The first time I met Kam I noticed that he had some self-done scarification pieces on his shoulders. I was curious, but didn’t want to press or ask too many questions just in case they were something he wasn’t comfortable talking about. I asked if he did them himself, he said yes, and we left it at that. However, on our second date the topic of body piercing came up and he mentioned the name of the piercer who did his PA over 10 years ago. I was surprised to discover that it was someone I knew, and immediately pulled out my BME photo album to show Kam a picture to confirm that it was indeed the same person. The photo in question was from my first suspension. When Kam saw me flip to that page, his jaw hit the floor — he told me that he had been fascinated with suspension for years and had always wanted to experience it for himself, but had never found anyone able or willing to help him realize his dream. He told me that he had done a ritual lip sewing and cheek skewering about ten years back, and we immediately got in the car and went to his place so he could show me the photographs. He said the experience was amazing for him: he kept the sutures and skewer in place for hours, enjoying the sensations and pondering the implications of being unable to speak. Laughing, he described how he had gone to a gas station to fill up his car while sewn up — apparently the clerks didn’t even bat an eyelash at him.

Kam sadly never became a member of the IAM community — I had been pestering him about it, and he was planning to make a page but didn’t end up getting around to it before this happened. However, he had made posts within other alternative lifestyle bulletin boards about his interests. I would like to share a few of these, as I think he can most eloquently describe his interest in and passion for body exploration:

When I was very young, I was interested in pain, and yearned to experience more to find out my limitations and what constitutes ‘pain.’ After years of play, I was introduced to the modern primitive movement, and understood much of Fakir’s earlier experiences. I identified with his own self-exploration. Cuttings, brandings, excisions, all these experiences for the enlightening/pleasurable sensations that can be derived from them.

Okay, here is one for ya, a Ripley’s believe it or not special:

I was doing a dermal excision by a method I had previously mastered. First I used clamps or clothes-pegs to raise a length of skin about an inch from the body. I then inserted a pointy-tipped scalpel near the bottom, so that it stabbed clear through the raised skin. Next, I took a barbless (sterilized) fishing hook, which followed the blade to the middle of the puncture, and lifted upwards, as to hook into the flesh, just above the scalpel. Once the hook was in place, I took off the clamps, pulled on the hook to raise a circular patch of skin around the scalpel, then cut the scalpel outward to free one half of the skin from my body. The last step involved cutting the rest of the flesh free.

Well, I inadvertently went too deep and severed a vein. Not a large one, but one that would resist all attempts to stop bleeding. I put a pressure bandage on, sealing it with medical tape, then adding another layer of gauze. I had to leave for work immediately after, and once I arrived, it had soaked through all the bandaging. I went to the bathroom and added many layers of paper-towelling from the dispenser, then went to work. After about half an hour, the bleeding had soaked through the new layers of towelling and through my clothes. I didn’t realize until my hand grazed the wet area, and I noticed blood on my hand. Being that I was dealing cards at the time, having blood on my hand was far from optimal, and I was starting to feel light-headed. I lasted an hour, then had to try to get off work.

In order to allow me to leave, they wanted to have me inspected by the security guard / medic. Imagine explaining that one. They also insisted, upon seeing the bleeding that someone would drive me to the hospital. I wouldn’t want to explain the wound to a medical health professional either, else they’d put me away or god knows what. It took a lot of talking, but I got out of both scenarios, and went home to get immobilized.

The next day was similar, the bleeding wouldn’t stop so long as I was walking around, so I had to eventually cauterize it.

After all that, success: it left a nice nickel-sized circular keloided scar.

I won’t quote Bob Flanagan, as he had his own reasons, so I’ll share mine.

Why wear make-up, why get a tattoo, why seek an endorphine high, why not? Life is too short.

Body modification isn’t only about the “why,” but also about the process. Experiences like the one I described aren’t that uncommon, but much less talked about and even less understood. As previously mentioned in this thread, there is the aspect of knowing that the perceiving mind is separate from the body - a disassociation only a few are able to experience. Scars are looked differently upon in different cultures. In some, gaining scars is a testament to their growth, either through surviving accidents, or through rights of passage/ritual.

In short, there are many reasons.

Also mentioned in this thread is that some people wear their scars proudly, and I am among them.

