Colorful tattoos line Anna Kinison's arms, silicone stars are implanted into her hands and scars in the shapes of stars, crosses and circles jump out from her fair skin.
Anna, 27, isn't your everyday wife and mother of two. She's modified.
The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found in 2006 that 36 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 are tattooed. But people like Anna, Crystal Phelps and Burni Ellis show that body modification isn't just about tattoos and piercings anymore.
The freak show
Kinison has experienced many extreme body modifications, from scarification and transdermal implants to tongue splitting and suspension.
Her first tattoo was of her husband's name - Jeremy. But that was just the beginning.
She now has more tattoos than she can count, and she would someday like them to cover her whole body.
She also has her ears gauged to one inch, her tongue split down the middle, silicone star implants in the back of each hand, stars tattooed on her forehead and dozens of scarifications - scars purposefully created in designs - on her chest, chin, neck and arms. She has also done several suspensions, where she was pierced with large hooks and hung from the ceiling.
Now, Kinison lives the modified lifestyle as part of the Cut Throat Freak Show that travels around the world with acts like fire-breathing, laying on a bed of nails and suspension.
"I've been doing side shows since I was 15," Kinison says. "I can break world records and do fun things."
And Kinison has broken records. She was featured on the television show "Ripley's Believe It or Not" in 2002 for lying on a bed of just four nails.
Despite the brouhaha surrounding Kinison's modifications at the freak show, she says all of her alterations are done modestly.
"A lot of getting modified is being proportionate and being subtle," she says. That's why she won't gauge her ears more than one inch and why she got freckle-colored star tattoos on her cheeks.
"I still want to be a cute girl. I don't want to be the girl with 50 million piercings in my face."
But she says any form of alteration could be considered body modification - even a haircut.
"You get your hair done, you clip your toenails, it's body modification," she says. "So I've been doing it since I can remember."
All of her tattoos, scarifications and implants add to her personal satisfaction, she says.
"The main reason I get it is because I'm a vain person," she adds. "When I wake up in the morning, I want to see it."
The primitive piercer
Others have different reasons for getting modified.
Fine arts junior Crystal Phelps got her septum pierced because she likes the history of primitive modifications - and not just modifying for vanity or show.
"I got my septum pierced because I really like the idea of primitive-looking modifications," she says. She sometimes wears a bone-colored straight jewelry piece through the piercing.
And while she had two stars tattooed on her sides via a mechanical tattoo gun, she wants more stars going up her side and the phases of the moon tattooed on her back with the traditional pigment method of tattooing. This method of tattooing uses pigment and a needle and is performed by hand.
"I think it's more spiritual than getting a gun tattoo," she says. "It's very calming. It's like a Zen."
People who get modified for attention, or are "living the freak-show mentality," Phelps says, are doing it for the wrong reasons.
"This is my choice; this is for me personally," she says. "I'm not trying to make it into a fetish. For me, it's not like that."
Phelps grew up in the cookie-cutter suburbs of Ohio. On her 16th birthday she got her belly button pierced like so many of her peers - but she did it three times.
"I like the way it makes me feel," she says. "I feel better about myself."
After those first piercings, Phelps got 11 surface piercings - 10 of them designed into two stars - and one below her navel.
But Phelps didn't stop at tattoos and piercings.
In August 2005 Phelps performed her first pull - an activity where two people are pierced eight times in their shoulders, laced together. They then pull in opposite directions.
"Being hooked to each other adds a different feeling because it's you and somebody else," she says.
Phelps says she did the pull with a woman she had been friends with for 12 years.
"It brought us closer," she says. "When you're both experiencing something so extreme, it puts you on a different level."
After her pull, Phelps was hooked. She did a four-arm pull last spring, where two hooks were pierced into each of her arms and she pulled against a suspension scaffolding.
"Because you can see it, you can feel it more," she says of her pull. "It's gross-looking."
Phelps' most recent experience was a suspension in December. Even though she had done pulls before, she says she was still nervous about her suspension - where hooks are inserted into a person's body and he or she is hung from the ceiling.
"Before I was scared shitless," she says. "There were about to be eight-gauge hooks in my body."
An eight-gauge hook is about the size of the width of a pen.
After being pierced with the hooks, Phelps was hooked up to a suspension reel from the ceiling and was lifted off the ground for approximately 10 minutes.
"I got the feeling I was floating," she says. "After the hooks are in you, you feel wasted. There's so much adrenaline going through your body."
After the initial shock, Phelps said her mind cleared and the experience was very peaceful.
"There aren't many times you can say nothing is running through your mind," she says. "(Suspension) takes a powerful fear and turns it into something positive."
The giver
Burni Ellis, a professional piercer at Club Tattoo in Mesa, relates his suspension experiences to somewhat of a spiritual rite. Ellis has done suspensions several times, in almost every position - hanging from the back, the shoulders and even the knees.
"It's sheer panic at first," he says. "It's hard to imagine yourself hanging. But after that, you could hang for hours."
Part of what Ellis likes about suspension is the pain.
