Nipple Graft: New Nipples Anywhere!

I’m always very happy when I get to show the body modification world a new procedure that opens up new aesthetic options. So I am completely thrilled to show you an experimental first attempt at a nipple graft procedure coming out of South Africa’s small but inspired body modification community, done on Estè Kira by Lliezel Ellick and Faranaaz Kannemeyer (with most of the photos being by Lohan Koegelenberg). They learned a lot doing this, and I really want to be fair by mentioning that they’d originally wanted me to wait until they’d done a few more and refined the procedure before I showed it. But I think even this first attempt at creating a new nipple from regular skin is incredible and felt it was worth showing off — and I can’t wait to see their next attempt. Let me begin with a photo of the healed result, and then go on to the procedure in more detail.

Estè tells me that about a year ago, while joking around with a friend, she started thinking about having multiple nipples grafted. She says, “I have always envied people with third nipples, and soon realized that it should be possible to create a nipple from skin. I researched nipple reconstruction procedures, usually used in mastectomy cases, and found a website with some pictures and illustrations of the procedure.”

“My close friend, piercer, fellow performer and body mod artist, Lliezel Ellick, was immediately keen to try this experimental procedure. Together with Faranaz Kamaldien, another Cape Town piercer and scarification artist, we got together one saturday morning. After a bit of brain storming, and me explaining to them how I understood the procedure to be done, we went ahead. A friend of mine filmed the procedure as well. It was by far the most intense experience I have had thus far. The over-the-counter anesthetic was not strong enough, so I felt most of it. Every now and again I had a look and we would discuss the next step. It was very deep with the yellow fatty tissue exposed. I kept the open wound closed for about one and a half months with daily cleaning. I think it was the very intense and long healing and a very hard and physical job that has kept me thus far from continuing with the other three that I have planned, but have some time off in December, and want to do them then.”

In December when they do the next three, giving Estè two rows of three nipples a piece, they will be doing some refinements to the procedure from what they learned doing the first one. To the best of Estè’s knowledge — and I agree with her — this is the first such procedure done in the body modification community. It’s extremely exciting to me, and I think they deserve a lot of credit for opening this door, to say nothing of having done it so successfully.

Below you can see the procedure. In the first picture you can see the skin being peeled up around the centre, and in the second photo the cutting/peeling has been completed. In the third photo the stitching is being done, and in the fourth (first photo of the second row), you can see what it looked like fresh and stitched up. Photo five — satisfaction! And in the last picture (which is just a phone photo), you can see it healing at two weeks into the procedure. The photo we began with above is the healed result. My hat is definitely off to Estè, Lliezel, Faranaaz for doing a wonderful procedure and expanding the body modification palette. Great work!

Want to work for BME?

We’re still looking for a translator for the hundreds of hours of video footage taken on the Japan leg of last year’s BME World Tour.  If you’re fluent in both Japanese and English, and are able to not only translate, but also transcribe the dialogue with the appropriate time codes, then this job may be for you.  You’ll be able to work from home, and get a paycheck while doing it.

If you’re interested in the position and want to join the BME team, please send your qualifications and/or any questions you may have to [email protected] with the subject line “World Tour – Japanese Translator Job”.

While we’re on the subject of all things Japanese, Efix Roy, that handsome devil from D-Markation in Quebec, just carved an awesome recreation of the Kamakura Buddha into someone’s arm.

Be sure to check out more of Efix’s work in his BME portfolio gallery.

ModBlog News of the Week: February 11th, 2011

Another week has come and gone, which means it’s time to check in with the rest of the world and take a look at what modification related stories have been making the headlines.  To start things off, we’ve got another story about the artist who had a camera implanted into the back of his head.

An artist who had a camera implanted into the back of his head has been forced to remove it after his body rejected part of the device.  After doctors refused his initial request to have the camera inserted into his head last year, the artist had the procedure done at a body-piercing studio in Los Angeles.  The camera was mounted on three posts attached to a titanium base inserted between Bilal’s skin and skull.  The set-up had been causing him pain despite treatment with antibiotics and steroids.

“Such a reaction is common with piercings and implants,” Bilal, a photography professor from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, said on his website.  ”I’m hopeful the wound will heal quickly and I will be able to reattach the camera on the remaining two posts or on a reworked base.”

So if you had 6 weeks picked in the “when will the piercings reject” pool, step up to claim your prize.

There’s more news to come, including a doctor that is using a tattoo gun to remove scars, and a celebrity round-up that for the first time will be longer than the actual news.

Cosmetic tattooing has been around for a while now, but only recently has a doctor discovered a way to use cosmetic tattooing as a way to cover up scars.

While doctors stateside are using tattoo techniques to help people out, the government of Australia is putting forth measures that could possibly make things difficult for tattoo artists.

The Professional Tattooing Association of Australia says changes to legislation proposed by Attorney-General John Rau will be harmful to consumers by providing police “special powers” that they say appear to target the industry for its supposed links to bikies.  The proposed changes require traders to keep proof of age records and hand them over to police on request.

Association and piercing industry spokeswoman Morag Draper said while some components of the legislation were welcomed, others were seen as a step back in good business practice, moral responsibility to clients and the protection of their personal information.   ”The Health Department have total power to retrieve client data and investigate with or without police attendance if need be, so we don’t understand why the State Government deems this component of the legislation necessary.

Mrs Draper said the industry was always willing to work with the Government and SA Health to ensure consumers’ health was protected, but these proposed changes failed to address that.

I do have a slight problem with the way the article is written, as it makes it sound like the Tattooing Association has a problem with increased fines for tattooing minors and opposes the ban on tattooing drunk people.  From what I can gather the main issue is that the bill is only looking at things from a policing standpoint, and does nothing to address health regulations, which is what the association has been pushing for.

Which isn’t to say that the police shouldn’t be checking into violations.  Take this story out of New Zealand.  A man claiming to only tattoo people out of his garden shed as a hobby has been fined for refusing to get a license.

Judge John Strettell said the Timaru District Council had bent over backwards to assist Kamahl Ross (aka Barribal) to obtain a licence.  ”They weren’t particularly willing to prosecute – that’s not a criticism [of the council] – they were prepared to give you the opportunity [to get a licence],” Judge Strettell said.  Craig O’Connor, appearing for the council, said Ross told the council he was doing it as a hobby, not a business.  After a further complaint in November 2009, the council visited the property and told him what would be required to obtain a licence, including installing a sink or wash basin.

