Body Suspensions - two experts explain ...

A suspension is the act of suspending a human body from hooks that have been put through body piercings. These piercings are temporary and are performed just prior to the actual suspension.

(Wikipedia)

LEE LA ENTREVISTA EN ESPAÑOL AQUÍ

I interviewed two professionals, Joel and Fran of A Sangre Fria Body Art in Madrid, Spain.

How was the step from being a tattoo and piercing professional to being a key figure in the world of body suspension?
Joel: Obviously, we have evolved. From the very beginning on I've been in contact with body piercing, practicing a lot until reaching a certain level of expertize and becoming a professional. I learned about other techniques, materials and piercing methods.
Having experimented a lot with my own body, piercing it, tattooing it, I know quite well how it responds to pain. Over the years, we all have grown more and more our threshold of pain, and one day, surfing the Internet, I saw some images of suspension. And, as any other person would do, I asked myself: "What it is about? How does it feel? How is it done?". And as I had already trained myself as a piercer, one day I felt motivated and said: "I want to get there, I want to try this". So that day Fran and I took our first step in this extreme practice, suspending ourselves for the first time.

Guided by someone already initiated in the art of suspension, I guess?
J: No, no. We are self-taught.

So you see a video of a suspension and just go and try it?
J: As we are professionals of the field of piercing, we know the technique - placing a hook in ones back or chest is actually a form of piercing. Then, little by little, we had to learn about appropriate materials and techniques for different types of suspensions.
Fran: Apart from an evolution that each of us experienced at a personal level, we also evolved as a group. It began long before the first suspension. It was a sort of project that had been growing. The process lasted about one and a half years; we started with play piercings, began experimenting with hooks, tried pullings...

Play piercing?
F: We pierce our bodies temporarily and arrange the needles in a certain configuration to create, for example, geometric shapes, to lace them together like a corset, to sew the eyes, mouth, or arms ... or we simply pierce ourselves for fun.

(Photo by Clare Foxcroft Williams for Sweet Nauseas)

Or to turn yourself into a leopard-man, for example?
J: Could be. In that case it is a set of body modifications – piercings, tattoos, implants – that gives the person the appearance of an animal. Once I pierced my knuckles with protruding needles to make my hands look like claws. It was part of a show during which I was suspended upside-down.

F: But all that happened at a later stage, when we were already combining suspensions with play piercing or pulling, or even a dragging suspended people with a pulling.

What is a pulling?
It’s the practice of piercing the flesh and then pulling by the pierced body parts. It is essential when preparing for a suspension.

If I show up at your studio at, let's say, five o'clock in the afternoon and say: "I'd like to try a body suspension myself". What would you respond and how would you initiate me into this practice?
F: You know, first of all we would have to make you aware of the step your going to take. Because for us, a suspension is something very personal. So it is fundamental to understand that there will be a before and a after.
F: We get to know the person who wants to be suspended, we show him or her the material to be used, we talk about the pros and cons and try to create a certain level of confidence.
J: However, if you come here at five o'clock in the afternoon asking us to suspend you we would probably say no at first.

Why?
J: Because it's obvious that if you knew what this is all about you wouldn't come and ask that way.

And not at five o'clock in the afternoon?
J: Exactly. But if you insist, we would explain you what suspension mean to us, how we initiated ourselves in this art, what materials we use and how; a number of explanations to let you know what you are going to get involved in. You have to know all the details before you start, because it's your body you are going to "play" with, it's an aggression to your body. It's not like putting on a shirt and changing it if you don't like it; you will pierce your body. Hygiene, for example, is a very important issue. If your wounds get infected you can have serious health problems. Hygiene is essential.
F: Indeed, hygiene is a very controversial and heavily criticized question. It is fundamental if the job is to be performed in a professional and we try to inform people as much as possible about the methods to prevent infections. In addition to that, as Joel mentioned, a novice suspendee has to understand the techniques and materials used for a suspension. And we want to understand the reason why a person wants to be suspended. We respect all motives, even the most extreme ones. But it is necessary to know the candidate in order to approach the suspension in one way or another.

After we had a little chat and you know more about me and my motivations - how would we proceed from that moment on, how would you start preparing me for my first suspension? The most extreme piercing I had so far was a neck piercing...
J: First of all we would have to put in contact with the piercing needles. But as you've already experienced the piercing of your neck, you may have a slight idea of what you feel when pierced. When it comes to hooks, the only thing that changes is the caliber: the lengths and diameter of the piercing and the body part that is pierced. But you might say: "A 4mm needle must be extremely painful!". But I assure you that a thinner needle, a 1,2 mm needle, hurts more. Because pain can be sharp or rather dull and intense.

