Body modifications

This week's article is on one of my favorite topics. We've all seen these young rasta guys who suspend their bodies from hooks that have been put through body piercings - originally, the idea of suspension was to gain a higher level of spiritual fulfillment but nowadays mostly it's nothing but pure entertainment. Some women also introduce hooks into their back to emulate the appearance of the lacing on the back of a corset (corset piercing).
But body modifications are much more. Some people even try to do everything to look like their favorite animal. Keep reading and you'll find out.
This is not an article about body modifications for ritual reasons. This article is not about African tribes, giraffe women or Asian monks punishing themselves introducing knives into their cheeks.

Splitting and removal

In some countries of the world (obviously in the Netherlands), the splitting of certain body parts for aesthetic reasons is legal. The most common body modification is the splitting of the tongue. I think the bifid tongue, which allows very exciting movements, is a groovy thing. It's one of the first "mods" most of the extreme weirdos such as lizard man or leopard man get done.
Now I have to say that the result depends extremely on the owner of the tongue. The cute Asian girl in the video, who kindly shows us the splitting process she suffered, has definitively not lost her female attractive due to the surgery:




Tongue splitting is one thing. Even being a women, penis splitting seems just too hardcore for me. But, for unknown reason, there are always people willing to try that stuff (well, they only try once).
A lot of questions arise: how do they pee? Who do they eyaculate? I heard that some of these guys, after splitting their peter, put a piercing ring into each of the halves and a padlock to keep the penis shut during the day. What else could they do??
The genital bisection still allows for erection, though often the two halves curve into each other (I thought the purpose was to improve sexual activities, but I see it's not).
The photo shows the most extreme case, a complete splitting. But parcial "solutions" such as the meatotomy (splitting of the underside of the glans) are much more attractive, in my opinion.

There are people, some suffering from body integrity disorder (look for "amputee fetish" here) who have parts of their body removed. Fingers, penis, nipples or limbs can be victims of nullification. One of the weirdest examples are Ryan and Dave, twins from Phoenix, Arizona. Dave got his entire right arm amputated at the shoulder to have it surgically reattached behind his brother's right pectoral muscle. This is not a joke, you can read more here.


For some people it's not enough to modify their bodies; they want to modify their mind. Trepanation is a medical intervention in which a hole is cut into the human skull and left open permanently.
"Modified Mind" describes his experience:
This weekend I had a hole drilled through my skull. I read that this increased one’s consciousness permanently. I read about the supposed de-conditioning properties. I read about more parts of the brain working simultaneously as there would be more blood up there to help this happen. The arguments for it all seemed to be quite lengthy, quite detailed, thought out and researched, and very intelligent. The arguments against it were based solely on the opinion that it is ‘crazy’ and talk like, "What’s more conscious than conscious?". Read more

Eyes

Modifications of the eye? If you think of Chinese women having their eyes fixed to look more Western - maybe I'll write about that in a post about plastic surgery. Or people who have their whole body tattooed, including their eyelids. But what I have in mind is this:
Ever heard of "eyeball tattooing"? That's what's necessary to attain the electric blue eyes of the Arrakian spice melange addict (read the "Dune" trilogy by Frank Herbert) without having access to great amounts of the spice melange.
The problem is that you can't change the color to match it with your make-up or evening dress...

Eyeball jewelry is definitively the more elegant alternative. For 500 - 1000 € and in just 15 minutes the little platinum "jewels" are implanted in the conjunctiva.




Complete transformation

Some few people in the world decided to undergo a complete modification of their body to transform themselves into an animal or fantastic creature. They use all the tools that modern "science" can provide: extreme tattooing and piercing, subdermal implants to modify the body shape, tongue splitting, tooth filing, ear shaping etcetera, etcetera.
Famous example are Pauly unstoppable (photo on the left), who makes us discover the insides of a human nose. On his website, a full list of his body modifications is available.
67-years-old "Leopard man" lives away from modern society scampering around on all fours like a leopard.
Brazilian Elaine Davidson is the most pierced person in the world, she wears over 2500 piercings, 500(!) of them only around the genitals.
Kala Kawai (photo on the right) split his tongue using dental floss and did all his own piercings. Today he looks like an angry bull.

