Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

177 Epilogue 2008
eyebrows and “labrets” located about half-way between the lower
lip and chin), and a variety of other body modifications. Modern
primitives have also embraced rituals such as “suspensions,” in
which people hang by wires or ropes looped through their piercings.
Two common forms of this practice are the “sun worship
ritual,” in which the person is suspended by metal hooks run
through the pectoral region, or back suspensions, where one is
lifted off the ground with chains attached to rings or hooks perforating
the shoulders, back, and sometimes the lower legs.
Genital and nipple piercing are also fairly common among
modern primitives, but these modifications are most directly connected
to segments of society that celebrate “body play.” Body
play is common among practitioners of BD/SM (Bondage-Discipline/Sado-Masochism
[or Slave-Master]) who derive pleasure
from unconventional forms of stimulation. Wearing jewelry
through the nipples or genitals provides numerous opportunities
for playing with, enjoying, imposing, and receiving a wide range of
physical sensations. From the perspective of those who wear genital
piercings, pleasurable sensation, not pain, is the goal.
The most common piercings are, for both sexes, through the
nipples. However, genital piercings are common enough to have
specific names. Women tend to favor wearing jewelry through the
clitoral hood or labia, but more radical piercings like the
fourchette (which runs from the base of the vagina to the perineum),
the triangle (which runs horizontally through the clitoral
hood, behind the nerve bundle of the clitoris), and the Princess
Diana (which runs parallel to the clitoris through the clitoral
hood) are also possible. Male genital piercings include the Prince
Albert (which enters through the urethra and exits below the
crown of the glans, or head, on the underside of the penis), the
dolphin (which enters the lower hole of a Prince Albert and runs
further down the urethra on the underside of the penis), the ampallang
(horizontally through the glans), the apadravya (vertically
through the glans), the frenum (through the pinchable tissue on
the underside of the penis below the glans and usually worn with
hoop jewelry that wraps around the glans below the corona, or
ridge), the lorum (similar to the frenum but worn where the shaft
of the penis reaches the scrotum), the hafada (hoops, usually
worn in pairs, piercing the outside of the scrotum), the Dydoe (a
piercing through the corona of the glans; Dydoes are usually worn