"It's a mindfuck. It messes with your head," he says. "There's no anesthetic. You see what you're made of. That's pure, that's beautiful."
Once you overcome the pain, suspension can be a spiritual experience, Ellis says. "It escalates to an addiction."
Ellis is no stranger to other modifications, as well - both giving and receiving.
He got his first piercing when his sister wanted her navel pierced, but didn't want to do it alone. So they got matching bellybutton rings.
"It was such a rush for me," he says. "That really turned me on to it. It becomes a part of you."
Since then, he's gotten three earrings in each ear, a lip ring, a nose ring and tattoos up and down both arms, among other things. Most of his tattoos are depictions of body piercings.
"I've done it all," he says. "It gets to the point where it's old. That's where you evolve. Now it's something I'd rather give someone else."
Ellis has been piercing customers for more than 10 years and has been "doing it heavy duty" for about the last six, he says. He also takes on apprentices and conducts seminars and training.
But it's piercing that gets him excited.
"At first your heart is pounding," Ellis says of piercing someone. "The client will feed off of that. When someone lays on that bed, I know when they're nervous."
Ellis equates what he does for his clients with a gift.
"I enlighten them," he says. "I give them a gift, help them find themselves."
But sometimes, it doesn't work out for some people, Ellis says. "You know who's going to stay hardcore and who won't," he says.
In fact, Ellis won't recommend certain body modifications to some people. He says his biggest pet peeve is when the same person comes into his shop five or six times for the same piercing, to which Ellis says, "Just give me your $50 and get out."
That's why he says he won't perform modifications like suspension on just anyone.
"I'm not going to put an ad on MySpace that says, 'Hey, you wanna hang for a while?'"
'From traditional to extreme'
Although extreme body modifications can attract attention from strangers, Kinison says Arizona has an accepting atmosphere for the modified. "Arizona is one of the hubs of body modification," Kinison says.
Still, Kinison says she gets stopped on the streets often, as her gauged ears and forked tongue attract attention. But it doesn't bother her too much.
"When I chose to look this way, I chose to deal with it," she says. "I expected it, but it doesn't mean it doesn't irritate me."
And when she visits the family she has in Mississippi, the acceptance doesn't travel with her.
"It's a nightmare," she says. "If you're in Mississippi, Los Angeles or Texas, if you have tattoos on your hand, you're going to work at a tattoo shop. People don't realize it as much here."
It's a different story for Phelps, who says people sometimes tell her that she would be prettier if she took out her nose ring.
"The standards of beauty are so weird," she says. "Fuck them. It pisses me off when people say it's not natural. You got a boob job. That's not natural, either."
Ellis says he thinks body modification is becoming more acceptable in society in general, since modifications like tattoos and piercings have become more common.
"The navel and tongue exploded the industry," he says. "Today everyone's trying to find the next big thing. Body modification has gone from traditional to extreme.
"It's not just belly buttons and tongues anymore."
If you're into that sort of thing...
Body modifications have reached beyond traditional tattoos and piercings. From tongue splitting to suspension, the bod-mod culture has taken some twisted turns. Here's a dictionary of some of the most obscure body modifications, so the next time someone asks if you want a trepanation, you'll know what you're getting yourself into.
Ampallang
A piercing that passes horizontally through the rounded tip of the male genitals.
Anal stretching
Stretching the opening to the anus much like one stretches an earlobe. The "jewelry," generally a plug-like object, is inserted into the anus, and gradually stretches it larger over time. According to bmezine.com, an anus can be safely stretched to a circumference of 15 inches. The anal stretch will last between three and six hours.
Bisection
The splitting of one's tongue or genitals.
Eyeball Implant
While only performed in the Netherlands and Rotterdam, an eyeball implant is a platinum alloy shaped like a heart, star, music note or four-leaved clover that is inserted into the white of the eye.
Fourchette
A piercing at the rear of the vagina.
Female nullification
The complete or partial removal of the clitoris, which some people say increases sexual stimulation in other parts of the body.
Lip/eye sewing
Temporarily sewing the eyelids and lips shut. This is done mainly for photo opportunities and then removed.
Magnetic implant
A magnet is implanted under the skin so the wearer can attach magnetic items to the outside of the skin. The implant also allows the wearer to physically sense electromagnetic fields.
Pocketing
An "anti-piercing," where instead of exposing the ends of the jewelry and putting the middle of the jewelry under the skin, the ends of the jewelry are inside the skin, and the middle is exposed.
Scarification
Using scar tissue to form designs, pictures or words in the skin. Scarification is usually produced by branding or cutting.
Surface anchor
A flat plate is inserted beneath the skin so the wearer can vertically insert a barbell into the body. It looks like a bead (or spike, or other design) is floating on the skin.
Trepanation
A small hole is drilled into skull, supposedly changing the blood volume of the brain. Some people say this creates a permanent high or constant state of enlightenment.
Triangle
A piercing where the ring passes under the clitoral shaft of the female genitalia.
Reach the reporter: tara.brite@asu.edu.
