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.

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

Plastic surgery

When I was 17, plastic surgery was considered an invention for brainless, rich American women. That was over 10 years ago. Nowadays, it's part of our society. A friend is getting a nose job, uncle Tom got some hair implants for last year's father's day and grandmother Abigail has been saving money for the last 2 years to get her turkey double-chin removed. I have some ideas about what I'd get done if I just had the money: I definitely need to change my armpits - they just don't go with the rest of the body. And of course the usual program: get some nice tits, full-body hair removal, tummy tuck, arm liposuction and ear reshaping. And I want my little daughter to look half Korean. It's just more fashionable than simply being white. I'm just kidding.

I think nowadays it's perfectly ok to improve one's physical appearance. I mean, not actually changing it, only fixing some little defects or even handicaps. But why would a good looking person want to completely change in shape, color and size until turning into an unnatural looking freak? On the right, good old Donatella Versace.
Some people just don't know when to stop. Their problem is that they never run out of money. And the surgeons don't stop them. And they should.

The best example is Jocelyn Wildenstein (left), the World's scariest celebrity by plastic surgery. She was born in 1940 in Switzerland and was a real beauty in her youth. She married the billionaire art dealer Alec Wildenstein. After years of marriage her husband started to date other women and Jocelyn decided to attempt transforming herself into one of Alec's beloved giant cats. With the help of plastic surgery. She has received several silicon injections to the lips, cheeks and chin along with a facelift and eye reconstruction to look more feline like. (Remember "stalking cat", discussed in the article "body modifications").



Or poor Michael Jackson. Recently I saw one of his older videos: "Don't stop 'til you get enough". He was so charming, with a truly enchanting smile. He was nothing but a boy, just at the doorstep of real manhood - a maturity he never reached as a man. Instead, he did everything to turn into a gender that had been unknown to the World before.
By the way - have you ever noticed that his sisters Janet and La Toya probably chose the same type of nose when they got their rinoplastia?





I have to say that most of the people who choose the way of plastic surgery try to improve their physical appearance. But as energy can't be created nor destroyed (e=mc2), the patients more than often take the energy for the reshaping of flesh from a poor source of prime matter: their central computer (they turn kind of stupid,that's what I wanted to say).
This is the case of Cindy Jackson, a farmers daughter from Ohio. She used to play with Barbie dolls when a kid, which fueled her escapist fantasies, as she admits. She dreamed of a happy and glamorous life for the doll and herself. In the late 80ies she was left with an inheritance and started her journey from homely young woman to a Barbie look-alike. She is the record-holder for having more cosmetic surgeries than anyone else in the world (over 30 procedures): facelift, 3 mini facelifts, 3 eyelid surgeries, upper lip lift, liposuction on her knees, thighs, abdomen, waist and jaw-line, 2 nose operations, breast augmentation etc etc.
But what is more incredible is that a friend of her, Tom Whitfield-Lynn, felt inspired by Cindy and decided to transform himself into Barbie's boyfriend Ken. In Ohio farming communities, everything is possible...

Breasts of course. Half of our female friends probably have thought about changing size or shape of their bust. Some eccentric individuals don't just get a boob job done (not to be mixed up with blow job) but voluntarily accept to permanently carry to melons in front of their chest. This is possible thanks to string breast implants which continue to grow after they are surgically implanted and can result in abnormally large breasts. Due to a number of medical complications, the device has been banned in the European Union and the United States. In the photo, Maxi Mounds, an American adult entertainer. Each of her breasts weighs 10 kilos!
I try to imagine how she deals with certain situations of everyday life: putting her shoes on, entering an elevator, eating without seeing the food on her table etc. And there is the problem of the shifting of her center of gravity... I imagine her trying to pick up some coins she has lost, losing her balance, landing on her mega-boobs and bouncing away like a rubber-ball...

Sometimes, the scalpel can give hope. Controversy brews over plastic surgery used in children with Down Syndrome. On the left, 29 years-old Julio Camblor, 10 years after he decided to undergo aesthetic surgery.
It is a challenge for the aesthetic surgeon to make good-looking people more handsome. But it is even more rewarding to "normalize" people who are isolated because of their ugly facial expression so that they may be reintegrated into a group of friends from which they may have already anxiously withdrawn. Children with Down's syndrome are frequently concealed from the public by their parents. The children suffer from two disadvantages: Their mental abilities are limited and they have ugly facial features. (statement of a surgeon)

I can completely understand the motivations of parents of children like the five-year-old British girl with Down syndrome, who has undergone three aesthetic procedures. The only thing they want to achieve is to make their and their daughter's live more bearable. Normally, the operations that are chosen for individuals with Down syndrome are the following:

• Shortening of the tongue to stop it from protruding and make the patient look less deficient
• Removal of folds of skin from eyelids to reduce the mongoloid appearance traditionally associated with Down syndrome
• Pinning back of ears to prevent them from sticking out
  

Of course these physical changes should always be followed by a complete stylistic change: haircut, contact lenses, clothing etc.

Talking about eyelid surgery: the most common surgery in Asian countries is the westernization of the eyes. Chinese, Japanese or Koreans complain about their sleepy and sick looking eyes and get them "opened" or "rounded", even at very tender ages (performed in children and ocasionally in newborns, specially if they have been adopted in a Western country). See some examples of eyelid surgery in this video.
Hispanics living in Europe or the US choose operations that make them look less indigenous or Latin (rinosplastia, cheekbones, eyelids) and lower their ethnic stigma.



Hope can also be given to transsexuals. Female facial proportions are completely different to male ones. The case of the woman in the video shows how many operations have to be programmed to achieve the desired result, which, in this case, is the feminization of a male's features.





Last but not least, the odd case of Korean Hang Mioku, a woman addicted to plastic surgery who has been left unrecognizable after her obsession led her to inject cooking oil into her face.


See you next Monday with the last post of the "extreme bodies" series.

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.