When Kim Kardashian went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show this month, she revealed that Pete Davidson has had her name branded on his chest. “He desired to do something that was really different,” she said, before adding that Davidson wanted the branding to be there as a scar eternally. This episode may very well be written off as yet one more example of celebs attempting to outweird one another, but branding can be a known, if area of interest, fetish throughout the BDSM community and only one example of how some people permanently modify their bodies for kinky reasons. 

Body modification has a protracted tradition in kink. When the primary US-based body piercing studio, Gauntlet, opened in LA in 1975, its clientele originated from California’s queer S&M communities. Jim Ward, the studio’s founder, specialised in nipple and genital piercings before branching out into piercing on a broader, more industrial level. Before being embraced by the mainstream within the mid-90s, piercing was largely related to queer, kink and alternative cultures.

The term ‘body modification’ covers every little thing from mainstream practices like tattoos and piercings to more ‘extreme’ procedures like tongue splitting, branding and scarification. It will probably also include cosmetic surgery, fillers, and botox. There are a lot of ways to subtly modify your body with a purpose to feel sexy or increase sexual pleasure not directly. Tongue and nipple piercings, for instance, are sometimes sexualised, but they’re relatively common and never particularly visible in day-to-day life. Nevertheless, for those with specific sexual fetishes, body modification can mean embracing their kinkiness, visibly and irreversibly, as a 24/7 lifestyle for the remainder of their lives.

There are a lot of the reason why someone might resolve to permanently modify their body for sexual gratification. For Sam*, 32, branding is an intimate and spiritual experience. They’ve two self-done brands and one brand applied by their dom on their chest, forearm and upper back. “The physical sensation is a activate,” they are saying. “It puts me right into a very spacey, blissed out state in a short time. My initial experiences with branding were self-done brands as a part of my spiritual practice and that definitely felt very near being in deep prayer or meditation.”

Historically, human branding was used to mark criminals and slaves. Within the UK today, the legality around branding is murky. Because the procedure involves a more serious type of bodily harm than tattooing or piercing, it has been treated as a criminal practice previously even when the one who was branded gave their full consent. In 1996, a husband was taken to court for consensually branding his wife. The court decided that this act fell throughout the category of ‘lawful infliction of actual bodily harm’ since it was within the confines of a conjugal relationship. The legal emphasis was on the actual fact they were married somewhat than the health and safety risks of performing this act at home. “I might say that untrained people doing any form of body modification can’t ever be considered truly secure,” says Sam, “but I learned every little thing I could to cut back risk.”

Within the BDSM community, branding is commonly an indication of ownership. “Knowing that the marks are long run or everlasting adds one other dimension for me,” says Sam. “The sensation of being claimed and owned is so necessary for me feeling sexually satisfied and fulfilled in my relationship. Seeing sex mainly as an act of affection and repair to my dom has taken away all of the pressure and self-consciousness I’ve experienced in vanilla relationships.”

But branding isn’t the one way that folks permanently modify their bodies to succeed in a state of sexual submission. Individuals with bimbofication kinks often go under the knife, undergoing multiple breast enhancements, excessive lip fillers, and more to realize a plastic sex doll look. “Throughout my surgeries, I enhanced myself an increasing number of,” says skilled bimbo, Alicia Amira, who has had three breast surgeries, one rhinoplasty, and lots of fillers and Botox. “I feel more just like the sex object and sex doll that I feel like I used to be born to be. Looking a certain way allows me to feel that way and never just pretend to be.”

Like branding, bimbofication may also enhance sexual success through feelings of ownership. Some bimbos give control over how they modify their bodies over to partners or fans. “I allow my partner to make your mind up [how I change my appearance] since it’s a part of my bimbofication to have someone who owns me,” says Amira. “I’m his sex object and his trophy. How big my breasts are gonna go isn’t really as much as me to make your mind up. In our dynamic, it’s his decision. It’s what turns me on and what excites me.”

Body modification bridges the gap between fantasy and reality. Most individuals have sexual fantasies but wouldn’t go so far as irreversibly altering their bodies and lives simply to live out those desires. For Amira, bimbofication is definitely a fetish, but her transformation can be about becoming who she at all times felt she was. “I at all times felt like I used to be a bimbo on the within, but really pursuing the art of bimbofication and everlasting body modification was really hard at first because I needed to face a lot stigma and I had to beat the fear of exclusion from society,” she says. “I can’t take my enhancements off, so I live like this, no matter how I dress. Quite early on, I sacrificed a traditional life on the altar of bimbofication and that was a conscious decision. I don’t have the posh of going to Co-op and searching normal or regular because I actually have enhanced myself to never have the option to try this.”

Bimbo Juliette Stray also made sacrifices for the sake of bimbofication. She sees her body modifications as a form of self-inflicted bondage. “That I can imprison myself via my kink selections is so hot,” she says. “I would like to wear a burlap sack and still have people have a look at me sexually. I desired to not have the option to cover the best way I’ve modified my body. I like being a spectacle and I like humiliation so I just like the attention, be it positive or negative.”

Body modification fetishes are sometimes the topic of sensationalist tabloid headlines. People wish to stare or laugh at anyone who looks different, especially if there’s a sexual motivation behind their look. It’s value remembering that a whole lot of these modifications are dangerous if not carried out appropriately and, as with all kinky activity, ongoing consent is vital. But even when these sorts of ‘extreme’ body modifications aren’t your thing – and, let’s be honest, for most individuals, they won’t be – there’s still something to be said about living out your fantasies so authentically, no matter what other people might think. As Stray put it, “The apocalypse is looming over us so get your boob job. Dye your hair. Pierce your stuff. Split your tongue. Just do it.”