(Photo by Helene Fjell)

You are saying that a thinner needle can hurt more than a huge and thick one?
J: This is all about perception of pain, which is different for each person. A thin needle causes a sharp and slightly burning pain, which may feel a bit like ripping the skin. The pain produced by a thicker needle is rather dull. Besides that, if the pain is very intense, let's say 40 or 50 points out of 100, the brain activates a defense mechanism to make the body be on the alert. For example, if somebody hits your arm and you feel pain, you activate all your senses to be prepared to defend yourself and flee. An analgesic substance is being secreted if the pain is intense. A moderate pain, like the one felt while being tattooed, is not intense enough to activate the secretion of the calming endorphines, which would make the pain more bearable. Another example: if I cut one of your arms, the pain would be so intense that you wouldn't feel it if I cut your other arm as well, because your body's endorphine's, similar tu extasis, would anesthetize you to a certain degree.

Ok, let's say, I feel prepared and want to actually start with the pre-suspension program. Would you now start placing hooks in my back?
F: If we feel that you have been informed and that you have definitively taken the decision to go on with the suspension, we would invite you to come another day. In a very relaxed way we would probably start piercing and suspending ourselves to make you become familiar with the practice and lose the fear you may feel.

I'm ready, let's go on!
J: Well, this would be the moment were we pierce you with a hook and do some "rehearsals" with pullings.

I have to say that the piercing itself doesn't impress me that much, but what I couldn't even look at when I saw the video, was the pulling. It seems like the skin is just about to rip! How is it possible that the skin resists when someone pulls at a pierced hook? I think I just couldn't bear the thought of my skin ripping...
F: That's just natural. That's why we experiment with progressive pullings to make you lose this fear. We place the hooks, for example in your back or chest and then gently pull using a chain or string. Or we tie the string to the wall and you move forwards little by little until feeling the tensi0n, your weight and making yourself an idea of how a suspension might feel. Once you feel comfortable with that we could proceed to a real suspension. Even though there are people who want to be suspended right away, we prefer to do it this way, little by little.

I think we all ask ourselves: how is it possible that the skin resists this incredible tension? I can understand that, when 20 hooks are used, each hooks does not support more than a small percentage of the body weight. But using only two hook in the back (and placing them almost at the same place) or even worse, in the chest or knees?

(Photo: www.delawareonline.com)


J: There are two things you have to consider: the physical and the psychological aspect. At a physical level, you have to understand that the skin has a certain level of resistance to tension. As you said, if several hooks are placed, each of them has to support a certain amount of weight, depending on the body area and on the person's race (black skin is tougher and thicker, for example).
F: The length of the piercing and the hook's diameter are not the only factors that influence the successful result of a suspension. Also the skin is very important. All these factors have to be considered in order to do a good job. It's not about placing a hook without thinking and waiting to see if it can support the weight - or not. Thanks to the experience we have acquired over the years, we have a working procedure where every step has been carefully thought - we know where and how to pierce. For example, some parts of the body are rarely exposed to sun and the skin is much softer there.

But, if using few hooks, you also pierce the muscle so that the hook can support the weight, right?
J: No, no, in no way! If we pierced the muscle, we would cripple ourselves. It would be possible to support the pain of piercing the muscle beneath the skin, but probably only once. It's enough to pierce the skin due to it's enormous elasticity. It has occurred that the hook gets broken before the skin rips, if the piercing is well done. The human body is just a perfect invention ...

Fran performing one of the most difficult suspension. Photo courtesy of A Sangre Fría

The suspension shown in the photo looks like something physically impossible to me. Only two hooks placed very close together in the sternum area!

I can assure you that this chest suspension is one of the most extremes we've ever done. It's like using one single hook, which is possible, if the hook is very thick. A we've discussed, the less hooks you use, the more weight each of them has to support - that's why they have to be thick enough. If they aren't, the act like a knife, cutting the skin and ripping it. And the sternum is a very complicated body area. The skin should neither be too thick nor too elastic. there is not much skin to work with in the sternum area. For this suspension we placed two hooks quite close together, but one of them exerting a force to the right and the other one to the left. By doing so we managed to even up the tension in a way. There are people who have managed to perform this suspension using one single hook. But in that case the hook's diameter has to be 8 mm. The hooks on the photo are 4 mm.
A normal suspension can last a long time, two hours, for example. But in that kind of extremely complicated suspensions it's difficult to withstand more than 20 or 25 minutes.

Has your skin ever ripped?
J: Yes, a little bit (showing his forearm).

Obviously you know quite well your body when it comes to piercing it. But in my case, if it's my first suspension, is it possible that my skin doesn't resist even though there weren't any problems during the pulling?
J: Yes, it could happen but it's our job to make sure it doesn't occur. That means that we will be with you during the whole process, holding your hand. There will be a person pulling the rope, another one behind you (in case of a back suspension) will keep an eye on the hooks and regulate them if necessary and there will be somebody in front of you holding your arms tightly. If you feel confident, you will let go of his/her arms by yourself, little by little, until you are completely suspended.

What do you feel in that very moment? Y mean, it must hurt quite a lot only to introduce these huge hooks; do I have to be prepared for a lot more pain when being suspended?
The perception of pain is different in each person. In my case, for example, the piercing hurts a lot, but the suspension not any more. But there are people who feel less pain when being pierced but when the suspension starts they break down.
When we pierce a person a certain amount of air is introduced in the body. We have to massage the area to remove this trapped air through the piercing hole. That's when most people bleed and it's probably the most painful part of the process. However I specially enjoy it.

