Underground: Taboo Secrets – Forbidden Desires - Skin Deep – Body Modification and Extreme Self-Expression cover art

Underground: Taboo Secrets – Forbidden Desires - Skin Deep – Body Modification and Extreme Self-Expression

Underground: Taboo Secrets – Forbidden Desires - Skin Deep – Body Modification and Extreme Self-Expression

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Episode 3: Skin Deep - "Body Modification and Extreme Self-Expression" Hooks pierce through his back, ropes pull him upward, and he hangs suspended by flesh alone, experiencing pain so intense that endorphins produce transcendent altered states. Body suspension represents the extreme edge of modification culture, practiced in underground communities alongside scarification, subdermal implants, tongue splitting, and other transformations most people find incomprehensible. This episode examines extreme body modification from ancient practices to contemporary subcultures, hearing from suspension practitioners who describe spiritual experiences, trauma processing, and identity expression through pain. From the mechanics of suspension to motivations driving permanent alterations, from professional consequences of visible modifications to psychological functions of reclaiming bodily autonomy, from legal gray areas forcing modification artists underground to risks including infection and irreversible stigmatization, the episode reveals how practitioners use their bodies as canvases for self-expression that permanently marks them as outside mainstream society.
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