A covert police operation was set up last year after a poster advertising “Solid Ink” was discovered in August.  An officer who visited a Cain St property found a wooden sign for Solid Ink, the garden shed with equipment and furniture, and tattoo designs on the walls.  Four women – one of whom was receiving a tattoo – were at the shed, and the undercover officer was asked if she had a design for a tattoo, and where and what size she wanted it. A contract was agreed upon for a $60 tattoo and the officer arranged to return later.

Here’s a tip:  if you want to maintain a business without a license, don’t put up flyers advertising yourself or set prices for tattoos with someone you’ve never met before.

And now it’s time for this week’s massive celebrity news round-up.  As I mentioned earlier, this week the press was all over celebrity modifications, resulting in more stories about them than actual news.

For starters, PETA announced a new campaign featuring tattooed celebrities.  It will feature Pink, Steve-o, and others using the slogan “Ink, not mink”.  While the story doesn’t have a lot of information, you really should check it out simply because of the photo used.  I’m sure PETA will have no problems with a photo of a hot dog stand being used alongside their campaign.

Now two weeks ago we saw Gucci Mane‘s new facial tattoo, an ice cream cone with lightning bolts.  Well it seems that one of his fans liked it so much, she got the same tattoo on her face as well.  Maybe the ice cream cone with lightning bolts will be this year’s tattoo trend.

We’ve all heard about misspelled script tattoos.  So when a story comes up about a celebrity getting a script tattoo, you can probably guess the headline already.  It turns out that isn’t always the case.  It seems that when professional footballer John Carew got himself a script tattoo, it was actually spelled correctly.  The problem is that while the words were spelled correctly, the accents over some of the letters were facing the wrong way.

The former Aston Villa forward’s latest inking, which appears as ‘Ma Vie, Mes Régles’ on the left side of his neck, was apparently supposed to read ‘My life, My rules’.

However, the version daubed on the 6ft 5in hitman appears as ‘régles’ – a direct translation of the word for ‘period’ or ‘menstruation’.  ’Ma Vie, Mes Régles’ means ‘My life, My menstruation’

When it comes to role-models for kids, who better to look at than some of today’s youngest pop singers.  Miley Cyrus just got her fifth tattoo, Demi Lovato got her first, and Kesha had her foot tattooed by a crackhead.  In case you were keeping track, that’s a girl known for pole dancing on a children’s show, another known for dancing on Justin Bieber’s pole, and a girl who has hit her head against a pole so many times she spells her name with a dollar sign.

Finally, when it comes to smart parenting, Mark Whalberg of all people is the one trying to set a good example for his kids.

The star first went under the needle when he was just 11, but the one-time bad boy has since transformed himself into a family man and wants to remove his skin art in a bid to set a good example to his four kids.

“”When I started removing them, they said it’d take five to seven visits. I’d been 20-something times and I took my two oldest to watch because it’s like getting burnt with hot baking grease, there’s blood coming up, it looks like somebody welded your skin, there’s these welts that come up like a quarter of an inch. Hopefully that will deter them from getting (tattoos).””

Now hopefully he meant to deter them from getting tattooed at 11, but when it comes to decision making Mark isn’t the best role model.  Those kids may idolize their dad now, but once they find out he used to be Marky Mark, his stock might plummet.

And that’s it for the news this week.  Remember to send in any links to news stories you come across that you think should be featured in the news of the week.

Oh, and Monday is Valentine’s day, so to all you lovebirds out there, enjoy your weekend while the rest of us get nauseated watching you faun all over each other.  Also, if you’ve got any photos of modifications that might be somewhat related to Valentines day, send them in over the weekend as Monday will be a special “hearts and flowers” day on ModBlog.

Ampallangs and Apadravyas

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in The Point, the publication of the Association of Professional Piercers. Since part of BME’s mandate is to create as comprehensive and well rounded an archive of body modification as possible, we feel these are important additions.

Paul King, the article’s author, has given BME permission to publish a series of articles he wrote for The Point that explore the anthropological history behind many modern piercings. This is another in that series.)

In Sulawesi it was called Kambi or Kambiong; in the Philippines, Tugbuk. In southern Borneo it was called Kaleng and, while the Kenyah called it Aja, the Kayan called it Uttang or Oettang. A few anthropologists made the Iban’s name for it the most famous: Palang, or ampallang. An Indian scholar gives a description of it and calls it apadravya. First of all, the reader will come to know that what we have all called the ampallang and the apadravya piercings are, historically, one and the same. This article will cover origin, practices and mythology around this very extreme and ancient piercing.

As to the exact origin of this piercing, nobody knows. Scholars have devoted their careers to dissecting trade patterns, in particular in South and South East Asia. The complexities of trade influence over time can most simply be described as the overlapping of cultures, like waves crossing from different directions. Based on the knowledge that all known occurrences of this custom are recorded on the same trade routes and the intense nature of piercing and healing the glans of the penis, one can safely deduce that this piercing custom did not spontaneously originate in various locations, but was shared.

The only known reference of the apadravya is the sixth century Kama Sutra. I know of no other mention or art depictions of the piercing in India. If the practice survived until substantial European contact, in the seventeenth century, then surely there would have been some recording. One can only speculate that this piercing was probably neither widespread nor lasting in the Indian culture.

According to Vatsyayana, the author of the Kama Sutra, apadravyas are any one of a number of devices which a man

puts on or around the lingam (penis) to supplement its length or its thickness, so as to fit into the yoni (vagina). The people of the southern countries think that true sexual pleasure can not be obtained without perforating the lingam, and they therefore cause it to be pierced…now when a young man perforates his lingam he should pierce it with a sharp instrument, and then stand in water as long as blood continues to flow. At night he should engage in sexual intercourse, even with vigor, so as to clean the hole. After this he should continue to wash the hole with decoctions and increase the size by putting into it small pieces of cane… and thus gradually enlarging it.

There should be some debate on the definition of the term “southern countries” used in the Kama Sutra, It could mean Southern India or it could mean SE Asia. If it means SE Asia, again, this would argue that the origins of the piercing are probably not in India.