In the video we can see that you pinch body area to be pierced with your fingers.
J: It's a kind of warm-up, to prepare the area.
F: For the same reason we "train" with pullings before we start de suspension. Besides that, it's useful to find out if you feel comfortable with the hooks, and to make sure they don't pull more on one side that on the other, which would be very unpleasant during the suspension. When I was suspended from my chest, I started to have breathing difficulties and had to interrupt the session. Because my lungs didn't have enough space to expand.

Let's talk about the spiritual aspect of this practice. It seems like suspensions have been practiced in certain tribes for spiritual reasons, right? Do you aim to reach a higher state of spirituality, are the suspensions a way of meditation for you?
J: In a primitive tribe things are different. The first suspension were performed as early as 800 B.C. Tattoos, piercings and suspensions have been practiced in a great number of civilizations, from the very beginning on. Nowadays, en certain parts of Africa, when a girls has her first menstruation, she gets pierced to let men know that she has become a woman. When she loses her virginity, she gets another piercing to indicate this condition to other men.

But I've heard that in some places suspensions are a way to go into trance through pain. Do you have the same approach?
J: People ask us if we enjoy pain. No, we don't enjoy it it. What we seek is what we obtain from pain. Indeed it's a form of meditation, it's a way to be alone with yourself; there is a before and a after. Our approach is rather spiritual, yes, and that's the reason why we always try to get to know the people who want us to suspend them. Some professionals charge for suspensions, we don't. Because during a suspension we act as shamans. Asking for money would destroy the positive energy necessary for this practice. But obviously there are people who do suspensions as if it was a sport discipline, or something crazy, or simply a show. Or just to be able to say that they've hung themselves from hooks.

Book recommendation: "Dune" by Frank Herbert

Do you want people to prepare themselves psychologically before a suspension? Through meditation, for example.
F: I think there are different methods to reach the same state of mind. Sometimes we have meditated before a suspension, but there are days when we are so happy and euphoric that we don't need it. There is a routine preparation, but it depends on the situation and how the person feels at that very moment. And it also depends of the reason why somebody wants to be suspended - because something very bad or very positive has happened to him/her or just because of a physical necessity. These are the suspension we really enjoy because we can obtain something from them, they are curative. It's different if we are hired for a show for a certain day. In that case it's just a job, no meditation, nothing. But still, even in that case we are nervous and tense before the performance.

Why exactly are you nervous before a suspension?
J: It doesn't matter if you prepare yourself through meditation or not, a suspension is always the acceptance and overcoming of pain. To know and to accept that what you are going to do will hurt. And that you will overcome it - or not.

And does it still hurt as much as the first time?
F: Sometimes even more. Because after piercing the skin so many times it has become tough.

Are there differences between men and women when it comes to withstand the pain?
F: It's easier to pierce woman and she will bear the pain more easily because she is prepared to give birth to children.
J: You, just because you are a woman, are psychologically better prepared to withstand pain than any man. It's just nature. I mean I don't want to make generalizations, but it tends to be like that.

Would you say that people who practice body suspensions belong to a kind of urban tribe and share other interests as well?
F: I don't think that they belong to a urban tribe, it's simply a way of escape for the people who practice it. You can find any kind of person among the suspendees - people who dress smartly wearing their office suit or people who deal with tattoos and piercing, which is the most common case. The latter are usually pierced and show an interest in body modifications in general. So you could say that the majority share an interest for this kind of practices, but more and more there are also other people who are curious about suspensions.

I guess that it's absolutely not recommendable to drink alcohol or take drugs before or during a suspension, am I right?
J: We have never suspended anybody who was drugged or drunk, to be true. And we won't do it in the future.
F: But there are different ways to perform a suspension. There are people who even use anesthesia, but we are not in favor of doing so, because there is no sense in doing it that way. I could also put on a harness and do aerial acrobatics.
J: And there are people who do it just in any way, simply to say that they've done it. And their environment perceives their act as something impressing and brave and the image of the person changes. But we are actually completely normal people, we drink, we eat, we sleep; we have just found our own method to experience drug-like sensations. Other people may experience something similar practicing meditation or parachuting.

I've read that there are certain people who instead of piercing themselves to place a hook before each suspension have chosen the option of an implant under their skin with a kind of connecting piece for the hook sticking out.
J/F: We were unaware of this practice.
J: But one of the fathers of body suspension, Fakir Musafar (in the photo), has a piercing whole so huge, that he can put his finger into it. The whole has healed, so he doesn't have to pierce again before every suspension.

Wouldn't that be the logical thing?
J: Probably, but in my opinion part of the ritual gets lost. The process has to be painful, otherwise it would be like a garden without flowers. Pain is the essence in this case. Pain produces this special sensation that we seek and that makes every suspension so unique. It's something different each time.

Can you do other things while you are suspended? Eat, drink...
J: Or play Parcheesi, if you want.

Stefanie Kaiser, 2010.

