Permanent Marks

[karin]

ID & i have matching tattoos..His is the mandarin symbol for Master..mine is the one for slave. a real 'brand' doesn't appeal to either of us..and cutting is out, cuz well...ID faints at the sight of blood *giggles*....He has been working on a design for us working our real initials together for another tattoo. i wear His collar though....always...24/7...obvious, yet...not. the tattoos we currently have aren't obvious to anyone other than lifestylers that have knowledge of the symbols.

it is something to consider long and hard. although the idea of a permanent mark is very romantic..it is..."permanent"...and just..not to be a wet blanket, but...what if.......................things aren't forever. my theory is never say never...and never say forever. but that is an extremely personal decision that only you and your Dominant can make..understand..the final say in this should really be yours...(IMHO)

[karin]

Master C...i know a few people who have been branded. one girl did develop an infection and the brand was marred. another had no trouble. i understand, as lily has stated, its extremely painful during the healing process. if ID were adament about a brand, i'd strongly consider it..do the research and ask the questions as you have. look online perhaps at body modification sites....good luck to you and yours *S*

[_ID_]

Since I have very little practical knowledge about branding or scarification. I decided to do a little research.

This link I found to be the most informative, without the barrage of ads you get from a regular search.

Using Google I typed in "body modification branding faq healing". This yielded 450,000+ results. Of those there were only about 1 or 2 really helpful results in the first page.

I did get some results on Wikipedia. However they didn't discuss healing or technique. Just history.

Some of the tidbits from the page I referred to are;

How long does a brand take to heal?

A brand (actually all scarification) takes a long time to completely heal. Brands go through a few phases, which different greatly in length (and nature) from brand to brand.

First a brand will go through a scabby phase where they look like an absolutely horrible wound. This phase generally takes from a few weeks to just over a month. Then the brand will look like a quite bright red raised scar which slowly becomes pinker, and then eventually slightly lighter than normal skin colour. This stage takes between six and twelve months for most people, and additional raising may occur during this period.

as well as

How should I take care of the brand during healing?

There are two main schools of thought as to the aftercare of scarification in general. Many artists believe that a LITHA ("leave it the hell alone") method is best. Assuming that the initial cuts are well done, by leaving it alone, the body will generally heal a fairly consistent wound. The downside of this method is that if the person's genetics are not prone to keloiding, that the amount of raised scar will be fairly minimal.

The other school of thought on scarification aftercare is to irritate the wound (using a variety of methods ranging from simply picking the scab, to rubbing it with steel wool or a toothbrush, to using chemical and exfoliant formulas). Irritating a healing scar will greatly increase the amount of scarring, but at the same time, almost always leads to inconsistent scarring (that is, different parts of the scar will raise different amounts).

I know this answered some of the questions I had on the subject. I hope it does for you as well.

V/R
ID

[annie]

I have been considering a tattoo for a long time. One that would look somewhat like my ava. Something that anyone looking at wouldn't think about but that i would know the true meaning of. Although for me the meaning is more about the lifestyle choice i am/have made then about the person (Dom) that the choice is connected too, if that makes any sense.

As to branding... makes me melt just thinking about it. Could i do it? Maybe one day i will find out. BUT... it is certainly something i would very seriously consider for a long time. And, as with the tattoo, i would probably lean more towards something that is, to me, more symbolic of my submission. Because that is something that 10 years down the road or longer probably won't change... Even as much as i loved my Master, life is just too uncertain sometimes. (Although His chat id I initially met Him under included the word Corazon which is "Heart" in Spanish... maybe that is why i am still so fond of the ava... *grinz*)

Cutting... not so sure about. Would take a lot of conviencing on that one!

[rowshack]

nice link

[littleone560]

I have marks that ended up being permanent that were not planed. My Dom has cut on me before but nothing that ever lasted. i don’t really know if I would want something lasting. I have met people that had the BDSM emblem tattooed onto them and as good as it looks on them I do not think I would want to have to explain it to everyone that saw it.