When I was notified that Kam’s body had been found — that the past week of living hell and worries and worst-case scenarios had indeed ended in the most horrible outcome possible — I fell apart. Screaming, crying, yelling, pounding my head on the floor... The whole deal. I had never dealt with death before, and didn’t have a clue what to make of the awful emotional turmoil I was going through. A few hours later when I had calmed down somewhat and settled into a depressed grief, I suddenly came to the realization that I needed a new modification. I had one piercing left — my vertical hood — to complete my genital project, which I had put off finishing once I met Kam. I decided that I would get it done as a physical embodiment of my mourning. I hoped that the healing period would mirror my own mental recovery: starting out with sharp, stabbing pain (the news of his death), lots of discomfort over the first few days (the funeral arrangements and final goodbye), then gradually becoming less sensitive with time (the fresh, stinging emotional agony fading to a dull, numb pain) to eventually leave me with something pleasant (the ability to look back on the happy memories of our time together without sadness, anger and regret about how things had ended). The end of the initial healing time and the jewelry downsize would occur over the Remembrance Day long weekend, which was incidentally when Kam had planned to come and visit me. I decided that day would be the symbolic end of my official mourning period. I had made a decision to abstain from starting any new relationships for a set period of time out of respect for Kam, and liked the idea of having a physical reminder of that — a “chastity belt” of sorts. I am sure that Kam would have understood the multitude of reasons why I decided to do this, and [hopefully] appreciated the gesture as done in his memory; I did it for him as much as I did it for myself.

I went to see my piercer Tania at World Class Art Studio the next day, with my best friend at my side. We were waiting outside the shop before it opened, and I just burst into tears as soon as I saw Tania walking up the street. After quickly explaining the situation, she gave me a big hug and let me cry for a bit, then took us inside to prepare for the piercing. I wanted to feel as much pain as possible, so asked for it to be done at the largest practical gauge; unfortunately though, we were restricted to 10ga due to the space constraints caused by my other piercings. As I climbed on to the table, I felt as though my heart was breaking. Tania told me it was OK to cry at any time during the procedure, to let it all out if that would help and to not worry about her at all. As I felt the sharp bevel pressed against my flesh, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and thought only of him. The piercing itself was incredibly quick, and my mind hardly registered what was happening until it was already done. As soon as the pain started to course through me, something snapped in my head: the emotional agony was almost unbearable. The realization that he was truly gone, that I would never again see his face, hear his voice, feel his body against mine, was unspeakably awful. It just wasn’t fair. My best friend let me be, trying her hardest not to touch or otherwise distract me as I let my emotions out; she told me afterwards how difficult it had been for her to see that expression of pain on my face as I gazed up at the ceiling with my hands over my eyes. I gradually came back to earth, grounded by the familiar and strangely comforting pain brought by the needle between my legs. I just lay on the table and let the tears slide down my face as Tania finished inserting the jewelry. By the time everything was done, I actually felt much better — unleashing all those intense emotions at once like that was a huge release, and I felt like I had done something positive and meaningful to mark the end of his life.

Shortly after Kam’s death, I received an e-mail from a close friend of his named Marius. The two had initially met through an alternative lifestyle bulletin board, but during their first face-to-face meeting it was the scarification work on Kam’s arms that really got their conversation started. They spent a good deal of time discussing body modification, and Kam had actually asked Marius to be the photographer for our suspension in December. Marius wanted to do something to memorialize Kam, and decided that getting a replica of his scars would be the most fitting tribute. I was able to get a drawing of the exact pattern from the mortician embalming Kam, so we could be sure that it would be an accurate copy of the original. I offered to help Marius with the cutting if he needed any support or guidance, and in response he asked me to perform the entire piece on him since I knew Kam’s scars intimately — it would be a cathartic experience for us both, and a fitting tribute, he said. I couldn’t have agreed more, and indeed was incredibly touched by the gesture. We made plans to meet up after the funeral to perform the cutting. When we saw each other at the reception, Marius asked if it would be possible to perform the scarification at Kam’s grave. Luckily I had many friends supporting me at the funeral, one of whom was my former body piercer Syx. With his supervision, I felt more than confident in our ability to do the cutting outside in “less than ideal” conditions.

