I was sent a PM by another user asking for some insight into responsibly entering into the practice of extreme body modification and suspension. The post is as follows:

Sent from a user to me:

i live in spokane wa i am a body piercer and i want to get into suspension and more extreme body modification (ie. subdermal implants, tongue splitting, urethral splitting etc.) but i lack the resources for training on them.... would you know of any place i can contact or go to to learn body mod and suspension????

My response:

I'm guessing you are asking me directly because you have visited my website. I am always available to perform suspension, and getting some experience under your belt with the actual personal practice is the best way to get you started. If you feel like making a trip to LA, I would be happy to get you started on that. I love walking people through there first suspension, as it was one of the most empowering experiences of my life. I would also recommend attending the association of professional piercers conference. I went to a seminar on suspension safety there taught by Steve Joyner, Allen Falkner, and others. It was very informative, and safety cannot be stressed enough. In time, I have no doubt that someone will be killed as a result of suspending. There have already been MANY injuries. Attend a suscon if you can and there will be a wealth of knowledge available there.

There are artists teaching classes on modern suspension, and you may be able to get into one of these, but these are scarce, and space is generally very limited, and they are frequently so under-promoted that you may not even here about them. The primary advice I can give you on this is to use professional equipment, and ask lots of questions. Try to attend a suspension by an experienced practitioner to get some insight on the process. Using professional equipment means pulley systems designed to suspend human weight, and a professionally designed suspension rig. I am a distributor for CMI climbing equipment and sell all of their pulleys on www.DissectedArt.com. I am testing a suspension rig prototype currently and will have it available very soon.

As far as the implants go, Steve Haworth is by far the most experienced in the field. He teaches a genital beading class a few times a year, and you would definitely benefit from attending. Lukas Zpira also teaches seminars by request, but are a bit expensive as you must pay his travel expenses and then some to have him come teach you at your studio. I would recommend going very slow and patiently in the process of learning implants, as the consequences can be life threatening.

True professionals are respectful and very approchable for the most part. I recommend talking to all the artists you can and attending suscons to gain a bit more insight.

I plan on splitting my urethra in the next couple of weeks. I'll be video recording it, and I'll post the video. This will show you how I perform the procedure, but THIS IS NOT EDUCATIONAL. A word on watching videos; I completely disagree with many of the methods used for procedures in these videos, so don't consider any of them educational. I'm not saying all of them are using improper methods, but I don't consider all practitioners to be using safe methods.



Edited by dissected1 - June/02/2010 at 4:28pm