Probably the most famous case is "Stalking cat". Dennis Avner, native American, wanted to transform himself into his totem animal - the tiger: Tattoos, silicon implants on his face, filed teeth, pointed ears, attachable whiskers, claws and even a bifurcated top lip make him look like this (photo on the left).
Check out this website for the Top 10 of physically modified people.

This post would be way too long if I wrote about all the forms of modifying a body that I found on the Internet. But keep researching and post a comment sharing your conclusions with me.

Sumo wrestling - gaining weight for success

"Sumo is a competitive contact sport where a wrestler (rikishi) attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring (dohy) or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally.
The sumo tradition is very ancient and includes many ritual elements. Life as a rikishi is highly regimented, with rules laid down by the Sumo Association."

(Wikipedia)

I was always astonished about how a great number of women, specially in gipsy or Arabic cultures, are able to turn their adolescent 90-60-90 bodies into a bell-like XXL mass of fat after having found a husband and having given birth to their first child. How can such a complete change happen in such a short time?
The same question I ask myself whenever I see a photo of one of these monumental Sumo wrestlers. I mean, if it were big and strong black men with big and heavy bones, who turn into huge Buddhas... but no, it's delicate little Japanese who dedicate their lives to convert their figure - perfect for ballett or ski-jumping - into something that wasn't genetically meant for them.

The Japanese, not prone to overweight as race, have developed a method to successfully gain weight despite of their unfavorable genetics. Starting the training at a tender age and with not more than 20 - 40 kilos on their ribs, their goal is to gain as much fat and muscle mass as they can. There are no weight divisions for sumo wrestlers - one who hasn't reached more than 100 kilos will have a serious disadvantage when facing a combatant who at least doubles his weight.

The basic diet rules for their quick weight gain are:

• Skip breakfast
• Exercise on empty stomach
• Sleep a long siesta after a XXL-size lunch
• Eat late in the day and go to bed with full stomach
• Eat with others in social atmosphere
• Drink large amounts of alcohol (beer)

Sumo wrestlers are NOT leading the life of a Homer Simpson, eating donuts and watching TV all day long. Not at all. They eat very healthy food and their lifestyle is highly regimented. They only eat twice a day but their meals are gigantic, equivalent to five or ten regular meals! By doing so, they tell their bodies to store the ingested energy in fat deposits. By skipping breakfast and exercising on empty stomach the metabolic rates stay low, burning less fat, and the wrestlers are so hungry by lunchtime that they can eat larger amounts of food. Of course, they are not able to eat the huge portions they are supposed to ingest from the very beginning on, even if they force themselves to eat more than their bodies can take. They have to progressively train their stomachs to stretch and accommodate larger volumes. They even have special massages to turn the intestines more flexible!

Sleeping for four or five hours after intaking large amounts of food helps the wrestlers to conserve as much energy as possible. Don't forget that they have to gain weight despite of hours of daily exercise. Sleeping and exercise are also necessary for muscles to grow. A sumo wrestler is not only a mass of fat; he's rather like a nucleus of muscle mass - necessary for the simple movements during the combat - wearing a thick coat of wobbling blubber. The fat around abdomen and hips lowers their center of gravity and makes it harder to push them out of balance.
Some wrestlers are remarkably strong and also flexible. Konishiki (a native Hawaiian past grand champion, of 300 kilos) could finish 70 pieces of sushi and 100 bottles of beer in one sitting but he could also dance the night away and do splits.

The menu they eat twice a day never changes. The chanko-nabe consists of some type of protein (fish, seafood, chicken or meat) in a fish broth stew with rice and vegetables. In many training camps wrestlers are encouraged to drink alcohol with their meals - a traditional means of putting on weight more quickly. Alcohol makes the cortisol level rise; cortisol is a stress hormone that directs fat to be deposited in the abdominal area (beer belly).

