With any modification to one’s body there are risks involved. But besides the physical ones such as infection or rejection there are others which we usually overlook, such as divorce, bra straps, and psychiatric commitment, among others. The BME encyclopedia risks site has information on almost all of them.

For divorce one man talks about losing a custody battle for a few mod related reasons. The judge deemed him unfit for full custody  after hearing about his voluntary castration thinking that his wife had made him do it and that made him weak. Also, his wife had a shrink tell the court he forced her to get body piercings. Just another thing to keep in mind during a divorce.

Some people may think of you as certifiably insane after an extreme body modification. Then they just may have you hauled in for psych evals up the ying  yang. But chances are they won’t find anything and you’ll be free in 72 hours.

In the bra strap category they warn people about bra straps snagging on new tattoos or piercing and suggest going braless or wearing some sort of padding or cushion under the strap until healing is complete. They also advise to be careful of children around any modifications they can pull on or grab at such as stretched ears or transdermal implants.

For more risks click here

Body Modifications are always surprising. There does not seem to be a limit to what people will try to do. If you can think it, someone, somewhere will probably be willing to try to find a way to make it possible.

Eyebrow removal is nothing new, even the complete  brow removal,  like that seen on actress Whoopi Goldberg, is nothing really new. But what about a removal of the brow so the hair will not grow back, and I am not talking about electrolysis.

A free hand piercer in California had their entire eyebrow, including the skin underneath removed. It was done by his boss who was nervous at first and would not agree to the procedure until talking with the founder of all that is modern modification of the body, Steve Haworth.

The man who had it done is planning to remove his other eyebrow as well.

Would any of you have this done?

Tattoos are always thought as something we see. This has excluded blind people from experiencing tattoos as we do. But things have changed. Now more than just the visual sense can be used to experience a tattoo.

Braille tattoos are not so much tattoos in the definition that normally comes to mind. Instead of ink being used tiny metal implants  under the skin to raise it up and is spaced just right to be understood byanyone that can understand braille letters. There are also inked braille tattoos but they are not functional, and only mean something for those who understand braille but are able to see the dots.

Since it is a series of implants it is not technically a tattoo but that is not the point. I have always thought the worst part of being blind would be losing the ability to see my tattoos. I think of them as the one thing people can’t take from me. These implants give someone who cannot see

the chance to have something they can understand on their skin, even if the rest of us don’t know what it means it is still spectacular for that person.  The tattoo  experience is indescribable.

The implants are said not to last long and have to be fixed over time due to migration. But all tattoos fade at some point and could use a touch up. Like the tattoos people get on the inside of the lip that only last a few years at best unless they are redone  multiple times.

Foot binding is an ancient Chinese tradition in which the feet of young girls would be bound to make the feet appear small and attractive. It was practiced between the tenth and twentieth centuries.

The painful process would begin before feet grew too much and would be performed on girls aged three to eleven. The feet would first be soaked in a bath of animal blood and herbs to soften the feet and was followed by a foot massage. Then the nails were

a normal foot compared to a bound foot

cut back as far as possible. Then bandages, which had also been soaked in the blood and herb mixture, were wrapped around the feet tightly in a figure eight pattern. The bandages were wrapped tight enough to cause the toes to break.  Bandages were unbound then rebound to ensure the health of the feet. Then the feet were rebound even tighter by a professional foot binder. No pain relief was ever given during the process.

The most common risk of foot binding was infection, especially from the toenails which were likely to become ingrown during binding.

Bound feet were considered to be very erotic by the Chinese. Sex manuals had many ways to incorporate bound feet into lovemaking. Some men preferred the women to keep the bindings on their feet and never to the see naked feet. Also, the feet slightly restricted a women’s ability and would keep women from doing men’s work such as politics.

Birthdays are awesome days for getting new tattoos. I, like many young people do, celebrated my eighteenth birthday with a tattoo a few years ago. I also celebrated my last day of high school with a second tattoo a few months later, but that isn’t the point.

What is the point? That birthdays are one of the best days to get tattoos. I am hoping to receive enough money for a new tattoo or something cool like that, but tattoos cost money and I do not want to get my hopes up. But I have rounded up some spectacular tattoo, piercing, and body mod pics for you all.

Amputation, when a body part is removed or cut off, is not usually something people have any control over. But, believe it or not, there are people who do this on their own free will. It is not something done on impulse usually either. The voluntary amputee has, in most cases, been unhappy with the appendage for some time, if not for their whole life.

It can be done a number of ways from surgery to just a quick and dirty and knife job at home Some people say  that no self respecting surgeon will remove a body part that they believe is “perfectly fine” but there are reports of people having working body parts being removed. One Florida man had tried to shoot off his own leg. He was brought to a hospital and was told that his leg was salvageable. The poor man had to beg the doctors to remove his leg. He got his wish and reported being much happier afterwards with just one leg. He said he had always wanted to have only one leg while growing up. Other cases of voluntary amputation have been recorded, mostly in Europe.