We arrived at the cemetery in the late afternoon, and were greeted by a slow drizzle of rain and the setting sun. We decided to do the scarification in a small grove of trees on a hill adjacent to Kam’s grave; he loved spending time in the outdoors, so performing this memorial for him in the forest seemed especially fitting. We found a secluded spot, and began to prepare. Syx cleaned off Marius’ arm and drew on the design with my guidance. Kam liked the aesthetics of clean, symmetrical lines and patterns, and as such the cuttings on his shoulders were a simple series of horizontal and diagonal lines. Just as we were getting ready to start, we heard the sound of cars — a group of people were parking in front of Kam’s gravesite. Apprehensive that it would be family members or friends of his that were uncomfortable with this side of Kam’s lifestyle, one of our group members ran down to talk to the new arrivals and ensure there would be no interruptions.

As Marius sat on the ground, half-naked and shivering, I picked up the scalpel blade and took a deep breath. I positioned it at the first of the diagonal lines, and asked him if he was ready. Upon receiving an affirmative, I quietly said “This is for you, Kam”, and began to cut. Marius didn’t even flinch as the blade went through — he was just like Kam in that respect, and I told him so. With Syx coaching me on how deep to cut each line and wiping away the blood as I worked, I completed the eight diagonal lines at the top of design, and then linked two of them together. We then moved on to the most intense of the cuts, a very thick horizontal line across the entire shoulder. I pushed the blade deep into Marius’ skin, and felt it effortlessly slide through. I watched the skin open and the miniscule beads of blood form on the exposed flesh, and felt strangely at peace. Marius was like stone: he didn’t so much as flinch during the entire experience, saying the pain was for Kam and as such it didn’t bother him. It actually hurt less than he had expected it to, and the endorphin rush kicked in quite quickly. I pressed on and completed the four horizontal cuts located below the thick line. Before we both knew it, we were approaching the end — the last three lines, two diagonals on the left side and one on the right. I alerted Marius when I was about to make the final cut. I think we both felt a huge sense of finality as the blade sliced through those last layers of skin. It was done. I stepped aside to let Syx clean and bandage the piece, and to digest my own thoughts. As we cleaned up, Syx and Marius put aside the scalpel blade and a few of the most blood-soaked pieces of gauze to bury with Kam. We took some group photographs before heading back to the grave, and marvelled at the intensity of the experience we had just all shared.

One of my memories of Kam that I’ll forever cherish is after he had his apadravya done in Seattle when we were at Icon of Coil, he would stop everyone once in a while, stand, get this odd smile on his face and say “That feels so good right there.”

That evening, after drifting through the whirlwind of emotions I had experienced during the viewing of his body, his burial, memorial service, and our own personal ceremony at his gravesite, I felt strangely calm and at peace. Of course there were still months of pain and healing ahead of me, but I did gain a great deal of closure through partaking in all of these timeless rituals that humanity has created to help the living cope with the passing of a loved one. Upon arriving home, my best friend asked me to perform a few play piercings on her; the emotional roller coaster we had all been on those past two weeks had left her feeling quite disjointed as well, and she felt that some physical pain was necessary to bring herself back to earth. I willingly complied, of course. It was the first time I had pierced anyone other than Kam, and it was strange to relive some of those memories. Before meeting him, I had always thought I was a submissive. He put me in touch with my dominant side however, and I found that I had both a passion and talent for B&D. The experience of cutting and piercing others for their own emotional closure that day was very therapeutic for me. When my friend left the room to clean up, I sat down on the bed and took two needles out of the box. I very purposefully uncapped them, and slowly pierced my wrists. This was the first time I had ever pierced myself. It was an incredible feeling, to be completely in control of one’s own sensation of pain, to feel the needle slide under the skin and then push from the inside out to find its exit... It was a huge moment of realization for me. Despite the agonizing pain and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness I had been experiencing over those nightmarish two weeks, I was still able to put myself in control of my body. I feel like I now understand some of Kam’s motivation for the rituals he performed and the pain he put himself through for the sake of personal growth and self-realization.

One of my greatest regrets is that Kam and I were never able to go through with the suspension we had planned together. I know he wanted to do it more than anything else in the world, and wish desperately that I could have made it happen before I had to move away... But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. However, I have decided that when I come back home for the Christmas break, I will still go ahead and suspend, and have Marius photograph me as Kam had planned. I want to do everything alone this time though: no one holding my hands to get pierced, no one comforting me, no one helping me get up. I’ve always required a lot of support to get off the ground, so this will be quite a different experience from my past suspensions. However, I know that I won’t be alone — Kam will be there with me, giving me the strength to make it up and fly for both of us.

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