for you.  In the end it's generally a good policy to know what your deadmate died of before you dabble or diddle.  But if they died by accident it still doesn't mean they died disease-free.

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The Practical Side
Death and Erections
"Um... just how does someone have sex with a dead guy when he's not... um.. you know...?" 
That does seem to be the one question that comes up (pun intended) when discussing necrophilia, especially when women (or men) are interested in being with dead men.  If the goal is to insert a dead penis into a living vagina (or other orifice) there are a number of ways that seems to be done.   The first way is pretty much up to nature.   You have to consider the difference between a flacid penis and a seemingly 'retracted' penis.  Contrary to popular poltical belief all men are not created equal below the belt.  In many men the flacid state does contain some length, albeit not a true erection.   In others, the flacid state is sometimes like a turtle retracting its head into its shell.   Quite obviously those dead fellows with some length, even though flacid, have some utility in that what is available can be essentially 'stuffed' inside.

Now, in some cases a dead male could seem to be erect as it may have been the state when he died, or the method and environment in which he died could have caused some manner of erection at time of death.  In some instances a drowning or some manner of struggling for breath or asphyxiation can achieve an erection.  Whether or not the erection is maintained after the heart stops beating is simply a matter of the dead male's internal systems.  The blood doesn't necessarily 'drain' from a penis but is rather simply the lack of blood pressure.  In any case, blood may not entirely leave the penis when the heart stops thus sustaining a level of erection after death.   The idea of rigor mortis making a penis hard is not really fact.  Rigor attacks the muscles of the body... causing shrinkage and subsequent stiffness of the joints and muscle areas.  As much as we'd like to imagine, the penis is not a muscle.  But as time passes the blood can clot in some areas giving the impression of 'stiffening' or a hardness. 

There have been some really enterpising ways in which to try and make an otherwise dead and useless penis hard enough for practical use.  One simple way I've heard used is to simply turn up the embalming pump pressure as it sends in the embalming fluid.  Or, to inject embalming fluid directly into a dead penis (and I don't mean in through the penile 'hole' but through a vein or artery, presumming you know your anatomy.  Although the shape might be a bit odd and irregular... but maybe that might feel better in use).  In the movie, Nekromantik, a woman seduces a male, ties him to the bed, then gets him fully hard by having sex on top of him, much to his delight.  But suddenly she takes a string and wraps it around the  base of his penis, very tightly choking it.  Needless to say the guy can't do anything about it since he's tied to the bed.. but his pain is short lived anyway since she takes a knife and cuts his throat.  Point is, she has a nice hard penis on a dead guy.

The following was emailed to me by a friend who managed to run across in real life someone who has adapted to the situation and got a bit creative.
 

In order to get the guys hard she either uses a kind of pump (it's a bit like the ones you can have fitted to cure impotence, only she made it herself).  She fits it just under the skin of the penis, and inflates it- kind of like a balloon!  it made me laugh when she told me how it works, but hey, it *does* work, and that's the main thing.  The other way she does it (and the way she did it for me) was by a simialr inflation method, but using water.  She uses a kind of minature pressure hose to inflate the tissure, through an incision near the head of the penis; it feels more natural than air, and easier to move about (god- that sounds weird... you know what I mean...), and if you squeeze hard enough some of the water comes out.  And that feels *nice...* ^_^ As for the pump... I did my best to pay attention to it, but at the time my hands were full with other things... ^_^  What I do remeber is that the incision was made at the head of the penis, under the foreskin, and that it did indeed inflate to a regular shape, though that is partially due to Connie's skill:  she massaged the penis while it was being inflated, to make sure the water was distributed evenly through the tissues.  I guess if she hadn't, then it might have gone a bit irregular.  Also, she did say that it  was possible to get the penis bigger than it was in life, but that it did risk damage to the penis, and so naturally she avoided doing it in case she got caught. The actual pump itself  attatched onto a tap.  Once it was inserted through the incision, you turned the tap on and undid a valve, and that let the water into the penis.  The actual nozzle on it was about the size of a large hyperdermic (like the ones they use to give blood), so you can imagine the pressure the thing had!  It also meant that the incision it needed was pretty minimal.  The whole thing is home made. When we were done, she actually used the same pump to remove the water, only  instead of attatching it to a tap, she attatched it to one of the suction hoses that they use during the autopsies, so that it drew the water out again.  It took quite a while to get it back down to the correct size.