Church of Euthanasia - Save the planet and kill yourself!

"The Church of Euthanasia is a non-profit educational foundation devoted to restoring balance between Humans and the remaining species on Earth. We believe this can only be accomplished by a massive voluntary population reduction, which will require a leap in Human consciousness to a new species awareness".



Reverend Chris Korda founded the CoE in 1992 and continues to lead it. Besides spreading the gospel of non-procreation and anti-humanism he also creates electronic music. He is a cross-gendered vegetarian.

AKA Dr. Jack Kevorkian is one of the Church's Saints. He has personally assisted more than 100 suicides. He is currently serving 10-25 years in prison.

A brief history of the Church of Euthanasia

From the point of view of a population ecologist they are completely right - if we consider mankind just another animal species, its population has just gotten out of control.
In nature, a population is regulated by predators and limiting factors such as food or living space. Besides that, to guarantee the adaption of the species to environmental changes, defective genes should not be passed on to the next generation and the weakest and less functional elements of a clan are removed to make sure that the resources are optimized. That means: the stronger and more attractive an individual is, the bigger is its chance to procreate. Old and sick individuals are not supported and die. Weak offspring is often killed by predators or its progenitors to provide more food for the ones that have better chances to survive.
The success of a an animal "society" can be calculated using formulae of population dynamics.

The Nazis took some of these ideas and tried to optimize the "species" of the Aryan man. They played God and, instead of natural selection, it was them who chose the candidates to be removed or sterilized due to their inconvenient genes (specially the mentally retarded).
In the photo, Chris Korda at Dachau crematorium.

It's ethics that makes us human. That's why we can't apply the laws of biology to the human population. Same as some animal species have been tremendously successful due to an advantageous trait, leading to extinction a great number of weaker beings, human intelligence is what makes us escape from the limitations imposed by some of the laws of population ecology.

There are some exceptions. Some primitive tribes, such as certain Inuits in the 19ths and 20th act in a way that guarantees the survival of the clan under hostile conditions. If a hunter gets old and can't support himself anymore, his oldest son has to help him to commit suicide. If he doesn't have a son he has to be supported by the rest of the clan members, which is humiliating. Death before dishonor.

The thing about the Church of Euthanasia is that anybody is encouraged to do something for this tortured and overpopulated planet. There are several ways to collaborate (The Four Pillars):

• Suicide
• Abortion
  
• Cannibalism
• Sodomy

And most important: DO NOT PROCREATE. This is kind of senseless. Yes indeed, if we all stopped to have children, the human population would decrease, but after at least 60 years, the only survivors would be elderly people. Do we want that? No we don't, but maybe the planet wants, is that the idea? Cleaning the planet like teenagers cleanse their oily skin?
Of course the church encourages people to enjoy all kinds of "harmless" (to the planet) sexual practices and, of course, masturbation is a must.

So, I think suicide would definitively be more sustainable. Muslim kamikazes die for their cause, why don't we die for what should be the cause for all of us, our planet's welfare? Well because - life's kind of fun and besides that, who would go on with the church of euthanasia movement if it's leaders all disappeared? I guess that the suicide pillar is meant for the lower class of followers, not fore the ideologists.
The church's official recommended method is helium (guide).

Cannibalism? Why? Don't worry, it's just about sustainability again. Of course, only the already dead should be used for human consumption. Same as other close animal species we should make the most of the available resources and should not waste precious biological material. That sounds quite sensible, no? The problem is that we definitively have been miseducated in that sense: we have been told that eating humans is just - the worst thing you can do.
The biggest problem, I think, would be the supply. Of course we only want to consume healthy corpses. Or would you eat the flesh of a 95-year old who has died of cancer? Or AIDS? "Donate your corpse to science or for human consumption - forms available at all major hospitals." But who would get the meat and how much would it cost? And if it was sold, there would be consumers who like it a lot and mafias would start to control the supply...
Anyway, just in case you're theoretically interested, read the Church's step-by-step guide on Butchering the Human Carcass for Human Consumption.


The church's article on the pillar Sodomy is quite confusing: it deals with Urine therapy and its benefits. Is that sodomy??? "Rinse, gargle and swish with fresh uring... the flavor will become familiar after a while...to start pour a few ounces into your morning juice."

If you visit the website, you will find out that some of the links such as "suicide" apparently don't work. Hidden behind 2nd and 3rd level links you can find some quite wicked stuff. If you download their video (not for minors), you will see.
Check their family album, from which I have taken the photos for this blog post. Some of the church's campaigns are quite satirical and entertaining!

If you want to get more information about the topic, better visit the clearly structured website of sister organization The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
"Its basic concept is the belief that Gaia, the Earth, would be better off without humans and as such, humans should choose not to breed."