The first known depiction is on a bronze dog from SE Asia, fourth century. The earliest record in European literature of the piercing on a man is from 1588. The explorer, Cavendish, is said to have been to the island of Capul, Philippines. “Every man hath a nayle (nail) of Tynne (Tin) thrust quite through the head of his privie part (glans of his penis)…” 1

Though the Indian culture was extremely prolific, there is another good argument against Indian origins: Statuary predating Hindu influence in Bali depict possible penile piercings. One anthropologist has cited the visual influence of certain indigenous rodents and the rhinoceros on the island of Borneo (that naturally have barbed penises) as the original inspiration for the piercing.2

The only traditional practice of this piercing still known to exist is on Borneo, with the Kayan people believed to be the oldest practitioners of the Palang; all current tribes practicing the palang give credit to the Kayan. This is interesting, considering they are inland and thought by anthropologists to be the most isolated and oldest inhabitants. Current history dates the palang to other tribes only about 100 years.3

Just as interesting as the mysterious origins are the variations of materials, practice and mythology around this extreme piercing.

Other than the mention in the Kama Sutra, the oldest accounts of this piercing come from the Philippines. Popular in the region was a device called Sakra, which is believed to be a derivative of the Indian Sanskrit word chakra: a center of force or energy. The apparatus could be a round wheel with projecting points (like a spur held in place by a pin), stars, rings, fine twisted wire, pig bristles, bamboo shavings, seeds, horn, coral, agate, hornbill ivory, beads, broken glass and, in one case, an object that looked like a snake head. Quills, as well, were used as nonfunctional retainers. The early explanations from the Codex say the women insisted upon the piercings to discourage the men from sodomy. The Spanish quickly set about eradicating the behavior, referred to as “a custom invented by the devil.”4

Certainly the greatest volume of documentation for this piercing, however, is from the Iban in Borneo, who would sometimes tattoo a rosette (or, occasionally, a fishhook) to show they had a palang. Palang in Iban means “cross” or “cross bar,” and, in the region, the Pins would be made of gold or brass. Often, a sleeve insert to reduce friction (a “bushing”) was put in place so the pin could be removed as desired,5 with up to three palangs sometimes worn at a time.6 The Iban also refer to the ampallang as “burah palang” or “tanduh duri,” which translates to “spout thorn” or “point.” The ends of the pin could have been smooth, or may have been “little pins, coins, discs, brushes, rings/rowels.”7

On Borneo and Sulawesi, a splint is used to hold the penis for the actual piercing procedure. It varies in length from several inches to a foot, approximately a one-and-a-half inches thick with a hole in both sides.8 The slats are placed on either side of the penis and then tightly secured, flattening out the penis. After sufficient time has passed for the lack of blood and cold water to decrease sensation, the penis is pierced9 – sometimes, a pigeon’s feather anointed with oil would be inserted and taken out each day. The piercing takes about one month to heal.

There are many myths of origin for this piercing. The Kayan say a woman complained of a man’s penis size, saying it was no better than a rolled leaf used to give herself satisfaction, and the insulted male ran off to the woods and pierced himself. The Kelabit say a visiting Kayan warrior used his piercing on a woman causing her death, but she was so satisfied the Kelabit continued the practice.10 Another story goes11:

“The lady had various ways of indicating the size of the ampallang desired. She might hide in her husbands plate of rice a betel leaf rolled about a cigarette, or with the fingers of her right hand placed between her teeth she will five the measure of the one she aspires. The Dayak women have a right to insist upon the ampallang and if the man does not consent they may seek separation. They say that the embrace without this contrivance is plain rice; with it is rice with salt.”

In the mid 1970s, Doug Malloy labeled the vertical piercing of the glans an “apadravya” and a horizontal piercing “ampallang.” Doug passed this folklore onto Jim Ward, founder of Gauntlet and editor of Piercing Fans International, Quarterly.12 For posterity, it’s important that the piercing community knows the historical origins, however, continuing the practice of differentiating the same piercing as two, honors our own western traditions.


________________
1 Male Infibulation by John Dingwall

2 Tom Harrison is an anthropologist from the 1950s and 60s. He wrote several articles, a book and collected artifacts on the Palang for the Sarawak Museum, Kuching, Malaysia. This author was able to go there and obtain photocopies of his work.

3 Tom Harrison

4 The Penis Inserts of Southeast Asia Donald E. Brown, James W. Edwards, and Ruth P. Moore

5 The Sexual Relations of Mankind (SRM, per researcher Von Graffin) by Montegazza

6 A Stroll through Borneo by James Barclay

7 Tom Harrison

8 Tom Harrison

9 SRM states they will sometimes leave the device on for eight to ten days. (!) An Iban personally told this author, “2-3 hours.”

10 Tom Harrison

11 SRM

12 Per telephone conversation with Jim Ward, August 3, 2002.

My usual disclaimer: I am not an anthropologist. From time to time, there will be errors. Please be understanding and forth coming if you have any information you would like to share.

* * *

Please consider buying a membership to BME so we can continue bringing you articles like this one.



Faith Sterilizes, Right?

In a few days (just waiting back for a final set of questions) I’ll be posting an interview with Kamal Jeet Sharma about his tattoo studio in Ludhiana, Punjab and his efforts to professionalize tattooing in India. Mark from Everything and Nothing snapped this photo of some of Kamal’s typical “competition”, a street tattoo machine he saw in Northern India in the Himalayan foothills.

street-tattoo-machine.jpg

Paul Oneball (BME/News Publisher’s Ring)

“Paul Oneball”

My friend Paul — “Paul Oneball” — has been a body modification enthusiast for his entire life, but a few years ago discovered he had cancer, which due to complications resulted in extensive damage to his genitals as well as the loss of a testicle. During the process of healing, he discovered the underground world of silicone injection, which he used to reconstruct his scrotum. His shaft was too scarred to accept silicone, but he’s become an active enthusiast and promoter of silicone work as the moderator of an online discussion group for men interested in injection. His story is an excellent example of the therapeutic and healing value of body modification.

I’m publishing this interview as an introduction to the lighter end of silicone enhancement — as we chat about a little in this interview, many individuals have pushed themselves much farther and into almost alien territory… Those interviews will follow in the future.

“No wonder that I get some strange looks when I go out on my bike.”

Tell me a little about yourself and how you got into body modification?

I was born in 1954 in the UK on the South Coast and sent off as a child to boarding school, where I was raped by a teacher and moved to another boarding school. I was very interested in body modifications then — from 1970 onwards — but could not find out much about it. PFI Quarterly and Gauntlet later became an inspiration. I did my own PA, and subsequently met Alan Oversby (Mr. Sebastian).