Sumo wrestlers are trained in so-called "stables" where they don't do anything else but training, eating and sleeping. Well, almost anything else. At the beginning, the stablemasters treat them like slaves to shape their character and prepare them to become fighters.

Actually, when they start, they seem to be trained both to become a sumo wrestler and an average house-wife in a conservative society: doing the housework for their companions while being treated like shit, sometimes being beaten up by their trainers and - gaining weight till turning into a 45 years-old obese mother and housewife.
They stay in the camp all day long except for a short trip to the store to buy food.





Sumo stables don't take unfit overweight children for their training. They look for healthy and strong youngsters who can take, physically and mentally, the rigorous training and lifestyle.
Rikishis (wrestlers) have to grow their hair long to form a topknot and wear the traditional Japanese dress when in public. They always have to obey their stablemaster; breaking the rules can result in fines, suspension or even severe physical punishment.

In the past, many poor boys from rural areas were encouraged by their parents to enter a sumo stable. Nowadays, it is known that sumo is a very dangerous sport (their life expectancy is 10 years below the average) and not so popular anymore among Japanese teenagers. Hawaiians or Polynesian descent have found success in sumo wrestling as they seem to be physically built for the sport. They have big frames, heavy bones and put on weight effortlessly (the next time you visit Hawaii, look what the fast-food society did to the natives). It takes about 10 years for a Japanese wrestler to reach fighting weight, but much less for a Hawaiian one.


What I find really entertaining is that, being Sumo wrestling a sport not accessible to women and being Japanese women quite petite, the Sumo wrestlers actually imitate the aesthetic of a fat woman wearing a tanga and showing nothing but the raw, jelly-like reality. Imagine a feminine sport with obese women pulling at the opponent's tanga string (must be quite painful, if you know what I mean) - would we like to see that? And I also wonder about the foreigners that have recently been accepted to the stables? Do they have to wax their bikini zone every month or does their contract include laser hair removal? If not, it must be quite disgusting for the audience....

Talking about women: there are actually some women trying to become sumo wrestlers, even though feminine sumo is very unpopular. 14-year-old Samantha from Australia is one of them...

To finish: Nowadays, being obesity one of the diseases that most have to be worried about, the Japanese, who are one of the tiniest and slimmest races on earth, try to do everything to become obese and make money by exhibiting their unhealthy bodies. They are sent to special camps to gain weight in record time, while even Chinese children are turning into Hamburger-eating Buddhas and have to spend months in camps to achieve just the opposite - to lose weight and lead a more healthy life.

In the photo, two amateur sumo wrestlers face each other during a baby-crying contest in Tokyo in 2007. 84 babies took part in the event which is held to pray for the babies' health and growth. The winner is the baby who cries the loudest (Reuters).

Tightlacing - extreme waists

Tightlacing (also called corset training and waist training) 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.Modern tightlacing is a minority interest, often associated with fetishistic interests in the corset and BDSM. The majority of tightlacers are women, although some men also tightlace quite extensively.
(Wikipedia)

I think we all agree that these corsetted vintage women are just marvellous. The beautiful, feminine shape, the dreaming eyes.... Well, in reality, more than dreaming, these poor women were just permanently gasping for air, almost fainting due to a serious shortness of breath and indigestion.



The perfect woman of the 1990ies, Claudia Schiffer, has a waist circumference of about 24 inches (62 cm). In the 19th century, average corsetted waist measurements varied between 20 and 23 inches (still not completely pathological), but women with wasp waists as small as 16 to 18 inches were not uncommon and even celebrates as beauty queens. Especially in England, the perfect size of a woman's waist was not more than 18 to 20 inches!
In the mid 19th century sewing machines were invented and corsets were mass-produced and turned relatively cheap. Victorian middle and lower-class women became obsessed with extreme tightlacing, trying to reduce their waists as much as possible in order to get a man.