FROM THE MEDIA:

Politician comes out in defense of cannibalism

Weird twin stories

A very young American woman called Nadya Suleman, with a pretty face and lips full of Botox (I'm sure her idea was to look like Angelina Jolie), gave birth to eight babies on January 2009. All of them survived. Normally, most of the "members" of a set of octuplets or nonuplets do not survive for more than a few days or even die during birth. A week after birth, the Suleman set became the longest-living octuplets in known history.
But the American society couldn't deal with the fact that Nadya was a single mother, without a stable employment and with already 6 children at home! There was no forgiveness for her. America hated her. In the media it was calculated how much her 14 children would cost her in the future and what amount of money she would receive from the government to support her children. The average US citizen was upset about the fact that he/she had to support this irresponsible girl's huge family with his/her taxes. For Nadya, what was most important, was that she'd be able to provide her litter with love, love and love.




In 2006, twin brothers Alexander and Nicholas Grunke were "arrested in Wisconsin, USA, after they tried to dig up a girls' corpse and have sex with it" (or her?).

Photo by Grant County Jail via AP

Nicholas had seen a photo of a girl of his age who had been killed in a motocycle crash. He got sexually excited by her beauty and by the fact that she was just there, in the cemetery, and still fresh and untouched by worms and other necro-bugs. What is funny about twins is that he had no problem at all to convince his twin brother (plus another friend) to immediately drive to the graveyard and start to dig the girl up for the purpose of having sex with her lifeless body. On the way, they stopped at Wal-Mart to buy condoms (can you understand now why there is a page called www.peopleofwalmart.com?).
Lucky them, necrophilia is not illegal in Wisconsin. I'm sure the guys would have had a great time in jail after trying to rape fresh corpse...
Read more about the case

It seems like in Bali, when twins of different gender (kembar buntijing) are born, they are forced to marry. Normally, incest isn't ok, but if destiny brings together a male and a female human being in one single womb - it's just a match made in heaven and has to be respected! The marriage brings prosperity. This only happens in high caste families. In the rest of society, the birth of mixed twins is considered a bad omen for the family, and the whole village becomes "unclean" from that moment on. It is blamed on the father who has to spend a lot of money (even selling his land or becoming a slave) to pay for a very expensive purification ceremony.

At "Weird America" I found this funny vintage-style video on the Poubelle Twins - two weird female wrestlers. A lot of twins have chosen to become successful in the world of entertainment.




In December 2005, a Romanian woman of 33 years, Maricica Tescu, pregnant with twins, gave birth to only one, premature baby. His twin brother preferred to stay in his cozy cave until two months later, already in 2006. This was possible because of a rare congenital condition: Maricica had two uteruses, and one baby in each.

Another story about one twin brother leading astray the other....
We have two 26-years-old very hot mulato twins. And they know how hot they are. As teenagers, they were quite different. One of them, Keyon, was effeminate, gay and looking for a career as a model. His brother Taleon was always in trouble and hadn't decided what to do in life.
At the age of about 25, the gay one, Keyon, was offered a "role" in a gay porn movie. When the producer heard he had a twin brother, he wanted both of them. Incredible, but true: he convinced Taleon, who was not gay, to make porn together in a threesome with another man (with whom the poor hetero twin ended up having sex, while his brother was assisting).
It was just for money. Just one job. They thought. But being handsome black identical twins opened them the doors to success in the porn industry. But they could be too easily recognized...
Now it was Taleon's turn to convince Keyon to join his games. Taleon, who wasn't eager to end up being a gay porn star, but needed money urgently, planned to rob a business together with his brother. At the end, Taleon was caught and Keyon escaped, now trying to restart his modeling career.
Two identical twins with different characters. Both have tasted a sample of their other half's life - temporarily. More

In November 2008, a woman in Ohio gave birth to her own, triplet, granddaughters.
Her daughter Kim, married to her second husband, had already two children from her first marriage and couldn't carry a child anymore. As adoption was difficult, 56-years-old Jaci Dalenberg offered herself as surrogate mom. After the third try to transfer eggs, the grandmother got pregnant and managed to give birth to three premature female babies: a set of twins and a singleton. CBS News

The Siamese twins Abby & Brittany turn 20 this year. Normally we always get to see images of Siamese baby twins, but what happens in adolescence? How do they dress, what happens if they have a crush on someone at college? How do they coordinate their arms? What about passing an exam without cheating?
This video was made when they turned 16.







Last year, 20 year-old Mia Washington gave birth to two twin boys in Dallas, Texas. When the boys were almost one year old, she realized that they looked very different. So she decided to get the paternity test. And - surprise, surprise - the twin boys have different fathers!
How the hell is this possible???
To make this possible, Mia had to
1. Produce multiple eggs while ovulating
2. have (you know what I mean) first with one man (her partner) and then, within not more than 48 hours, with another one
And the semen of both sexual partners had to fertilize one of Mia's eggs.
Funny coincidence, but quite embarrassing for her...

This last video is the sad story of five girl born in 1934. At that time, the Dionne quintuplets. At this time, they were considered nothing but a kind of circus attraction and were exploited by the local authorities. Their image was used to promote a wide range of commercial products and until they were nine they weren't allowed to live with their parents.

