Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission (55 page)

Historically, travelers’ tales and the works of ethnographers and anthropologists have shown that body modification is virtually universal. People tattoo their skin, file their teeth, elongate their necks, burn or slash patterns into their skins, constrict their waists: Few possibilities have been left unexplored. In general, motivations to alter the body fall into four broad categories: the magical or spiritual, the medical, the cosmetic, and the erotic.

In some cultures body modification had an ostensibly aesthetic purpose. For example, beginning with the T’ang Dynasty, the Chinese bound the feet of some female children. The smaller the adult foot, the more dainty and desirable its owner. Modifications for religious purposes are abundantly evident in many cultures. In some faiths adherents bear a “mark,” or brand, even if only symbolically (such as the ashes smeared on a Catholic’s forehead on Ash Wednesday). Christ’s stigmata remain one of the more powerful
images in Christian iconography, appealing, perhaps, to a fundamental human impulse to make visible one’s sacrifice. Making one’s spiritual condition manifest is a reason frequently cited by contemporary body modifiers to explain their interests.

Some modifications done originally for religious purposes were co-opted by modern medicine. Circumcision is a magical-spiritual rite practiced by peoples as diverse as tribal Africans, Aborigines, Jews, and Moslems. For a time it was a common practice in many American hospitals to circumcise newborn males, although no health benefits have ever been proven.

Historically, body modifications for men usually represent a rite of passage, whereas women’s bodies are most often altered to signal or to enforce social subjugation. Male body modifications have rarely interfered with normal function (there are, of course, exceptions); women, conversely, have been severely limited, sexually or physically, by the physical alterations, many of which were forced upon them. Most notable are the clitoridectomies and vaginal infibulations still practiced in East Africa and parts of Asia.

Among contemporary Americans modifications are usually an aesthetic choice, but, particularly for self-styled pagans and New Agers, the process may be symbolic of a spiritual transformation.

The piercing and tattooing enthusiasts whom we interviewed typically described the process of body modification as emotionally intoxicating. They claimed that the unique stimulus of their ordeals sometimes results in out-of-body experiences.

In one way or another nearly everyone in our culture practices body modification, but some modifications follow culturally accepted models, and others do not. The man who has hair plugs implanted in his scalp and the man who chooses to have a ring implanted in his nipple, while seemingly quite different, share the desire to alter and the willingness to endure pain.

Basically, body modification is an alteration of appearance, usually entailing some degree of discomfort. Methods used to modify the body include perforation, incision, removal (complete or partial), cauterization, insertion,
abrasion, compression, staining, distention, enlargement, adhesion, and diversion.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is perhaps America’s most conspicuous and admired specimen of the laboriously self-designed man. The interest—enlargement of muscle—and its corresponding philosophy (“no pain, no gain”) has kept generations of earnest bodybuilders pumping iron. Similarly, fashion magazines, which exhort women to “create a new you,” appeal to the same urge to improve and modify the body. There is nothing new about this.
The Kama Sutra
describes a long list of substances intended to change a woman’s appearance, including natural ointments, powders, oils, and pigments. Men, meanwhile, are advised in diverse methods of annointing their members with exotic concoctions to increase prowess and “subjugate” their female conquests. And, if more dramatic results are desired, they may enlarge their organs by following complex prescriptions which include rubbing the penis with, among other things, “the bristles of certain insects that live in trees.”
³

The ancient Egyptians had an avid interest in specialized cosmetics, which rival the dermatological formulations of swanky skin salons. And in
The Art of Love
, written in the 1st Century
B.C
., Ovid advises women,

Periodically, women’s cosmetic gimmicks have been censured. A law in ancient Alexandria, for example, chastised women who deceived potential grooms into marriage by cosmetic trickery. In the 18th Century the British Parliament debated legislation which stated,

Nowadays, those who can afford pectoral or breast implants, liposuction or tucks, or any of the dozens of other common elective surgeries and procedures, are more likely to be envied than shunned, despite the fact that some of these procedures are medically dubious, if not actually deleterious to continued good health.

Humans have an irresistible urge to improve on nature’s design. Body modifications have come into and fallen out of favor throughout history, but the majority of modifiers have sought conformity with prevailing tastes.

