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The kinky-chic world of body modification
embraces traditions as old as humanity. This section both
documents the anthropology of body modification and explores
the styles and personal statements of contemporary body
modifiers, from Modern Primitives and tattoo fetishists
to Victorian corset-wearers. The tattooing chapter provides
a history of the ancient art of decorating the body with
ink. The piercing chapter contains a primer on over 20 types
of piercings, including terms and histories of each, ranging
back to the Kama Sutra. The corsetting chapter includes
a fashion history of the corset, descriptions of the three
idealized body shapes, and discussion of the romance of
tight-lacing.
Chapters described below.
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Chapter 14 ~ Chapter
15 ~ Chapter 16 ~ Chapter
17
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14. Body Modification
"What do the popular entertainer who flaunts colorful
tattoos, the woman who gets breast implants, and the man who
has several rings pierced through his penis have in common?
They are all practicing body modification."
Contents:
Quick cuts from our interviews:
Fakir Musafar...
...is perhaps the most audacious body-modification advocate
today. A shaman and master piercer, Fakir was born Roland
Loomis in 1930 in South Dakota. He holds a degree in electrical
engineering and a master's degree in creative writing; he
has spent much of his life as an advertising executive. He
has developed his expertise through research and over 40 years
of personal practice of primitivistic body ritual. Fakir publishes
Body Play magazine. He is married.
"Tattooing, piercing, branding, sculpting the body
by putting ligatures on arms and legs, corsets and belts around
the midsection, [all] cause a change of body state. This is
a deliberate and usually ritualized change."
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15. Corsetting
"Who can forget the image of Scarlett O'Hara being
tightly laced into her corset, nearly fainting, and yet gladly
suffering for the sake of reducing her waist another inch?"
Contents:
Quick cuts from our interviews:
Jenny Lane...
...is 54 years old. She is married and has three children.
"I consider myself a normal woman with normal drives.
I don't think that I'm involved in anything unusually kinky...
My corsetted waist is between 18 and 19 1/2 [inches]."
Alexis DeVille...
...is 39 years old and is a preoperative male-to-female transgenderist.
Ms. DeVille is a gender-transformation consultant, has lectured
on corsetting and fetish dressing, and works as a professional
dominant.
"I think [the eroticism of wearing a corset] has to
do with the mystery of woman.... I have been able to get down,
so far, to a 22-inch waist. I enjoy the way it feels, and I
just love the way it looks. It's a very good feeling to have
control of your own shape. Plus, it's sensual: I find my male
and female slaves both go crazy over my corset and my small
waist."
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16. Tattooing
"Almost everyone has seen tattoos--if only the heart
pierced with an arrow, whose banner declares an immutable love
for Mother--but few realize that tattoos have served dignified
symbolic purposes over the millennia in virtually all non-Western
cultures."
Contents:
Quick cuts from our interviews:
The Doctor...
...is an anesthesiologist and an internist at a major hospital.
"What I see when I look at [my wife's] tattoos is
the image of the mythological Amazonian warrior. She carries
all these images of life and of nature. For me, it gives her
almost mystical power."
The Doctor's Wife...
...is a registered nurse who currently works at home and cares
for the couple's children.
"What do I get out of all this? A number of things.
It's an expression of the fact that I am not necessarily what
I seem. I am not the typical doctor's wife, not the typical
mother. There's more to me than most people know.... The tattoos
speak of a kind of an intensity and a passion and a lack of
[the] fear that most people have."
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17. Piercing and Scarification
"The body modification most likely to cause alarm
in the mainstream observer--a piercing to genitalia or nipples--is
also the most deliberately sensual form of body modification.
These singular invasions of erogenous zones enhance the sensual
pleasure both of the adorned and his or her beloved."
Contents:
Quick cuts from our interviews:
Logger V....
...is 40 years old and a professional piercer. He is a handicapped-employment
specialist and a sign-language interpreter for the deaf. Logger
V. is in a permanent, live-in relationship with his lover.
"Piercing is something that has to come from the heart,
not from the brain, not because someone told you [to do it],
or just because everyone else has it."
Adida...
...is a software engineer and aerobics instructor whose interests
include martial arts, skydiving, and ballet.
"I have two nipple piercings and six outer-labia piercings.
I'm still not sure which was braver: getting the first one when
I didn't know what I was in for or getting the subsequent ones
where I did!"
Mr. Happy...
...lives with Adida and works as a software engineering consultant.
His interests include skydiving and motorcycles. Both Adida
and Mr. Happy are in their 30s.
"I've got five piercings: nipples, frenum, Prince
Albert, and a guiche....I'm planning one more piercing, an ampallang.
The ampallang runs laterally through the head of the penis."
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