Gender Identity

Most of us are lucky. Most of us have "chosen" to be the gender that matches our bodies' sex. We are born as girls or as boys and feel as such. Pink or blue.
But, due to physiological or psychological reasons, some are yellow. As there is grey between black and white, yellow can be found between the gender extremes painted in pink or blue.

Thomas Beatie, the "pregnant man" is one of the best examples. Just listen to the charming lady who interviews him at the beginning of the video. She clearly shows the intolerance of these people's environment. It's not just about being pregnant while living as a man. It's also about much simpler, everyday issues, such as a woman having to show an ID with a male name, or the last facial hair on the chin of a young transgender childminder...



Intersex

How can we tell that somebody is a man or a woman? Some men can perfectly disguise as and behave as women and are still physically male, so how do we know?
If we look at our chromosomes, a typical woman should have 2 X chromosomes and an average man an X and a Y chromosome. That means, that genetically, a standard woman has a so-called “46XX” karyotype and a standard man a 46XY karyotype.
But gender is not only defined by chromosomes, but only by hormones and, as we will see later, by the brain.


An intersex condition is present if the karyotype is neither XX nor XY or if the chromosomes are normal male or female but the individual hasn't been exposed to the correct hormones during the fetal development, producing genitals belonging to the opposite sex or any kind of mixture of male and female characteristics.
These latter would be called true hermaphrodites. Many people have an additional sex chromosome but still have a well defined gender. XYY men, for example, usually don't even know about their condition. It is said that these men are more violent and have stronger masculine traits than other, but there is no evidence. XXY males instead are almost always infertile and can have a range of learning and functional deficits. This is called the Klinefelter's Syndrome (in the photo) and does not occurr in all XXY males. Some of them may also turn out to be transgenders.

Normally, if a baby is diagnosed to be intersex, the big problem is to assign one of the two (accepted) genders. Nowadays, doctors are recommended that babies with ambiguous genitals should not be given "corrective" surgery (to turn a hermaphrodite into a man or woman) and should be left to decide their own gender during their childhood. However, most of the intersex people are raised as girls or boys from the very beginning on and also perfectly identify themselves as such.

In the case of Adele, the decision taken by the doctors and the parents was wrong. When she was born with ambiguous genitals, it was decided to turn her into a boy. The decision was maybe right from the physical point of view, but with time, it became evident that Adele felt as a girl. In the future, she would like to be able to choose an intersex gender, the third gender.



The person in the video is one of the few people that are real "in-betweens". If you look at her (the name is Kelly), she may look like a transgender man at first sight, but if you observe her gestures, you will realize that there's just both - female and male.



Transgenders

Some people are biologically male or female but feel belonging to the opposite sex almost from the very beginning on. They are called transgenders.

Sometimes, when intersex children are born, the more convenient of the two gender options is chosen (corrective surgery), and if the wrong decision is taken, the children have to live their lives as transgenders, trapped in a body of the wrong sex.
It was long believed that gender identity is only a question of environment. If a child is raised as a girl, it will be a girl. The case shown in the video is quite dramatic: two twin babies undergo circumcision and one loses his penis due to an accident during the surgery. The doctors encourage the parents to raise the child as a girl...




Nowadays, there are medical protocols to diagnose the Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and to help children find the gender that fits them. Sometimes, the disorder becomes evident at an age as early as two years. Parents are encouraged not to force their children to live their biological gender if they don't feel so. Before puberty, many doctors choose the option of a hormonal treatment to delay the physiological changes that turn a child into an adult - an adult of the wrong gender. At the age o 16, if the patient hasn't changed his/her mind, female or male hormones can be prescribed. The last step is sex reassignment surgery, which in serious cases is financed by the public health system (in Europe).


It is often said that transgender children commonly turn homosexuals in adulthood. I consider this a completely false approach. If a child born as a boy but feeling as a girl grows up, it is just natural that she feels attracted to men. Because in my opinion, our gender identity is in our head, so a transgender boy cannot be considered gay at all, because at the end of the day, he's soul is female and he's done everything to turn his body female, too.

From the news:
In March 2010, Italy will open the World's first jail for transgendered prisoners (read more)

Transsexuals

Of course there are what we commonly know as crossdressers or transsexuals, most of them working in the entertainment sector. Most of them are not real transgenders. They have been (homosexual) boys / men during a great part of their life and feel attracted by dressing as a woman. Some of them would have preferred to be born as a girl, others not.

Thailand

Talking about entertainment. One of the countries were transgenders are most accepted and integrated in society is Thailand. Recently, a school announced that from now on, it will offer toilets for transexuals. There is a complete industry to turn effeminate boys into kathoeys, or ladyboys. Even though the fate of most of them is to sell their body for money, some manage to gain fame as exotic dancers or beauty queens. Many families try to raise their boys as girls, as prostitution in Thailand is one of the most lucrative businesses.
The video shows a collection of sexy Thai kathoeys. I just can't believe how beautiful and perfectly female some of them look. Some may consider them "improved women" - the delightful and stimulating appearance of a goddess combined with the right tool to satisfy the client's or partner's sexual needs. And a lot of them have natural breasts due to hormone intake since their puberty.