During this time I was training as, and then qualified as a lawyer. I fell in love, married — still am — and started a family. Body modifications were very much in the background. When our family was big enough, I went in for the second commonest male body modification — vasectomy. When the surgeon did the procedure, he found cancer. One ball was lost and I acquired a nasty infection. The end result was an even more drastic, involuntary body modification, which ended in extensive skin grafting (the skin come from my hips). I suppose the effect is rather like that of a radical circumcision — which is basically what they had to do to stop the infection spreading — it was that or amputation.

Did you have much sensation or mobility damage after the grafts?

I have no “skin” feeling along the shaft, although I can fell pressure from the remaining nerves in the underlying tissue. The skin has no mobility it was grafted directly to the base layers in most places.

I came to BME, to see how others coped with semi-castration and so on, and rediscovered silicone. At first I went in for the procedure to replace what I had lost, but it felt so good on me (and still does) that I went back for a little more, and a little more, and now I have 500ccs. My wife is pleased because it’s given me back the confidence I lost. I believe that we need mainstream recognition for the silicone procedure, which is far safer and simpler than the insertion of a prosthesis.

We hear all the time about silicone work being risky — you think it’s safer than a prosthesis, even a simple fake testicle?

Whoever said a prosthesis was safe? All surgery carries risks — as I know all too well. There can be allergic reactions to the “neuticle” unless it is very rigid and smooth, which does not leave a realistic effect. The issue with silicone is the problem of removal if anything goes wrong. If I lose my scrotum, so what? I’ve faced worse.

“Whether or not I’m pleased to see you, the bulge stays.”

Let’s go back to the beginning — tell me about when you did your PA?

I did it using a leather punch, twisting a leather bootlace around the handles — like a Spanish windlass — to force the jaws closed through my penis. It worked very well and I wear a 7mm segment ring in the hole. My PA gives me some sensation which I lost due to the grafts. In addition, the PA was very useful for the surgeon doing the skin grafts — it gave him something to grip on to and which could have traction applied whilst the grafts were healing. Luckily the pre-op nurses did not remove it as they wanted to.

What made you want the PA in the first place?

Possibly what I read in the Kama Sutra, together with issues of self-harm after the rape (the perpetrator hung himself). Also, the PA gave me back control — I did this to myself for my own pleasure. From reading other people’s experiences it seems there are quite a few of us in the same boat — going for a modification as a method of resolving a major physical or emotional trauma.

Perhaps that’s true — do you mind telling me more?

I’m referring to the custom of removing digits to express grief, and the self-harm desires of abused kids. Professionally I had a lot to do with boys taken into “care” by the authorities in our area, who were then thoroughly buggered by the guy running the home where they were put. He even sold them on to his cronies. Yuck. A number of these boys were seriously into self harm, body mods, and tattoos — and some found it helped them get back a feeling of control over their bodies, and their lives.

When you had the liquid silicone injected, what procedure was used?

The silicone is put in using a silicone cannula, and is pumped in through an infusion line, so that the syringe pump can be refilled without disturbing the cannula. I have seen a guy take 500ccs in his sack in one go — he already had 500ccs there already — and the result was extraordinary, and a very visible modification. For me, the weight and bulk of the silicone is very pleasing.

Have you ever thought about a subincision to expose more nerves?

My wife and and I have looked very seriously at this — she is a veterinary surgeon. The two drawbacks are getting enough skin to heal to the cut edges of the urethra and the probability of bladder infections. I had enough of those living with catheters etc.

What about vacuum pumping to help expand the tissue?

Pumping is a difficult issue because they took out the lymph gland in my left groin as well.
Another guy I’ve been talking to was into complete cock skinning — !!! — and of course was left with an intensely scarred and shortened penis, about 50% of the original length. His approach was far more radical — he would cut strips out of the scar tissue and pull it apart, letting it fill in with additional tissue as it healed [editor’s note: this is an upcoming interview]. Over time, he got back all of the length… Not that I recommend this method, and I doubt everyone could heal from it.

Apart from pumping I had a lot of traction and massage to persuade the skin graft scars to stretch enough to give a reasonable erection. Like I said earlier, this was where my PA really came in useful. The surgeon was very encouraging, but a couple of his juniors were seriously upset about the PA.

I see a lot of silicone guys that go very far with silicone work and really have extremely large genitals that must impact their day-to-day lives to some extent — do you ever worry that you’ll go “too far”? Not that I have a problem with “too far”!

After a lot of heart searching, I feel I have gone far enough with the silicone. Any more will start to affect my everyday life, whilst now I can dress to minimize, as well as maximize, the effect. It is something that the practitioner and I have discussed at length — along with other guys who have visited for silicone. A few conversations come to mind…

One man — we’ll call him Peter — has always had a fantasy from childhood of grossly swollen genitals. Silicone gave him the opportunity, and after the practitioner’s first session, he, Peter, having access to all the kit as a medical professional, has gone further and further, until now he is impinging on his working life. He is happy though that he has achieved his obsessional fantasy, and his genitals are forever swollen, to a massive extent — he carries well over 2000 ccs. Mark Savage (www.siliconefreak.com) has set out to go to the extreme. Now he cannot hide what he has done and uses it as a selling point — he is in the sex trade. He cannot use his penis for penetrative sex.

Last night I was having dinner with three guys. Two had been siliconed, and one wanted to go further, but his boyfriend who didn’t have any silicone was against this as he felt it would be cutting down his partner’s options. By all means be big, so big that it would be obvious in intimate situations, but do not go so far that it might prejudice the non-sex side of life and relationships. This is the attitude I have — any more and I might embarrass my sons (not that I don’t embarrass them already) and prejudice everyday life. I couldn’t care less about respectability, but extreme silicone, like facial tattoos, can cut down life options.

As a lawyer, how do you feel about practitioners doing procedures that — such as silicone work — that may not be legal for them to perform?

The concepts of underground and legal are difficult ones. My view was — 25 years ago — that if the “victim” was legally capable, was aware of what was being done, and freely consented, then, provided no prescription-only medicines were used, any procedures would be legal. That was before the infamous Operation Spanner. [Editor’s note: in short this involved men being charged with assault over consensual sex and modification play.]

“It really does stick out — and this is forever — the choice I’ve made.”

How should both practitioners and the people seeking procedures protect themselves and take steps to make sure everything is trouble free?

Discretion seems the wisest course. As long as what is being done does not come to the direct attention of the authorities through death, serious long term consequences, or dealings with minors, incapables, or those under duress, and no attempt is made to assume false medical qualifications, the practitioner should be safe enough. Consent forms or correspondence are helpful, but are no substitute for common sense. The infamous “Doctor Brown” was put away for sawing some poor guy’s leg off. Alan Oversby was convicted for sending “obscene” pictures — one of them was of me — through the Royal Mail.