I report elsewhere on my site having chatted with a female mortician who indeed injected embalming fluid directly into the penis (no, I don't know where) and tying off the base with a string to prevent the fluid from settling out from the penis.  Then there was a mortician's wife who simply waited for a dead guy with a long one and she stuffed it inside.  In one case a young wife who stayed at the bedside of her husband as he died of cancer climbed into bed with him after he passed and simply spent quality time rubbing herself up against his flacis penis in a masturbatory manner.

The next challenge is to get a dead guy to ejaculate.   I can't speak with authority on this one but consider what this young woman told me one day.  She works in a morgue as an assistant and has admittedly dabbled a bit with a few dead folk.  She said that it was not uncommon for her and another gay male assistant to insert a couple fingers up a dead guy's rectum and apply pressure or prodding to the prostate to see what could come out.  If not much came out it was an indication the deceased must have had sex or masturbated not too long before they died.  Well, one day this dead 22 year old male from an auto accident happens across their table.  She found him attractive enough to play with so she had her associate move the dead guy on his side and while she sucked the other guy inserted his fingers into the dead guy's rectum and pressed on the prostate.  She said she got a mouthful.  Fact or fiction?  Maybe a reader can confirm or deny this.  But it seems plausible because there is a technique that's been in use since the 40's called electro-ejaculation (EEJ) or rectal electroejaculation (REE).  Typically, a kind of cattle prod-looking probe (it was originally developed for animal reproductive use) is inserted into the rectum and an electric current (10-20 volts) is applied to the prostate which results in ejaculation.  This process is used many times with men who are unable to ejaculate normally due to ailements and/or drug treatments yet who want to partake in artificial insemination.  Interestingly, it's also used on dead men in an attempt to harvest their sperm for later artifical insemenation with a  surviving spouse.  It can be done for up to 30 hours after death.

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The Practical Side
Places of Penetration and Other 'Play'   (under construction)

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The Practical Side
The Quick and the Dead or the Old and the Mold?   (under construction)

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The Practical Side
DNA Forever
When you touch a dead body it's not likely you'd leave any DNA trace worth mentioning.  But when your fluids are left behind there's always a risk of someone discovering and maybe trying to identify in order to prosecute or establish the crime of necrophilia having been committed.  You might ask yourself what would even make someone want to check out a body in that detail?  Well, different scenarios could result in that but the primary one could be like this.

Let's say dead Aunt Edna ends up in the funeral home, she's embalmed, then buried.  Now let's say that there's some doubt as to how she died and her body gets exhumed following a court order (it might be best to avoid sex with autopsied bodies because those tend to be unnatural deaths and a bit more risky for an exhumation later).  The medical examiner starts poking around and discovers semen in her vagina, or rectum, or mouth... or there's some residual dried saliva on her nipples.  Bingo.. someone's DNA that shouldn't be there.  The ME reports the finding... runs a DNA test.. then they go back to the funeral home and check the DNA of the staff and maybe the relatives.  Now, if there's no match then maybe you will get off scott free because your DNA can't be matched because you were simply a stranger who broke into the funeral home one evening.  But if you are the mortician and it was your DNA then your career is kaput.

In reality I have heard from many morticians who have had some sexual activity with the dead that they wash out the orifices following the event.  While an exhumation is exceedingly rare it only takes one to loose your career.  But some morticians I've talked to don't wash out the evidence.  So it seems a matter of accepting risk as a personal choice.  On the other hand, I have talked to funeral home assitants who have essentially no career to loose that just leave their evidence where it was deposited (to many leaving semen inside a dead body is a part of the erotic or compassionate act).

BUT.... if the body is to be cremated then it's pretty much anything goes from what I hear.  Especially if you are the one feeding the oven.  Any trace of your DNA is burned up in the flames.  I've heard of some really bizaare liberties taken with bodies before they go into the crematory.  But for the most part it's risk free... unless you are physically caught in the act.