[This list contains text that some may not consider family friendly] Many of us have had piercing in the ears and probably quite a number of us have piercing in other less common parts of the body, but there are some people who have outright bizarre piercing and other body modifications. It was certainly not an easy task to find “safe” pictures for this list – but I have done my best!
Human branding is the process in which a mark, usually a symbol or ornamental pattern, is burned into the skin of a living person, with the intention that the resulting scar makes it permanent. This is performed using a hot or cold iron. It therefore uses the physical techniques of livestock branding on a human.
A subdermal implant refers to a kind of body jewelry that is placed underneath the skin, therefore allowing the body to heal over the implant and creating a raised design. Many people who have these implants use them in conjunction with other types of body modification to create a desired, dramatic effect.
Most people can stretch to at least 2ga (1/4″) and still have the tissue return to normal when they remove the jewelry, but there really are no guarantees. Don’t stretch your ears unless you are certain you’ll be okay with it forever. Once the elastic limit of the skin has been passed, or a large amount of additional tissue has been built up, the hole will not close again completely. A person who is either obsessed with stretching their piercings, or with showing off their many stretched piercings, is known as a “Gauge Queen”. Some wear this term with pride, others use it derisively.
Tongue bifurcation, or tongue splitting, is a type of body modification in which the tongue is cut centrally from its tip part of the way towards its base, forking the end. In most cases, the split is created through scalpeling or surgical laser. Self modifiers often choose to achieve a split by gradually tightening nylon bindings inserted through an existing tongue piercing over a long period of time. This method is long, arduous, and requires a high pain tolerance.
Tooth filing is a form of body modification in which people file their natural teeth to create a desired look or shape.
Also called corset training and waist training, this is the practice of wearing a tightly-laced corset to achieve extreme modifications to the figure and posture and experience the sensations of a very tight corset. Those who practice tightlacing are called tightlacers. Some tightlacers call the corsets they wear training corsets.
This is the practice of permanently inserting small beads made of various materials beneath the skin of the genitals–of the labia, or of the shaft or foreskin of the penis. As well as being an aesthetic practice, this is usually intended to enhance the sexual pleasure of partners during vaginal or anal intercourse. The practice seems to have been fairly common across world cultures and is still done today. You can see a VERY Not Safe For Work image here.
Eyeball tattooing has been around for a long time; in the 19th century it was commonly used to correct cosmetic defects in blind eyes. The procedure can be performed with traditional tattoo needle or a syringe. The eye is simply held open while the pigment, which is the exact same type used in a regular tattoo, is injected into the eyeball.
The process of anal stretching is a lot like earlobe stretching, except you don’t wear the “jewelry” around the clock. Like stretching a piercing, it involves slow and increasingly larger play over an extended period of time. The image above is for “tools” to aid in this modification.
The implantation of jewelry in the outer layer of the eye, this is one I must admit I had not heard of. Apparently first done in the Netherlands, it has come to the US. According to Dr. Christopher Rapuano, a corneal surgeon at Philadelphia’s Wills Eye Hospital, “You can think of it as crazy. I mean this is invasive surgery where you are cutting the surface layer of the eye open to put a little piece of jewelry in. The first time I read about this I said, ‘Oh, my God, who is doing this?’” The safety of this procedure will have to prove itself over time, since it hasn’t been performed on many people, but the possibility for infection and complications is definitely there.
James Sooy and Oliver Gibson have come up with Pierced Glasses – the most minimalist eyewear since the Pince-nez was invented in the 1840′s. I would not have believed this one if I had not seen it with my own bespectacled eyes.
Notable omissions: penis splitting (try finding a SFW image for that!)
Contributor: rushfan
I remember seeing a picture similar to the eyeglasses picture. It showed a guy who had both eyebrows pierced, and his sunglasses hooked onto the barbells. And I am sure that the eyeglasses picture was only a play piercing because with the weight of the glasses that piercing is 100% likely to reject. More especially if you snagged it on anything.
Deziner ~ Thanks for your input. When searching out body mods for this list, I decided to leave out things that were purely “cultural” like lip plates, neck rings, foot binding, because I intended this to be a list of mods you can see at your local tattoo shop. My best friend’s brother owns a tattoo & peircing shop and is a kick-ass drummer and his crowd can proudly represent almost all of the mods on this list. I have a strict “don’t ask don’t tell” policy on issues of the anus, however.
Some of those looks very very dangerous. The Piecred Eyeglasses, I could definitely see some danger there if something press/bump at the glasses.
That African tribe with the rings,they cannot remove them. Well, they CAN, but their neck muscles have atrophied and they may stop breathing. So they are in a sense removable yet permanent.
I’m surprised Scarification wasn’t on the list. Branding is the low end of it. There are those who get complicated designs on their skin by either burning or electrical energy.
The thing to understand on all of these, is that they are done without anesthetic. The only case of anesthetic I heard of was a dentist brought some topical for himself before getting a tattoo.
As for why: Why do people do anything? It makes them feel special or a way of representing themselves. Some of them represent a type of lifestyle (the corset look). Others are private.