What is the legality where you are?

The procedure is “legal” in the UK and Europe. In France, Holland, and Germany it is an accepted but not advertised, procedure. I know one Dutch doctor, and one German who will do the procedure reluctantly… Usually there is a quid pro quo, which I find ethically dubious.

Who do people go to for the procedures, and how do they find them?

The only one in the UK is not a doctor at all, but a materials scientist, who sourced the silicone and has worked out a method of sterilization that actually works. Word of mouth and referral by people through the online groups are the usual ways.

Since the skin on your shaft was grafted right to the underlying tissue, I assume you were unable to do silicone in the shaft?

Absolutely correct — the skin was grafted directly to the smooth muscle of the shaft, which had ended up buried in my pubis after the infection destroyed the original skin structure.

How did your doctors respond to your silicone work?

My GP is very positive about the procedure — and has made serious inquiries with a view to making it a serious alternative to the implant of prostheses (false balls or neuticles).

Did you approach them about it before going with an underground practitioner?

Because of the possibility of the infection flaring up, further surgery to insert a prosthesis was not advised. My GP did not feel that I had much to lose over the silicone procedure, although he warned me about the issues of infection and hardening, from work done on this topic in France.

All in all, how do you feel about the modifications you’ve done?

I find my mods enjoyable and satisfying.

Thanks for chatting, Paul!


Shannon Larratt
BME.com

Who Was Doug Malloy? [Running The Gauntlet – By Jim Ward]


Who Was
Doug Malloy?

part one

Doug Malloy was what an acquaintance of mine called the “nom de kinque” of a wealthy Hollywood businessman named Richard Simonton. I was given to understand that Malloy was his mother’s maiden name. Being an Irish name, I can’t help thinking one of his forebears must have kissed the Blarney stone, for Doug had a remarkable flair for telling a story, and if it wasn’t exactly true, it didn’t particularly matter to him as long as the tale was a good one. Consequently I can’t guarantee the accuracy of everything that Doug told me about himself or about the history of piercing for that matter. But he told wonderful stories, and the fact that many of them persist despite a lack of any supporting evidence says much for his ability to capture our imaginations.



Doug in the Muzak offices in Hollywood.

I know little about his youth. From an early interview it appears he was born in Chicago and his family moved to the Seattle area when he was about three. By the time the Depression hit in 1929, he would have been in his early teens. I gathered the family wasn’t exactly affluent. Eventually he ended up in Southern California and his fortunes began to change. In the early 40s he struck a lucrative deal with Muzak, the ubiquitous background music company, which gave him control over the southwestern quarter of the country. It made him a very rich man.

Doug was quite interested in things metaphysical. He had been a personal friend of Ernest Holmes (1887–1960) author of The Science of Mind and the founder of the Religious Science movement. Thanks in no small part to Holmes’ influence, he was very much a believer in what became known as the “power of positive thinking.”

He also believed in reincarnation. According to Doug it explained not only things like prodigies, but also why some people became passionate about things like body piercing. This, he claimed, was his own case. He remembered a past life during which he had been a highly placed courtier in the entourage of Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton.

Supposedly navel piercing was common amongst the aristocracy but forbidden to the lower classes. Doug claimed that the piercing could be seen in statuary, but try as I might I was unable to see it in the photos which he showed me. Within the last 50 years scientists have been able to construct an extremely clear and accurate picture of Egyptian life dating back several thousand years. To date I am unaware of any evidence having been discovered that would substantiate Doug’s claim.

Meanwhile back in ancient Egypt, Doug’s ancient self had a jealous rival at court who arranged to have him murdered. This left a karmic debt that the rival was attempting to repay in Doug’s present incarnation. From time to time the “Little Man” as he was called would appear and offer Doug advice and occasionally make predictions. I know of at least one that wasn’t accurate. Doug was told he’d live to the year 2000. Maybe by some antiquated calendar. At least by our calendar he was off by nearly 25 years.



Doug walking in his back yard at the edge of Toluca Lake.

Doug had an incredible home in the San Fernando Valley. Allegedly he had been told psychically to start construction on it even before he’d amassed the fortune necessary to complete it. It was in an area called Toluca Lake, named after the small body of water on the edge of which the house was being built. To the best of my knowledge there is no public access to the lake itself because it is completely surrounded by homes. Warner Brothers studio is a short distance to the East. Doug’s neighbors included Bob Hope, Olivia de Haviland, and Walt Disney’s brother Roy.




Left: Doug’s living room with its church-style organ,
Right: Doug, circa 1950, with a theater organ pipe in his hand.

From the street, the house itself was not particularly impressive. It appeared to be a modest, modern, one-level box. But inside it was a marvel. There was an atrium with a roof that could be retracted. The house had not one, but two pipe organs. One was a church-style organ in the living room. A narrow spiral staircase lead down to a small, 99-seat theater in which there was a fully restored Wurlitzer theater organ dating from the 1920’s. During the silent movie days it had graced a Paramount Studio sound stage. Doug’s interest in theater organs inspired him to found the American Theater Organ Society in 1955.



Doug in his theater projection booth.

The theater was equipped with state of the art projection and recording facilities. On several occasions a few other Tattoo & Piercing group members and I were invited to join some of Doug’s other friends for private showings in the theater.

Doug had been a very close friend of the comedy film star of silent movie fame, Harold Lloyd. When Harold died in 1971, Doug was the executor of his estate. This gave him access to all of Harold’s old films.

Another close friend was an old theater organist named Gaylord Carter. Quite naturally things came together for showings of several Harold Lloyd silent films accompanied live by Carter. These were truly once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and I’ll never forget them.

Doug’s interests were many and varied. In addition to organs, he had a passion for steamboats. In 1957 he and his family took a trip on the Mississippi riverboat the Delta Queen. On learning that the company was about to go under and this was to be its final season, Doug purchased controlling interest in the company in 1958. With his entrepreneurial skills he quickly turned it into a highly profitable enterprise.

I was not fortunate enough to have met Doug at the height of his prowess. A few years previously he had sustained brain damage from an event which nearly killed him. This had effected his ability to express himself. He confided in me that he had once been “an eloquent speaker” and was actually planing to pursue a political career when it all came to an abrupt end. The experience also forced him to take things easier and freed him to indulge his other great passion, body piercing.