But only one woman managed to reach a waist measurement as small as 13 inches. Ethel Granger, who tight-laced for most of her life, achieved the incredible 13 inches waist: a reduction of over 10 inches (almost half of Claudia Schiffer's waist)!
To achieve this exaggerated hourglass shape, Ethel had to wear a special corset almost for her whole life. At the beginning the tightlacers wear a corset about 4 inches smaller than the natural waist. After a certain, depending on the body fat, the corset can be laced tighter and after about a year a reduction of 6 inches can be achieved.

On the photo on the left, Polaire, with a 14-inch waist.

Of course, wearing a corset doesn't make anyone slimer! The fat, the muscles and even the inner organs are just reorganized. (I don't wanna know where all the fat goes, in case a rather obese person wants to tightlace, redistributing the fat rolls by doing so).

A tightlacer's liver is pressed upwards and sometimes looks as if split into two halves.

The stomach (deprived of his normal "habitat" by the corset)'s volume is reduced and the corsetted person cannot eat larges amount of food or carbonated drinks anymore (some corset webportals say that tightlacers become even healthier persons as they eat smaller amounts of food, but I'm really not sure about that...). Indigestion and "trapped winds" are also a major problem. A person wearing a very tight corset can only breath intercostally (shallow breating) which can be the origin of many minor diseases, such as a permanent, quite disgusting cough. Exercise? Not more than regular walking (a tightlacer can't even think about swimming, as long as he or she wears a special swimming corset - a problem for the males).

The myth of the ethereal Victorian beauty - totally destroyed by what happens in reality: farting and pale women who can't join most of the activities that make life so enjoyable.

Talking about modern tightlacers, the woman who currently has the smallest waist is 70 years-old Cathie Jung, with incredible 15 inches (38.1 cm). Unlike Victorian women, she didn't start to wear a corset until the age of 25. Born in Connecticut, she is born to an orthopaedic surgeon and has stayed corsetted for the last 26 years (she takes off her corset only for bathing).

In this video, Cathie appears in an Italian TV show. An innocent young man with bonded eyes has to guess what parts of the body is touching. As Cathie's waist is almost as small as an upper arm, the poor guy is quite confused...

What seems really strange to me is when I see men trying to achieve the ancient feminine hourglass shape. Why should they do that?
One of the most famous examples is Mr. Pearl. This former fetish legend grew up in South Africa and is today a successfull, Paris based corsetier, commissioned by Mugler, Lacroix, Galliano and Gaultier when they need a master to produce their corset designs for the runway. Clients include Dita von Teese, Kylie Minogue and Jerry Hall.


What strikes about his photos is that, with his 18-inch (!!!) corsetted waist he manages to even enhace his image of a true English gentleman.


I guess that being a fashion designer allowed him to escapes the category of a total freak.

Something that I heard of years ago but never new if it actually existed is the removal of ribs to achieve an hourglass shape in less time. I think it does exist. At least there is a website of a quite suspect doctor called Dr. Aaron Stone (stoned and removing ribs?) in Los Angeles who offers rib removals plus tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) for merely aesthetic purposes This method has been said to have existed during the Victorian era as well, but evidence is scarce.

In this body-shaping procedure, the floating ribs number 11 and 12 (and ocasionally number 10) are removed. But rib removal per se does not reduce waist circumference. It has to be combined with a tummy tuck to remove the surplus body fat.

Rumours about certain Hollywood celebrities having their floating ribs removed are usually nothing but rumours.
But, the method exists. It just doesn't seem clear to me if the achieved result is actually a nice and smooths hourglass or guitar shape. It kind of looks to hard-edged to me. And irreversible, of course.

However, let's hope that the homosexual fashion designers who design the fashion tendencies years in advance, don't think about creating a new standard of feminine beauty: a body with a wasp waist, so small that our delicate body is in danger of falling apart.

Leave your comments, see you in two weeks.