Those who don’t like to risk pain do other things. Constant changing of nail or hair color. Grow a beard, shave a beard. Combovers and balding ponytails.
Cat Skyfire – personally, to make myself feel as though i’m individual, i plat my pubes
i posted this in forums but thought to supply to the whole community, meet Yoda the Cat:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1046684/Meet-Yoda-cat-FOUR-ears.html
Its cool
CRSN (126)
That’s cool! Do you do it yourself or do you have some help?
Vera – No, i go to a buety salon and get the girls to do it, gives them something nice to look at for once, i’m thiking of either braiding or corn rows next time, what do you think?
CRSN (129)
What’s the difference? Here it’s the same. I, myself, keep it trimmed.
This is a new way of making new people uncomftable, wonder if J will pick up on it.
Anyway, Nah! i think i’ll go the Hulk Hogan look down there, you know, big, muscly and hair with a hole thats constantly open making weired sounds.
i cant contain this any more, if you reply Vera its only gonna get worse, i got a sick mind
What kind of weird sounds?
[ Joke moved to the forums
]
Vera – thats *****ing discusting, i like it
we need a jokes forum, i’ll go in and start it with a foul one, see you there.
*CRSN wanders off to the forums in utter confusion about Vera*
There is a joke list. I got lost there several times. Top 10 jokes, and there is a continuance in the forums. As soon as you said you had a sick mind, I knew that was the joke for you. It’ll probably be pulled, so Im glad you saw it.
Why are you confused about me, BTW?
okay – I tried very hard to keep the images SFW – can we keep the text that way too please?
JFrater
You got it. No more nonsense from me. Promise.
(But it is a great joke!)
No comment
Sorry J, I’m making a forum for this stuff
Awww!? J, that was a good one too, bugger!
Quite bizarre…but in my opinion the most bizarre and painful modification is the Chinese foot binding….the foot was suposed to be 7 inches long…. that is bizarre.
http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History/China/04/hutchins/hutchins.htm
Rushfan– I had a feeling that “modern” & “mainstream” might be part of the parameters of this list. As a retired tattoo artist myself, I realize mainstream can be a very subjective term.
Regardless, truly enjoyed the list, it led to some personal net-fishing of my own…and freaked out my husband. He-he-he
Wow the conversation diverged a lot there for a while.
(note to self: dont provoke CRSN)
I looked at the Not Safe For Work image for no.4 and apparently the photo was taken on a cold day.
ooo drogo…low blow
Please tell me that photo in number five isn’t real?!!! Where are her internal organs? Seriously, if that is real, how does she manage to stand without bending in half? :O
The guy in number three has filthy fingernails.
I’m also curious now as to what a split penis (Ouch! ) looks like so I’m going to Image Google it. Ooh, image my cookies! *blushes*
I googled it. Bad idea.
smurff–
“A couple of weeks ago I saw an article somewhere ( with photos ) of an eastern women having a symbol done on her back the procedure is yuk. It involves a cosmetic surgeon that cuts a symbol, crest or motive call it what you like on her back with a scalpel, its all done in a hospital.
Then the healing proses starts a couple of weeks later the scabs start falling off, The last image after complete recovery was breath taking a work of art.”
I’ve been googling yuk for the last hour, and i got desperate and googled “eastern body modifications called yuk”
The first link is to your comment smurff. I still haven’t found anything on it though. Mostly things with the word yuck mispelled. Do remember where you saw the article?
Sandra: I think what smurff might have meant was yak, which is short for yakuza (the Japanese mafia-equivalent) who often get the traditional Japanese tattoos called irezumi.
Wikipedia has more info on irezumi
If you look for irezumi using Google’s image search there are some pretty amazing examples.
I’ve got to say, The only mod I didn’t expect to see on this list is Tightlacing.. I’m a licenced tattooist in Alaska and have been witness to people with most of these mods. However, In my opinion I think earlobe stretching could have been ommited, or at least included stretching other piercings such as nostrils, lebrets and various genital piercings.
The one thing that I believe is missing from this list is scarification and skin removal procedures. Both are performed with a scalpel, an outline of a simple image is cut to produce a scar, and for a skin removal the skin within the design is cut away to completely remove it.
Still Curious? Try http://www.modblog.bmezine.com but beware most photos are NSFW.
I have a question to all those who have piercings:
Why?
Maybe I shouldn’t have done that off-color joke about it being a cold day or at least used an alias. (haha) You all know about shrinkage, don’t ya?
To answer DoppHopper: Because they can.
comment number 8 amy. people do modify head shape very often. i forget which but either the aztecs or the mayans formed their heads with boards and rope tightening the ropes over years to make the head longer and more triangular. in current years it is done very often to babies for medical reasons because many babies are born with elongated heads from birth and so doctors make them wear a “helmet” that over a course of months forces the head to be rounder.
Like growing watermelons in square boxes to make square melons.
