The origins of body plugs

Starting countless years ago, body modifications such as body plugs have been on a gradual ascendant increase when it comes to being accepted within the culture of the West.  However, what about the variety of body modifications that were taking place across the globe, ones that were practiced a long time prior to the tattoo and piercing parlors began to pop up across the United States and Europe?

You are probably aware of the more popular body modifications such as tattooing and piercing, and you might have heard about some of the more obscure kinds of body modification such as body plugs and scarification. Body plugs have been used for generations in places such as Africa as part of a process that is known as stretching. The idea behind stretching is to take a normal sized ear piercing and by the process of adding bigger and bigger inserts stretch the earlobe to a size that the person requires.

People who visited the African continent who saw these tribesmen and women adorning such outlandish earlobes spread the word when they returned home and it was not long before people in the West decided that they wanted to try it for themselves. However, at the time it was not a process that seemed socially acceptable to the Western society but in Africa these body modifications were usually associated with certain aspects and social standing within certain tribes. Some body modifications were used specifically to mark a child’s coming of age where others were used as a sign of a persons rank within their tribe.

It took a number of years before body plugs became socially acceptable to Western cultures and nowadays they can be seen being sported by people from all walks of life as a sign of a persons individuality.