Again and again, human beings have shown off their willingness to pierce, poke and alter every facet of their bodies. Currently, tattoos and certain piercings are seen as utterly socially acceptable, and no-one blinks twice if your barista has 8 earrings and full sleeve tattoos.
But some people take it to the next level, with bodymods that stretch belief and might fire up your gag reflex. Here are 13 of the craziest body mods (which don’t involve genitalia, because that would just be too easy).
13. Black Light Tattoo
So what do you do if you want a tattoo but you don’t want it to be highly visible? If you’re a normal person, you get it put somewhere discreet, and it’s not an issue. If you’re someone who tends to hang around places where the music repetitively goes oons-oons-oons, and look fondly back on the 90s, then you get a blacklight tattoo.
Much as the name suggests, blacklight tattoos only show up under black light, meaning they look like a very faint scar most of the time. However, once you get into the club with the rest of your raver friends, the ink glows. It’s a cool effect, but I wonder if the glow degrades over time.
12. Corset Piercing
This bodymod is high on the list because, well, because it’s actually kinda hot. Two rows of piercings run down the back, and then a piece of ribbon is threaded through them. This duplicates the look of the ties on a corset, which has definite aesthetic appeal. Which is doubtless boosted by its usual appearance on the backs of young, attractive women.
The downside? Whenever I see one, I just get a horrible mental image of someone ripping the whole thing out.
11. Implanted Magnets
Another one that’s kinda cool. Implanting magnets under your skin, which not only lets you pick up metal objects, but gives you a minor 6th sense. Reportedly, once you’ve implanted the small and powerful objects, you can detect live wires, feel your hard drive spin up, or sense security systems.
The magnets are implanted into your fingertip, and when you cross a magnetic field they oscillate slightly, creating a buzzing sensation. As far as bodymods go, it’s a fair bit more practical than most. The downside? The silicon sleeve used to separate your body from the magnet has a tendency to rupture, which leads to the magnet breaking down inside you.
10. The Giant Labret
The labret is a fairly common piercing, one which is beneath your lower lip, and is often seen as a stud or spike. It’s remarkably common, and you probably know someone who has one.
So what happens when someone does to the labret piercing as they do to their ears, and start to stretch the hole. And, after it gets big enough, they stick a clear plastic plug in it. You get an unparalleled look at the person’s gumline, and I’m sure more than just a couple of really, really odd glances. Looking at that, and seeing how much it alters the shape of the lower lip, you have to wonder if it makes eating difficult.
9. Microdermal Implants
So you want a piece of metal sticking straight out of your body? But you don’t want to shove a piece of metal deep into your muscle structure? Well, lucky for you, there’s a middle-ground.
A microdermal implant sticks a small L-shaped bracket into your skin, which leaves just a tiny stud of metal protruding. With this hook, you can stick on all types of studs, jewels, and various spikey shaped things. As far as implants go, it’s relatively non-invasive and won’t go too deep. You’re still sticking hooks under your skin though.
8. Ear Spiking
There are only two types of people who would get their ears modified to look like this: hardcore fantasy fans, or hardcore Star Trek fans. Neither of whom are usually the primary demographic for extensive body modification, especially ones that involve removing large chunks of flesh. But I’m not one to judge.
So if you’re of the type where you think your life would be immeasurably improved by having ears that come to a sharp point, then maybe this is for you. So how is this achieved? Well, you take your ear, carve a wedge of flesh and cartilage out of it and then strap it back together. You keep it bandaged that way for some time until it heals enough that it won’t rip itself to shreds as soon it becomes unstrapped. Then you have a spiky set of ears!
7. Scarification
Scarification scares me more than almost anything else, but mostly because I find the results oddly attractive. What happens with this procedure, is that you peel off large sections of someone skin in a specific pattern, revealing the tissue beneath. Once this area heals, it will cover with scar tissue, which will be a different color and texture from the surrounding skin.
As crazy and gruesome as this is, some people take it a step further, and deliberately aggravate the wound, preventing it from healing normally. This causes greater swelling in the scar tissue and creates more defined results. The whole process is extremely bloody and looks more painful than I care to fathom. But I kinda think it looks hot.
6. Saline Inflation
So you want giant lumpy bits added to your body, but don’t want them to be permanent? You still want to look like you got stung by some sort of mutant bee, and have swelling that would make any sane doctor run in terror? Well, how about injecting large amounts of saline solution into your face, and then making divots with your thumb on it? All the cool Japanese are doing it!
Now, I would like to digress here for a second, and mention that there’s an entire group of people who like doing this exact same thing, but to their testicles. Seeing as we’re trying to keep this list at least vaguely PG-13, we won’t show any of the images, but it’s pretty horrific. At least saline inflations disappear after a while…
5. Subdermal Implants
But subdermal implants are here to stay! A subdermal implant involves inserting a large object under the skin, and then leaving it to heal. The shape of implant then shows through the skin, creating a raised and slightly terrifying resulting effect.
It’s not often in life you’ll run into someone with devil horns or detailed beaded patterns protruding under their skin, and it’s certainly a dramatic look. Subdermal implants are still rare enough that you’ll probably face a fair amount of social ostracization because of it, but hey, what price is art?
4. Suspension
Suspension isn’t so much a single modification, as a religious experience associated with the bodymod world. People who are into suspension literally hang themselves off hooks, usually through the skin of their back. The hooks are inserted just prior to the act itself, meaning the piercings are always fresh, and the person is hoisted up. The hooks must be carefully placed, taking into account the weight of the subject, and their skin’s strength, because if there aren’t a sufficient number of the piercings, then the skin won’t take the weight, and will rip out.
Suspension is never undertaken with anesthesia, as the practitioners feel this would diminish the importance of the act. It’s an intensely spiritual performance for most people, who see it as a form of meditation. Me, I’m just terrified of the whole concept!
3. Split Tongue
You know how snakes have split tongues. Do you want one? Do you yearn with the desire to separately control the left and right halves of your tongue? To slither them around various objects, and creep people out? To give the heebie-jeebies to the general populace? All you have to do is split your tongue down the middle—known as bifurcation—and then stitch it up again to let it heal. In doing so, you’ll get the tool you’ve always wanted to strike fear into the hearts of children.
2. Burning
So, remember when I talked about how scarification could have visually impressive results? Well, what happens when you take that process, remove any chance of it looking good, and add an even stronger undercurrent of self harm? Welcome to the world of self-inflicted burn wounds. The burning is done by cigarette. Slowly. And repeatedly. Over the course of a long, long time. That’s right, it says “love hurts”. And it’s almost entirely illegible. That’s just screwed up.
1. Eye Tattoos
AAAHH! AAAAH! AAAAAAAH! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT! Holy crap, that’s just screwed up! That’s right, these folks are getting tattoo ink injected into their eyeballs, effectively dying it blue. There is only one situation where I want to see someone with all-blue eyes, and that’s if they’re Fremen.
Apparently getting the ink shoved into your eyeball is relatively painless, but I don’t care. That’s just weird, creepy, nasty, and all-around unpleasant. Some people can’t stand the idea of having anything near their eyes. Think about them seeing a needle coming towards their eyes. Hell, I went through LASIK surgery, I’ve had weird things done to my orbs. But this? This is just gross.