EWWWW OMG WIERDDDDDD AHHH OMGOMGOMG THIS IS GROSS AND CREEPY
I personaly have several piercings and Im a mother of five, and I am waiting for my art work to come back on my totem pole tatoo. and even I think number two is weird and gross, and I want to do #2 and would like to look into #3 maybe have a rainbow thing going on, I would love to see what other peoples reaction is to it.
Why on earth would you wanna stretch out your heinie-hole? No judgement, just why?
WOW!!! the pierced eyeglasses thing is actually pretty cool!! I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 5, and couldn’t stand contacts on my eyes….If the medical profession deems this procedure benign, I may consider doing it!!!
maybe some of this stuff is cry for help lyk most selfharming is obviously its a bit for the attention and since most of it is done by teenagers or young people it can also be about being part of agroup lyk wen emos self harm to fit into the ‘emo’ group
I’m surprised gender nullification isn’t on here
What a waste of space these people are. It just goes to show how incredibly stupid people can be. Most of these things are arguably unique at best for a while. Then they get older and infected their body parts fall off. Now that is when things get really cool unique. This earth is full of waaaaaay too many morons. Maybe Dwight Schrute was right. “There are way too many people on this planet. We need a new plague”.
The thought of a tattoo needle going near my eye sends shivers down my spine.
The glasses thing is pretty cool, but isn’t it basically a bridge peircing with specially made glasses as the jewelry?
Way to steal the direct text from BMEzine’s Encyclopedia… (Earlobe Stretching being the prime example)
Stay tuned next week for a new episode of “Ripley’s People That Scream Look At Me!”.
I frankly think that people can do what they want with their own bodies although I admit I cannot understand the more extreme body mods. As for the split penis, why oh why? Not like you can show it to many people (without getting arrested anyway). I would think that body modification is about getting attention and screaming look at me, I’m an individual, just like everybody else.
What’s so bizarre about ear stretching? I got three flesh tunnels and find nothing weird about it at all. The corset training just looks repulsive to me though. Each to their own I suppose.
Sad. Very, very sad.
These people are obviously attention junkies who are also uncomfortable with their race; bodily modifications have always been associated with primitive tribal cultures, and it seems pretty self evident that these (predominantly) white people are SO ashamed of their skin colour that they want to look as little like a european as possible.
I think they should all try gradually tightening fishing line aroiund their necks until they bifurcate their throats, that would be ‘extreme’ and ‘unique’.
You don’t seem to have any grasp on the mind of these people. Since people of all races, skin colours etc. get these sorts of modifications it hardly has anything to do with your brand of racism.
ever seen the type of kid that runs about shouting “look at meeee, look at meeeee!!!!”…. This is the sort of adult they grow up into…
Ive failed to have every meet a kid who hasn’t run around shouting look at me. And considering that nearly all mods are concealed it hard translates to “look at me”
wow.. i’d luv to hav #9 and #1 .. xD
to those of you who are belittling those of us who choose to decorate our “temples”..or own bodies..the only canvas we are given…the way WE feel fit, i am pretty sure you CHOSE to look at this list, because you were interested. PERIOD.
At least I am interest-ing.
maybe you should just let people live there own lives and not give them any guff about it…how bout that.
The corset training isn’t really bizarre. It should be moved to rank 10 if you’ll really include it.
Anyway, I’d not do any of these to myself even if I’d be given money bigger than the wealth of the entire USA.
I love body modifications!
Even though, personally, I only have tattoo’s.
One of my best guy friends was heavily into the culture when he was younger. Not so much anymore. He had his tongue split in the last year though and its the coolest site! Kissing a guy with a split tongue is the most unusual and awesome feeling. lol!
could you imagine getting hit in the face with those glasses?..
owwww
Most of them are horrifying and really unattractive, but I have to say that number one actually looks sort of cool. I would never do it myself because I’m not a retard, but it does look cool, instead of just gross.
9 is my favorite. i’d love to do that!
and while i can’t speak for every person with body mods, i know i don’t have mine for attention or to fit in. i have them as representations of different parts of myself. every time i look at one of my tattoos, i remember the personal significance it carries, and whether they’re noticed or not is irrelevant. all i ask is that people don’t go around pigeonholing everyone they see with mods. we all have our own reasons.
iv gotten the teeth filings done by a doctor but this was on my canines
it wasnt to make them sharp it was because 3 of them ahd been chipped(long story but same cause)and it looked weird when i smiled so i got it filed to look normal
oh andif youre wondering no i didnt want to get them capped – i have a freind who got a tooth capped for the same reason and it looks kind of weird LOL
#178. elnrith
oh andif youre wondering no i didnt want to get them capped – i have a freind who got a tooth capped for the same reason and it looks kind of weird LOL
****
He just didn’t go far enough. Due to medical reasons, I ended up having to have 22 teeth capped, and 12 veneered. Looks great.
I won’t say it was the most *fun* I’ve ever had, though.
I dunno what to say. I am reallt struggling to hold a ‘to-each-his-own’ opinion but maaaaannnn, who in their right mind would want to split their tongue!! You can’t be sane to want that or any of the other ridiculous things listed here.