During one of our many conversations Doug confided in me that had he been born at a later time he would probably have been gay. But he was born at a time when such a lifestyle could easily make anyone an outcast. He had ambitions, and he also believed that he and the members of his family had been together in a past incarnation. It was important that he provide the means for all of them to incarnate together once again.



Although not common today, Doug preferred to wear a large ring in his frenum piercing, sized to encircle his penis. He claimed that some men liked to sleep with their finger through the ring. Notice his Hafada.

Right: Doug’s Guiche.

Shortly before we met, Doug had written a short autobiography of his piercing exploits entitled The Adventures of a Piercing Freak (click the link to read it). He had subsequently sold the article to a publisher of fetish magazines who issued it in soft cover under the title The Art of Pierced Penises and Decorative Tattoos. Since body piercing was virtually unknown at the time, the publisher was hard pressed to find suitable images to accompany the text. Consequently the photographs used had nothing to do with the story.

Piercing Freak could hardly be described as great literature. It is told in a bold style with a certain hyper-masculine bravado. Although I think it largely failed, it was clearly intended as “one-handed reading” for a primarily gay fetish market. Fantastic as parts of it are, Doug insisted the story was true. It’s difficult to believe it was commonplace for divers to use Prince Albert rings to attach an external catheter or that there was actually a college organization of Jewish men advocating Dydoe piercings to restore sensation for circumcised males.

Doug did author, to some extent, promotional material for Gauntlet and articles for Gauntlet’s magazine Piercing Fans International Quarterly. The truth is I was the ghostwriter for these working from notes that he provided. One of the first promotional pieces we did was a flyer entitled “Body & Genital Piercing in Brief(click the link to read it). It contained short histories and descriptions of a dozen piercings Doug considered “traditional.” I drew the illustrations to accompany them. The piercings included were:

  • Nipple
  • Navel
  • Prince Albert
  • Dydoe
  • Ampallang
  • Apadravya
  • Frenum
  • Hafada
  • Guiche
  • Foreskin
  • Labia
  • Clitoris

Of particular interest is the fact that, with the exception of the navel, all of these piercings have a largely sexual purpose. This reflects Doug’s primary interest in body piercing as a means of enhancing erotic sensation.

The impact the “Piercing Brief” has had is phenomenal. It was widely distributed and reprinted and contained many of the colorful myths that persist and, to some extent have been widely accepted as fact. There has never been any proof to substantiate, among other things that:

  1. Roman Centurians wore nipple rings to which they attached short capes.
  2. Navel piercings were a sign of royalty in ancient Egypt.
  3. Beau Brummell and Prince Albert had their penises pierced.
  4. Arab boys had the side of their scrotums pierced at puberty.
  5. Male South Pacific islanders did the Guiche piercing.

The evidence on which Doug based his Roman Centurians claim was a Baroque statue he’d seen in Versailles. He showed me a photograph. I pointed out to him that Roman military men frequently wore metal breastplates sometimes sculpted to resemble a muscular male chest. The rings with cape attached were in the breastplate, not the man. Doug paused for a moment to ponder my observation, then replied, “Well, it makes a good story anyway.”

There are actually very few body piercings which have a documented history. The most extensively written about is the Ampallang, which at one time was fairly common in the areas surrounding the Indian Ocean. There is one sole reference to the Apadravya that I am aware of and it is in the Kama Sutra. Doug maintained that the Ampallang was horizontal through the head of the penis and the Apadravya vertical. Piercer and researcher Paul King of Cold Steel in San Francisco maintains that the piercings are in fact one and the same and that either one could be oriented in either direction. Whatever the facts, most piercing enthusiasts have accepted Doug’s designation.

Less extensively documented are foreskin piercings. We do know that they were performed as part of a procedure called infibulation. Usually it was done to male slaves as a means of enforcing chastity. Women with pierced labia can also be infibulated though the documentation of the procedure is scarce.

I sometimes wonder if people into piercing today have any deep appreciation of the tremendous impact Doug Malloy has had on their lives. Certainly he had predecessors and contemporaries equally as passionate about piercing as he, but what was it that made him the center from which the whole modern piercing movement sprang?



A happy Doug wearing an airbrushed T-shirt made for him by tattooist Cliff Raven. Over his right nipple are the letters DMMP which stood for “Doug Malloy, Master Piercer.” Over the left nipple is IIPPI. The letters stood for “If it protrudes, pierce it.”

I think there are several reasons. For one, no one before him had ever presented such a broad palette of piercing possibilities complete with history and lore. It didn’t matter that he probably made up a lot of it, if not the piercings themselves. He’d at least done enough experimentation on himself to have some sense of their feasibility. This made it possible for him to speak with a confidence that leant great credibility to what he said. It didn’t hurt that it was a message a lot of people were waiting to hear whether they realized it or not.

It was also fortunate that Doug didn’t pursue his passion completely in private. Although he was extremely secretive about it, particularly with his family and non-kinky friends, he nonetheless reached out to other piercing enthusiasts who would go on to spread his message.

Finally, regardless of how primitive they might have been, Doug had formulated some basic but usable piercing techniques that, for the most part, could be applied by anyone.

If you combine all these elements with his good fortune of being in the right place at the right time, you can begin to see the seed that would grow into the modern piercing movement and appreciate how Doug vastly enriched your life.

Next: Gauntlet’s Jewelry Design Legacy


Jim Ward is is one of the cofounders of body piercing as a public phenomena in his role both as owner of the original piercing studio Gauntlet and the original body modification magazine PFIQ, both long before BME staff had even entered highschool. He currently works as a designer in Calfornia where he lives with his partner.

Copyright © 2004 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to publish full, edited, or shortened versions must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published March 15th, 2004 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Suspensions & Tensions: Yesterday – Fakir Rants & Raves

Suspensions & Tensions:
Yesterday

"Your body belongs to you, and in the appropriate ritual, it has been given to you to explore the full dimensions of your being."

In 1943, a young teenage boy in South Dakota was bored to tears in the stifling, restricted and limited environment around him. He haunted libraries hoping to find a glimmer of something different, exciting, vital and alive in the world beyond. In the school library, in a musty alcove he hit pay dirt — a complete collection of old National Geographic magazines dating from 1905! Here were pictures of people who looked different, lived differently and had done radically different things with their bodies. This was exciting, WOW!