From the news:
An English grandmother claims she was bound, beaten and robbed by a gang of ladyboys while on holiday in Thailand (read more)

Links

Transgendered children's bill of human rights
Intersex Society of North America
A true hermaphrodite over the years (in pictures)
Transsexuals, transgendered and crossdressers dating
Ladyboy beauty contest (video)

Extreme diets

Eating insects, worms and Co.

Most of you will say: "No way! Insects are just soooo disgusting!" But the reasons for this aversion are purely cultural. We have always been told that insects are dirty, creepy and cannot be given any value. Wrong!
Actually, most of us love shrimps. Eating a small crevette or a fried cricket is just about the same. In Spain, up to 1000 € are paid per kilo of angulas - baby eels - which look just like white and grey intestinal parasites!


Many cultures include insects in their everyday diet. Insects are highly nutritious, very rich in proteins and very cheap to produce. So eating insects is actually a good way to be more sustainable!
In most Western countries, insects are only eaten as a rare delikatessen or their consumption is considered a weird fashion. I remember the insect trend of the 1990s - lollipops with worms, fried crickets or living worm spaghettis for the brave.

In Colombia "hormigas culonas", that would translate "big-assed ants" can be bought once a year. They are quite expensive and taste like a salty snack. The chocolate-covered version can be bought online here.





Raw food diet / living food diet (mostly vegetarian)

Raw and Living Foodists eat all fruits, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, seeds, grains, sea vegetables and other organic/natural food that have not been processed.
Living foods are foods that contain enzymes. Cooking destroys the enzymes and alters the molecular structure of food and renders it toxic, Raw Foodists say.
As you can imagine, eating raw fruits and vegetables only is quite exasperating. To eat nuts or grain such as rice, Living Foodists have to be very creative to be able to prepare their food in a way that goes with their ideology. Nuts and seeds have to be soaked and sprouted before consumed. Find some recipes here.
Imagine how difficult it must be to become a Raw Foodist if the people that surround you are not. In most countries it's hard to find vegetarian food so imagine how difficult it must be to find living food for a quick takeaway! And some people's eating habits are even more extreme:

Sproutarians feed mainly or only on sprouts (sprouted legumes, grains or seeds). How can anybody live exclusively on sprouts???? Judith Wade is one of them. They say that sprouts is the most nutritious, vibrant and alive food, second only to ethereal prana (see "pranic feeding" below). Even though I'm not a chocolate lover I have to admit that sometimes I would just kill for some sweet food - how do they get their sugar??
Raw fruitarians believe that their diet should not cause the death of any living plant. They can only eat food than can be harvested without destroying the plant, such as fruits, seeds or nuts. Eating lettuce, broccoli or potato (the root of the plant) would be too cruel.
Juicearians basically feed on juices made of fruits, vegetables and wheat grass.

Of course, many of the raw food extremists choose to live in communities as to minimize the problems of coexisting with people living on a standard diet. So, their whole live is actually just about how to eat "correctly", following the rules of their extreme diet. The guy on the video talks about the healthy properties of green vegetables. Of course they are healthy, but feeding mainly on spinach?????? I love spinach, but I don't think I would enjoy to live with spinach as may main companion in life.



Example of what a Raw Foodist may eat in one day (meanwhile you read this, I'll get a nice piece of chocolate cake...):

• Breakfast: fresh fruit, coconut water, flax meal (banana, apple, flax seeds, almond milk and cinnamon) topped with germinated nuts
• Smoothie made of Super foods, spinach and herbal tea, wheat grass (yes, as if we were cows), home-made sunflower seed cheese or pate on cucumber, coleslaw with avocado
• Dinner: avocado/carrot soup (cold), thai lettuce wraps, green juice
• Drink: pure water, fruit juices, almond milk, coconut water, smoothies

Freaky eaters

The fruitarian's best friend? Definitively not someone who lives only on chocolate. Yes, only chocolate. Some people suffer from an eating disorder that means that there are only one or two types of food they can get down them without choking. And normally, they don't live exclusively on apples, but rather on chocolate, sausages, bred or cheese crackers.
The healthy looking girl on the photo is 30-year-old Eva Verissimo. Eva was diagnosed with Achalasia-a condition affecting the muscle of the oesophagus which carries food to her stomach-12 years ago.

Almost the only thing she eats is chocolate. A Bounty for breakfast, a Snickers for lunch, a Cadbury's Flake for dinner and a Cadbury's Cream Egg as a late night-snack. She says she's tired of not being able to eat a proper meal.
In the photo, a deep fried Mars bar - probably Scotland's worst food invention ...

Many other people share Eva's eating habits. The BBC series "Freaky eaters" tries to help those people with bizarre monotonous diets. Most of the times, the condition is a result of a psychological childhood trauma. They eat only one kind of food because they know they like it and feel secure with it. Some of the people that appeared in the show had to vomit when seeing vegetables at a market stand. They want to try new foods but are not able to eat them. One girl has been eating only potatoes for years: chips and mum's potatoe mash (other mashs she can't eat). Every day. Another one lives on just one type of sausages, the more burnt the better.
In the video: Adrian, who mainly eats Spaghetti Hoops (a brand of instant noodles) and toast. Exceptions may be fries, sodas and chocolate.