We in 20th-century America condemn some and condone other types of modifications; at previous times and in other places, different standards applied. Breaking a nose and sawing off cartilage to construct a snubbed proboscis is currently sanctioned; inserting jewelry in a penis to heighten sexual response is viewed with horror. Thus, while piercing and tattooing are usually less physically traumatic than rhinoplasty, these practices are conventionally viewed as barbaric or unsavory while a “nose job” is chic.

Euro-American culture generally has esteemed modifications that reverse or stall the effects of aging. They reflect a wish, conscious or unconscious, to thwart mortality and to attain a cosmetic ideal. The 1990s American line of demarcation between the valued (such as face-lifts) and the deplored (such as scarification) is crossed whenever the modification in question gives expression to a mystical or a sexual force. One can easily imagine that if a pierced nipple made one look younger, millions would be sporting nipple rings, and proudly.

Stigmatophiles do not necessarily seek to regain youth by modifying their bodies, and their understanding of beauty is often idiosyncratic. This may partly explain why many contemporary body modifiers affiliate with Eastern or tribal philosophies. Body modifiers describe their activities as an intensely personal statement (for example, an expression of some interior reality), a powerful spiritual urge, or a physical challenge.

Body modifiers and cosmetic surgeons alike argue that the psychological benefits of modification outweigh the physical dangers and discomforts.
People who opt for expensive cosmetic surgeries assert that the pain and risks pale in light of the potential for an improved body image. (Whether an inflated bust line or gargantuan pectorals denote genuine improvement is open to debate.) Similarly, a piercer is likely to believe that his jewelry improves the quality of his inner life and gives him an intrinsic psychological reward. Medically speaking, however, all forms of body modification—including temporary cosmetic changes—carry a degree of risk (as anyone who has developed an infection from using mascara can attest).

While we take a sympathetic look at the practices described in the following chapters, we note that each is risky. The potential for irrevocable damage to delicate tissue is great. Permanent damage to reproductive and other organs may occur. Furthermore, even a mild infection can become life-threatening if untreated. A piercing or a tattoo is a wound and must be treated as such. Aftercare is crucial. A doctor or other qualified specialist must be consulted.

I
NTERVIEW

I guess the most important thing [I’d like to get across] is that no avenues of exploration about the body-spirit connection should be callously discounted. Everything in our culture is changing very rapidly. A lot of views [which] might have seemed inappropriate fairly recently should be given a second look. Right now, [many] people between the ages of 20 and 30 are finding new ways to reclaim their bodies, to do their own rites of passage, to do group rites of passage. The means are different—it may be piercing, it may be tattooing—but all change the physical body and affect the way the world perceives you and you perceive the world.

Young people have begun to discover that they can explore life and achieve a great deal of self-knowledge by using their bodies. They’re going at it full-bore. One of the first things they started to do was [to] tattoo the body. They didn’t go for the daggers and the hearts and the roses; they tried black work, primitive motifs, very bizarre and strange tattoos that covered a great deal of body area. Almost simultaneously, the revival of body piercing came about. I remember sitting in the back of a Los Angeles restaurant 16 years ago with a handful of people. We all had piercings; most of us had pierced nipples. At that point we could count up only seven people in the world who had pierced nipples. Since then I personally have probably pierced thousands.

I’ve had the good fortune of not having to tone down what I say [in lectures to college students]. I can be passionate in what I’m doing and lay out what I really feel with the kind of audiences I’ve had. Number one, I’ve got a totally sympathetic audience with anybody into S&M. Two, [with] anybody that’s broad-minded or sexually liberated in any way whatsoever, I can be pretty freewheeling and frank. Three, there are young people who don’t have all those hang-ups. They’re ones who distrust banks, who don’t think politicians know what they’re doing: They have a history of disenfranchisement. Still, the bulk of people out there are probably not that sympathetic. I’ve learned to talk to them somewhat the way I did in [the film]
Dances Sacred and Profane
.

In the film, I approached the subject from the standpoint of spiritual exploration, spiritual discovery. Joseph Campbell was probably more radical than I am, talking about most of the things I’m talking about. But he framed it in an acceptable way. He actually made a scathing indictment of Judeo-Christian
tradition as it’s practiced in this culture. It was incredible what he got away with. But he
knew
what he was talking about, he knew how to say it, and he found a sympathetic ear.