Early photos of Savite Hindu devotees during Chidi Mari Festival in South India (Madras, 1920’s). After hooks are pierced in the back, the devotee climbs a high tower where he (or she) is lifted into free air by a horizontal pole and slowly rotated.

One photo in particular attracted his attention. In a 1920’s issue he saw photos of young men and women in India with hooks pierced through their flesh hanging fully suspended by their flesh from a rotating cross arm high in the air. Why did they do this, he wondered? How could they do this? What did this feel like? What did it do to you? Several years later, the boy found some descriptions and drawings of Native Americans who also pierced their flesh and either pulled for hours against deep piercings or hung suspended by them.

Discovery of these Native American rituals rang many bells for the boy since many of these rituals had taken place in the same physical space in South Dakota he now occupied, and only about fifty years prior. Following a psychic trail on his bicycle, he found several places where Lakota, Arikira and Sissiton peoples had pierced their flesh and pulled against it. The vibes were still there beneath the rustle of cottonwood leaves on the trees from which they pulled and hung.

The feeling left in these places was infectious. The boy was intoxicated by it. He had to try this himself. In fact, he felt like he had done this before. That boy was me. He has since tried these body rituals many times. Now some fifty years later, in 2003, he finds himself in a strange new world — one where many others have also felt the urge to pierce their flesh and either pull against it or be suspended by it. However, some of these explorers seem to think they’ve just invented the wheel and want some kind of patent on it to claim ownership. So now we’ve got “Superman” and “Coma” suspensions and other new names that just didn’t exist in the world of the people who originated these rituals. But that is ok as long as some credit and honor is paid to the people who came before and showed the way — as long as the inner “magic” and “sacred space” belonging to these rituals is not forgotten or ignored.

ORIGINS & BELIEFS

The practice of piercing the flesh then pulling or hanging by pierced body parts is not a new custom. It has been a part of Hindu Culture in Southern India (Tamil Nadu) for thousands of years, nearly as long among the Sufi of the Middle East, and for hundreds of years as a part of religious ceremonies of Native Americans. It is, until recently, an alien and forbidden custom in mainstream Western Cultures. What useful purpose could this custom have? Why would anybody deliberately choose to “mutilate” their flesh and “suffer” thus? A huge conflict exists between Western Culture and those where such piercing rites are honored and encouraged.

The core of this conflict centers around different cultural beliefs about the body. Who does your body belong to? A distant God who has strict rules about what you can do with it? Or to a Priest or other intermediary of this real or imaginary divinity? Does your body belong to a father or mother? Or to a husband or spouse? Or to the state or a social order or tribe? Does anyone besides you have the right to decide what you can or cannot do with your body? Or does it simply belong to you the one who lives inside?

In those cultures where piercing ceremonies have developed, the attitude is pretty much universal: your body belongs to you, and in the appropriate ritual, it has been given to you to explore the full dimensions of your being. In Western Cultures of the late 20th Century, some of these alien beliefs have replaced old Judeo-Christian ones. Since the 1970’s the widespread practice, acceptance and popularity of body modification definitely says, “My body belongs to me!” However, like many customs and practices that originated in other cultures and were transplanted here, only part of the messsage seems to have been transmitted. For example, the art of tattooing was brought to Europe from the South Pacific by sailors and early explorers. In Somoa and the Marquesas, the custom of tattooing was a very sacred and special rite: “the making of a magic mark”. It was an initiation, a rite of passage, and meant to transform forever the one who bore it. The early sailors brought back the technique to make the mark — but failed to bring back the magic. So soon European tattooing became a mere novelty: marks that don’t wash off, a status symbol of sailors and outcasts. The meaningful and magical geometric designs of the originators were replaced with the only kind of graphic Europeans understood: crude representational pictures or words. The magic and purpose of the originators had been lost in translation.

In most cases, I feel the same thing has happened to the suspensions and related piercing experiences a lot of people are doing today. They are often being done for sheer novelty, attention, and ego satisfaction. I feel very strongly that if one borrows a custom from another culture, it is your obligation to respect and understand, as best possible, the significance and mystery of the practice. Otherwise, it can easily fall into darkness or misuse and undesirable consequences or spiritual degradation can result.

However, at the same time, I feel everybody has a right to do what they will with their body even if it is for sheer exhibitionism. But they should be aware they are missing the full potential and magical significance of the act.

SAVITE HINDU & SUFI PRACTICES

The oldest recorded history of piercing the body and pulling on or hanging by the piercings goes back perhaps five thousand years to the earliest cultures of India. In this great period of human development in the East, the concepts of Hinduism including the various yogic disciplines, understanding of energy centers (chakras), tantra and the Kama Sutra were born. The body/spirit connection was especially explored, and the ability to attain different states of consciousness was both sought after and revered. The idea of “using the body to transcend body” played an important role in religious and everyday life.

Two major Hindu Festivals are especially focused on body piercing rituals: Thaipusam in January/February and Chidi Mari in May/June. Both festivals are celebrated primarily by Savite Hindus (devotees of Lord Siva, Muruga, Murugan, Subramanya, the Great Mother Mari and Kali). Other Hindus, like the followers of Vishnu or Krishna, do not usually practice body rituals or employ body piercing in their religious practice. In fact, they often hold these rites in contempt. The Savites are mostly the dark-skinned Tamil people of Southern India (Tamil Nadu) and direct descendents of the original indigenous peoples of India. Their Tamil language used in the chants of their “Pujas” (worship) is the spoken equivalent of the ancient written language of Sanskrit. Historically, the Tamil peoples have been persecuted for hundreds of years. First by the light-skinned Northern Indians, descendents of Aryan invaders, then by the British colonialists who hauled them off as virtual slaves to work on tea plantations in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and other parts of the British Empire. Wherever they’ve been taken by force, the Tamil people have been remarkably successful in preserving their culture and spiritual practices. Something similar is now happening with the culture of Tibet.

Above, L-R: Thaipusam hook-swinger in Ceyon in the 1930’s (Is this Superman?), recent Hindu rituals in Melacca (West Malaysia), and Kavarti at the Sivananda Ashram in Val Morin (a man suspends from a rig on a pickup truck). Below: Group rituals at the Sivananda Ashram.

