Looking for Research Participants

Josh McLeod is looking for research participants in Calgary (AB) and Vancouver (BC). If you’re in those areas, heavily tattooed and 18 or older, read on…

Hey all – I’m looking for participants for an academic research project. Please forward to all your friends with job-stoppers!

Heavily tattooed? Have an interest in reality television? I am looking for heavily tattooed people in VANCOUVER and CALGARY to participate in interviews for a research project looking at identity formation and reality television. For more information on the project, visit:
https://tattoosandculture.wixsite.com/research

Got genital beads?

I was sent a request from an author looking to get some information about genital beading.  If you’ve got first hand knowledge and feel like sharing some insight, read on:

What I’d like to know is from a guy’s point of view the sensations of having the beads and what pleasure he can draw from them via masturbation, vaginal and or anal intercourse and what sensations from oral he may have.

And why he chose to have modification done and what if any mental stimulation they have for having their body modified.

If there is a female who has a boyfriend or lover who has beads implanted, I’d love to know how it feels to her as well and if there are certain positions she finds that enhance pleasure more or totally hurt.

I don’t go into detail in the story but need an underlying basis to go off of besides having ribbed or studded vibrators I’ll never have the opportunity to indulge in some wicked sex with someone modified. DH said hell no when I showed him a pic.

I can be emailed at [email protected]

My website is www.mahalialevey.com

Research Request

We received this request for help in a research project and we are passing on the information to our readers. Please note that this is not something we at BME are conducting but rather a research project being conducted by a member of BME.

I’m a member of BME and currently doing research on body modifications. Our research has been featured in the news both nationally and internationally, including the BBC.

The purpose of the research is to collect as many images of body modifications as possible that we will use to research how common certain modifications are. While there is a lot of literature on why people acquire a body modification in different groups of society, hardly any articles are published on what type of body modifications and designs are common in different age groups, geographical areas, sexes, etc. When we know that, we can use that knowledge in disaster victim identification and the investigation of unknown victims e.g. to predict where the victim was from, what kind of work he was doing, age group etc. It will also help us to establish the prevalence of a specific tattoo design for example by looking how many times similar designs can be found in our database. This will assist in establishing stronger support for identification when other data is not available such as DNA. So far, our preliminary findings show an interesting relationship between employment and tattoo design as well as country of residence and tattoo design.

The research is completely voluntary and participants can withdraw at any time. Those who wish to participate also have to tick a consent box if they wish to take part in the research.

The research is approved by the University of Dundee’s ethics committee and we are therefore bound to strict data protection rules and research guidelines. I am the only person who can see the personal details of the participant submitting the body modification image. We may share the images with the other partners in our project to develop separate aids for use in disaster victim identification, but they will not get the personal data of any of the participants nor will they get an image unless the participant has given specific consent to share this. We will use the personal data only for my research and participants are not required to give their name or email. Therefore I do not know the person’s identity. It is also important to note that none of the images will be used for policing purposes simply because we don’t have permission to do so. The database will only be used to classify body modifications and establish their prevalence to assist in identifying victims of disasters or unidentified bodies.

If you wish to participate or find out more information, you can visit the website at bodymodresearch.com.

Thesis Requests

Just a quick post to help a couple members of the community. Just as I normally get a lot of media requests and post those, these are geared more towards higher education and helping specific members of the community with their degrees!

Hi, my name is Alisha Gauvreau and I am a fourth-year Anthropology student at Laurentian University. As an anthropologist, I study human variation and adaptation, both currently and through time. I also study the central concept of anthropology, which is culture. Culture consists of all behaviour which is learned and transmitted to new members of a group.

As a member of the body modification community, I have always been fascinated by our culture and the various rituals practiced by many members of this important community. Of particular interest is the practice of body suspension and I have had the opportunity to observe suspensions and flesh pulls. Although there is historic information about body suspension among the Mandan and Lakota First Nations people in North America, I have yet to find any academic documentation about this practice in contemporary North America. Thus, I decided to document it.

For my fourth-year university thesis, I am studying suspension as practiced by members of the body modification community in Canada. The primary purposes of this research are:

  • Documentation of the subculture of body suspension in Canada.
  • Documentation of the ritual aspects of body suspension.
  • Documentation of the physiological and psychological aspects of body suspension.
  • Education of medical practitioners about the physiological and psychological effects of body suspension.
  • A cross cultural comparison of body suspension in Canada with other groups who have been documented to practice body suspension — for example, the Mandan and Dakota people of North America.
  • Education of the general public about body suspension.
  • Helping to eliminate misconceptions and ethnocentric viewpoints about body suspension.
  • Practical applications for the health care community and for other public agencies.

I am currently recruiting individuals who are interested in being interviewed about their perspectives and experiences with respect to body suspension. If you are thinking about suspending, have suspended only once, or have suspended numerous times, then you are eligible to participate in this important research. I have transportation and am willing to travel so I can conduct face-to-face interviews. Telephone interviews are also an option. Participation in my research is entirely voluntary and all data is kept confidential. If you chose to participate, we will both sign a form agreeing to the aforementioned terms. Permission forms for telephone interviews will be handled by fax.

If you are interested in participating please contact me at: [email protected]

Alisha and her friend, Ivan.

The second one comes from another student working on her thesis as well. She’s created an online survey but did not include a photo of herself for me to run some Photoshop filters on and water mark.

“I want to hear your story!

I’m a graduate student with the UCCS sociology department and I’m working on my masters thesis on non-mainstream body modification.

That’s where you come in! (In other words, I need fabulous bodies to study!)

I’m particularly interested in hearing from those of you with “extreme” body modifications/practices, but Mods of all sorts are welcome to participate, of course.

If you’re interested in helping me out please follow this link to take the survey (easier than a DIY job during a 3am power outage, right?)

Tell me your body’s story!

If you have questions, please contact me at [email protected].

Thank you!”

Morgen

If you’ve got the time, please take a moment to help out!