Prana feeding

Feeding on prana ("life-energy" in Sanskrit, Qi in Chinese) means feeding on sunlight and fresh air. The perfect breatharians are supposed to achieve the ability to unhook themselves from the need to take physical food. But of course, only a few cases of people practicing pranic feeding over months have been reported, and most scientists are skeptic even though some of these Gurus have been monitored for days by medical research teams.
The idea of inedia is that through a specific meditation, the cell metabolism can be reprogrammed to obtain energy directly from prana (sunlight and pure air are necessary) instead of fueling nutrients in order to produce it. It is not the same as extreme fasting or extreme anorexia, as the body of a breatharian should work perfectly and does not show any symptoms of starvation.

I can imagine angels or other superior spiritual beings sitting together and enjoying some nice tapas of prana. But the average non-ethereal human has not yet achieved the ability to go beyond the limits of his physical body. But it seems that some Gurus such as Hiran Ratan Manek, Prahlad Jani (in the photo), the monk Sahajmuniji or Jashmuseen, can. Even though scientists are skeptic, these highly spiritual people definitively are able to subsist on much much less food than the rest of the mortals.

What I think can be a good option for anyone is partial prana feeding. In the video below, Jashmuseen proposes a meditation technique to obtain direct energetic nourishment and reduce food intake. Imagine the positive consequences for the World's resources! And think about the reduction of expenses for food! I'd start every month on day 15 to be able to eat one meal less during the last week of the month, when it comes to living on a shoestring.
Attention: the video seems to be the typical new-age-kitsch, but is actually highly hypnotic!

It is said that some types of vampires (specially the psychic vampires) feed on prana.




Paleolithic diet and raw animal food diets

If vegans or breatharians do their best to raise their consciousness and evolute spiritually, followers of paleolithic diets return to the roots of mankind. The paleolithic diet attempts to simulate the ancestral diet consumed during the Paleolithic - a period that ended about 10 000 years ago with the development of agriculture. They tend to reject "neolithic" or domesticated foods. If using the commonly available modern foods, the diet basically consists of meat, fish, vegetables and fruits, nuts and roots. Grains, legumes, salt, dairy product, refined sugar and processed foods (even oil) are excluded. A fundamentalist paleolithic would also exclude cultivated fruits and vegetables, as they are domesticated foods. In the paleolithic, humans lived in communities of hunters-gatherers, so vegetables others than the wild growing were not included in their diet.
The Primal diet consists of fatty meats, organ meats, dairy, honey, minimal fruit and vegetable juices and coconut cream, all raw. The diet was founded by Aajonus Vonderplanitz (in California, of course) and simulates the diet of some actual tribes, such as the Siberian Inuits.
This diet is definitively not healthy for a non-Inuit who is not living in the Siberian tundras. Humans have adopted different eating habits depending on their habitat. I think it's just stupid to start an extreme diet just because some ancestral tribes living under completely different conditions (and dying young, by the way) follow it. To me, this seems just like another of these Californian fashion diets (fad diets); and it doesn't even make you lose weight!
Another type of ancestral diet is the raw animal food diet, which permits all kind of raw food of animal origen: raw, unprocessed meats and organ-meats, raw eggs, raw dairy and aged, raw animal foods such as century eggs, fermenting meat/fish/shellfish/kefir; nuts, sprouts, plants and fruits are allowed to a lesser extent. Raw grains and beans are excluded because paleolists believe that the human body is not prepared to deal with these products due to their poor digestibility and their toxicity.

The following video shows two extreme Raw Foodist: a woman living on nothing butraw fruits and vegetables and a man eating mainly raw meat (I have to admit that he looks much healthier than her...)


And to finish, just one wonderful example of a miracle "diet" to lose weight: The tapeworm diet. In Mexico you can get microscopically identified beef tapeworm cysts. The worm will interfere with your digestion, actually "eating" (absorbing") part of your food intake. So in reality you eat less. Once the weight loss is reached, an antibiotic is given, the tapeworm is killed so it can be expelled.... great idea! :-)

Forum post I found:

"I am 13 y.o., and i want to become a breatharian. I wonder if i am going to continue growing while living on air alone, or if I am going to stay the same height like now, I am just 153cm.
i also wonder if I am going to get my cyclus while I am breatharian? Do breatharians drink water? What about drinking tea? If i don't drink water, can I have my menstruation? Can breatharians become pregnant and have kids?
Can breatharians sweat? I heard that people sweat when they make love. What happens to our intestines, if we stop eating for many years? If we don't drink, do we urinate?
What if a 7 year old child becomes a breatharian, will he continue growing? (my brother).
Thanks, Rachel"

LINKS:
Bay Area Bug Eating Society (BABES)
Insect recipes
Tapworm diet
BBC Freaky Eaters
Raw Food Planet
Primal diet
Breatharianism
Breatharian forum