Voluntary Amputees are argued to be psychotic. However, once the amputation process is over, the so called psychotics are much happier and no longer acting psychotic. Doctors are even starting to come around and see that amputation for some people might just be therapeutic. Also, the amputation is not normally done for sexual purposes. There is Nullification where a person has a sexual organ removed (such as nipples), but that is a bit different, (Post to come soon). There are however people who find amputees, whether they are voluntary or involuntary amputees, to be sexually attractive. This is called acrotomophilla.

I highly recommend any interested candidates seek the help of a medical professional for any amputation

Here is a news story from ABC on a voluntary double amputee

Sub dermal implants and tattoos are both very awesome things. But when combined they can be astounding and remarkable. An implant can bring your artwork to a whole new level. A tattoo could make your implant something that will anyone’s breath.

I myself had doubts when I heard about it. I thought, how can something like that even work? Wouldn’t the tattoo needle go into the implant and cause it to rupture? Au contraire my friends.

Implants are a usually few layers down into the skin and tattoo ink just goes into the first few layers. This gives you a  tiny bit of leeway. But it is recommended to get the tattoo first as not risk the implant moving or  tearing, incase it was not put in deep enough

Just imagine if you had a flower tattoo, but it didn’t look real enough for you. Or maybe you wanted somethingcompletely different from what everyone else has. Implants and tattoos combined can give you a 3D tattoo. Come on, who wouldn’t be awestruck when went out and show off a 3D tattoo.

I recently joined twitter and have found some good accounts to follow for body mods piercings and tattoos.

• BodyMod_
  • I think this is a general piercing/tattoo/extreme mod thing      
• Face_Tattoos
  • Basically good facial tats like the name suggests
• vegantattoos
  • for those wanting a more natural harmless tattoo experience
• TattooGallery
  • Just a bunch of different tattoo stuff but all very good and updated often
• TattooBuzz
  • About the same as tattoo gallery but with other cool stuff posted as well. Also, updated often
• tattoohelp
  • name says it all but not updated to often it seems

(To follow my twitter look up crazy0122003 in people find, click the follow me link on the About Ashley page or click on the twitter widget to the right)

A few weeks ago I wrote about ritual lip sewing. Now I think it’s time I write about this ritual counterpart, ritual eye sewing.

Eye sewing is about the same as lip sewing. However, it is just a bit more risky due to the fact that it is on your eye lid right over your eyes. This of course is why any interested candidates should seek a professional for this procedure.

Reasons for doing this are about the same as getting ones lips sewn together. It can be relaxing. It can help someone focus on problems they have without worrying about what is in front of them. Also, if someone is upset with how they see things this could help make them relax as well.

I was not able to find much on this ritual so I cannot pinpoint when it first came about in history. I can only guess it has been around for a while but it was never a mainstream thing.

There are lots of ways to alter ones state of thinking. The most common way would be to take drugs and get high. But, next time you’re looking for a new high, maybe even one that will last longer than a few hours, look beyond the local drug dealers. Try instead something more along the lines of a body modification, or to be more specific skull modification.

Trepanation, the oldest surgery on the block, is when a hole is made in one’s skull and is said to give them a feeling of a permanent state of enlightenment or being permanently high. Trepanation is also said to relive stress, brain trauma, and I can only assume other mental issues if performed correctly.

When I first read about this, all I could think of was a lobotomy. But then I looked more into what a lobotomy was and what a trepanation was. A lobotomy is when connections in the brain are cut. Trepanation is just a hole drilled into the skull. The hole is said to allow more oxygen and blood flow to reach the brain making one feel enlightened.

One man by the name of Dr. Bart Hughes is one person to have has the procedure done, not only that he is the one who performed it on himself in 1965. He came up with the idea that it would work after discovering standing on his head could get him high. He figured to stay permanently high he would have to increase blood flow to his brain so he could get the same feeling he got while standing on his head and decided he had to relieve pressure to his head. Luckily, he was right and did not seriously damage himself. He said he felt fourteen again.

Hughes was not the first to use trepanation. It can be dated back to around 5,000 B.C. due to a trepanated skull being discovered in France dating to around 5,000 B.C. Trepanations are still said to be given in ceremoniously Africa even.

I myself have many days where frustration gets the better of me and drilling a hole in my head sounds like it would be a good way to take the edge off. While it may sound like a great idea to lead someone to enlightenment make sure further research is done and you do not do it on your own or just have a friend take a drill to your head. Like with any modification, piercing, or tattoo, GO TO A PROFESSIONAL! I will not be to blame if you hurt yourself trying to get high.

A fun less permanent idea