As public festivals, both the Thaipusam and Chidi Mari have been effectively outlawed in India and Sri Lanka. Too barbaric. But in other parts of Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia and Thailand, these “torture festivals” still flourish. The Chidi Mari Festival is devoted to worship of the “Great Mother” (Mari) and other female deities like Kali. Devotees are often pierced by two hooks in the back, suspended on the end of a long pole and rotated high in the air. Others are pierced with multiple hooks and suspended horizontally for long periods of time (two to six hours). All this done to attain a “State of Grace” (ecstatic trance) in which the Great Mother possesses their bodies and bestows enlightenment and blessings on them and their families.

Thaipusam is a piercing festival to Lord Siva and especially the Hindu dieties who are “Stars in His Crown”: Muruga, Murugan, Subramanya, Skanda, Ganapati. Devotees vow to bear a gift to the deity (archtype) under physical hardship. This is considered the purest of gifts — the offering of one’s own body pierced with spears, skewers or hooks as it delivers the gift. This is “Worship Through the Body” and such a gift is especially accepted and blessed by such deities (archetypes) as Murugan, Lord of Piercing and patron Saint of the Tamils. When I witnessed the Thaipusam in Penang Malaysia in 1995, I felt the reality of the sacrificial energy released. It was overpowering, intoxicating, sweet, and very similar to the energy that I have experienced at many of the body suspension and hook pulling rituals I have facilitated or witnessed in recent years.

This same energy has historically been a part of Sufi body piercing rituals dating back hundreds of years. In case you don’t know, Sufi is a fusion of ancient Hebrew, Hindu, and Islamic beliefs and practices with emphasis on individual “gnosis”, that is “direct knowing” by means of altered states. Sufi sects that still practice piercing rituals, dervish dancing, and other trance rites are not accepted by mainstream Islam and have been forced underground except in the United States and a few other Western cultures. I even know of one of them in Marin County, California! One of my ardent pro body piercers learned Arabic and was attached to that group. My namesake, the original Fakir Musafar, was a 12th Century Sufi mystic from Meshed, Persia (Iran) who for sixteen years had six daggers embedded in his chest and back plus six horseshoes suspended from twelve permanent piercings in his shoulders and arms. Musafar’s message was much the same as mine: one can access the unseen worlds and find the source of being through the body. Legend has it Musafar was ridiculed for his bizarre practices and that he died of a broken heart because his message went unheard. In many ways, I feel the hand of Musafar and the energy of Murugan in what I have been doing for some fifty years. I also feel the Spirit of the Modern Primitive is an extension of that same ancient and timeless energy.

NATIVE AMERICAN PRACTICES

 

Catlin’s 1800’s painting of O-Kee-Pa: A Religious Cermony of the Mandan. This art is scanned directly from the original litho page in his 1867 book published by Trubner & Co., London. A precious find, this original leather bound copy belongs to Fakir!

Strange as it may seem, the practice of piercing the body and ritually pulling or suspending it to achieve some kind of union with divine powers developed quite independently on the North American continent. The exact time frame is unknown since there are no written records left by these tribal peoples — only verbal records and stories told to Europeans in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. The most significant chronicler of these customs was George Catlin, an Englishman who lived among the Mandan people in the 1830’s and both wrote and painted descriptions of their body rituals. The Mandan, who were not hunters and gatherers, lived in villages and cities along the Missouri River in what is now South and North Dakota. The primary Mandan suspension ritual was called the O-Kee-Pa. It was both a rite of passage for all young men and also a repeated practice for a vision-seeking shaman. Mandan legend says the practice was given to them by a white man who came down from a mountain in ancient times.

After many days of fasting and extreme ordeals, Mandan young men who were about to become adults and enter adult life were pierced twice in the chest and twice in the back. Under the guidance of an older man who had taken this journey before, often many times (called a Ka-See-Ka meaning guide), they were suspended by either set of piercings from the roof of a lodge. In extreme pain, followed by trance, the young men were hung up for about twenty minutes to seek communion with “The Great White Spirit”. Legend has it that initiates traveled out of their bodies in this state and were guided through unseen worlds by their Ka-See-Ka who knew the way. The O-Kee-Pa journey was like a canoe trip on a tricky river: the initiate submitted and just rode in the canoe while the Ka-See-Ka steered it to appropriate vistas and to avoid rocks. Through the years, neighboring tribes, especially the Arikara and Minnetaree, were exposed to the Mandan ritual and developed their own piercing rites, often more severe.

Various Sioux (generic French word used for all tribal peoples living in this area) tribes like the Lakota, Ogalala, Teton and Yellow Hand also adopted or developed shamanic piercing rites — chief of which is called the Sun Dance in which pledgers are pierced once or twice in the chest, fastened to a tree or pole and vow to pull against the piercings until the flesh breaks. Again, the object is to enter an extraordinary state and meet an animal ally or the “Great White Spirit” — either as communion, healing or to obtain special knowledge. The most serious initiates and experienced dancers gained great respect and awe for how long they could pull against the piercings without breaking free. Sometimes this would be several days.

Wonderfully accurate movie reenactments of the O-Kee-Pa and Sun Dance can be seen in the Richard Harris films “Man Called Horse” and “Return of the Man Called Horse”. A documentary film of a real modern day Sun Dance and O-Kee-Pa style suspension can be seen in the film “Dances Sacred & Profane” shot in Wyoming with Jim Ward and Fakir as initiates. When this film was released on videotape it was called “Bizarre Rituals”. Watch my web site for a new tape to be released soon with the last thirty minutes of the “Dances” film plus a short profile of Fakir produced by French filmmakers and Canal+ for European distribution.

Yours for safe and enlightened body rites,


Fakir Musafar
fakir at bodyplay dot com

In my next column, SUPENSIONS & TENSIONS: TODAY, I will bring these practices to contemporary times with accounts of my own experiences and the experiences of others. I also wish to alert those who currently do piercing rituals with large hooks of a new and recent danger: MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylcoccus Aureus), a staph infection that is resistant to all current forms of antibiotics. It is real. It is here and I recently had to deal with a case that required two open-heart surgeries! It is easily transmitted by mere physical contact. It is then called CA (community acquire) MRSA. More on this new danger in my next column.



Fakir Musafar is the undisputed father of the Modern Primitives movement and through his work over the past 50 years with PFIQ, Gauntlet, Body Play, and more, he has been one of the key figures in bringing body modification out of the closet in an enlightened and aware fashion.

For much more information on Fakir and the subjects discussed in this column, be sure to check out his website at www.bodyplay.com. While you’re there you should consider whipping out your PayPal account and getting yourself a signed copy of his amazing book, SPIRIT AND FLESH (now).

Copyright © 2003 BMEzine.com LLC Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published November 15th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.