Why Branding Interests Me
My life shows through my body. I have scars that hold memories, actions from the past that I have learned from but do not necessarily need or want to remember at times. Scars that were given to me, not by my choosing and with no purpose. So in essence, my body shows many little tales of what others have done to me, some I have done to myself but the majority are from others. Certain rites of passage, if you will, for other people and they hold non-significant meanings for me.
I have always seen body modification/scarification as chosen stories to be worn on the body. The importance for me here is chosen. If I am to have to be asked or pushed into telling the tales of my scars to people who can see them, I would much rather the tales have a significant meaning for me. I want to be able to chose my markings, collaborate on the design and own my own tale, my own meaning… my own skin. I want chosen significance.
Branding also, holds for me a greater meaning in an outward showing for use as a type of a rite of passage. We all go through certain events in our lives, whether chosen or not that have the ability to change who we are forever. The majority of the changes that take place are internal; it’s how we develop emotionally on the inside. Rites of passage mean different things to different people but for me it was being born marked with a birth mark, the start of my cycle which changed the landscape of my body and giving birth which also further changed my body from the inside out. All significant moments to be sure, but also still mainly internal with the exception of the birth mark. Sometimes, I have thought when something I feel is of great importance that I’ll try to hold on to a certain aspect of the event like a movie ticket stub or a card. Little mementos like those can be lost physically and sure, even though I will tell myself that the memory will sustain me, sometimes those also slip away. It’s happened to me and I know that it has happened to others. In choosing to be branded, it is a combination of an event and memento that will not soon slip away.
Having a brand means having an outside marking that one cannot not only see, as in a tattoo but also a marking that one can feel for quite sometime when it is placed in an area of the body that you cannot look at all the time. Branding burns through the skin, it sears you removing any outer layers of skin that may have grown on you through the years. The heat melts away, in a sense the ending of one period of your life by issuing in another one; takes away in it’s working to create it’s mark within you. The scar will begin to heal eventually but what is left, the raised or indented skin can be run over by your fingertips or felt against a partners skin and in turn will become a perpetual reminder and a lasting work of outward soul type art adorning the body. For example: many people can point to a time in which they have burned themselves on the stove by accident, those burns change the landscape of that area of skin in which it was marked. Personally, I have some burns, one is self-inflicted and was an accident by dropping a heated curling iron on my arm and the others are from various burns which were not self-inflicted but all have scared me, taken away the layers of skin it melted away and left behind new and oddly shaped skin. My burns are outside markings, reminders of non-rite of passage moments but of events that changed not only who I was on the inside but what appeared on the outside.
Another level of significance to branding are the reasons that people choose to have them. For myself, I have mulled over getting branded for a very long time, though I have never done so. My reasons for having one would have to be of very high importance because it involves for me an outward showing of ownership; both of my own and my partners. My want of being branded is to be marked outwardly, a higher sign of commitment burned into a deeper level of my skin. I want my partner to work with me on choosing a location on my body and on choosing a design and I want it to be something of significance for us both. I have not gotten branded as of yet because I have not wanted to get burned with or for anyone else that I have ever been with. Honestly, no one that I have ever been with have I felt even the slightest bit of comfort when discussing branding at all not merely with my fascination with it but also my thoughts on actually being branded. (I suppose, that for me it adds to the ideal of a working 24/7 D/s relationship) This is also the reason that I have not gotten a tattoo or piercing on my body… but those can by essay topics for another assignment.
Pain is certainly involved when thinking over the idea of branding. Some people enter into an adrenaline rush and barely feel a thing and others feel an excruciating level of pain while being branded. I do believe that the level of pain being felt has a great deal to do with ones view on the branding, the reasons for being branded, the design duration that it will take to actually be formed and the method being used to brand. Personally, I wouldn’t presume to know what my tolerance level for that kind of pain would be, since I have never been branded but I would enter into understanding that the pain is only apart of the process and to get through it, all I would need to do would be to accept the pain and let it flow… almost like accepting the pain through childbirth. I have to admit that I like that there is such an amount of pain involved… it makes sense. It is not that I am a complete masochist, it is just that I feel there should be pain involved when entering into the idea of burning layers of your skin off for scarring. It should take a certain constitution to be able to go through with the process and for that matter even be willing to go through the process at all. Branding is not something that people should do because they think it is cool or the next fad, it should be treated with a certain level of respect because of the permanence and because of the level of pain involved. I think that the a fore mentioned is one of the reasons that branding hasn’t overgrown tattooing in it’s popularity.
The two forms used for branding are strike(multi) and cautery(electro). Some people call strike branding, multi-strike and the process involves using carbon steel sheet metal. The metal for this application is cut into small strips about one inch in width. The strips are then further bent and cut to shape in order to create the design that has been chosen to be strike branded. Once the design is set, the strips are heated with a torch until the steel is literally “red hot” enough to create a branding. Then each of the strips are struck against the skin for a second and then removed. Depending on the design and how many strips are used depends on how many applications are struck towards the skin. Cautery(electro) branding uses a surgical cautery pen to draw the design into the skin, much like how a soldering iron is used. This method is popular among the branding community because it allows for a more detailed design application to occur more so than that of the strike branding method. Cautery is also said to be the less painful method to go with, although with burning though layers of the skin you can count on some pain. Now, in cautery branding there are different tools used depending on what brander you choose to go with. The main line tool of most cautery brands is the use of the surgical pen but another tool would be the hyfricator instrument. With the hyfricator the tool can have various different design metal tip heads but uses smaller amounts of electricity than the surgical pen to cauterize the skin.
Something that many people do not take into consideration when dealing with or choosing the design for their branding is the size. Highly detailed patterns do not work as well on human skin as they would on an animals because of our skin tissues biological makeup. Our bodies are geared towards healing and with branding the goal is to scar well enough to keep the design that you originally wanted in the first place. Also, with any design in combination to our healing processes it is important to note that each strike of the brand, though a mere inch wide piece of steel will scar up to three times in design size, so it is best to start of with a conservative design for the first go round of branding. I admit that this is one of the things that fascinates me about the branding process. Our bodies are designed to heal themselves and it will fight to heal as best it can any attack on the body, mainly the skin as that is the organ that takes the hardest beating. By choosing branding people are choosing to destroy themselves to create something else. Part of the after care for branding is to ensure that the brand scabs scar up as well as it can.
Another thing that people may want to consider is how to deal with society’s acceptance of their body art. Branding and even other forms of body mods and scarification are not legal in all states. In fact it took Oklahoma until this year to lift it’s ban on body modification laws. State governments are not all accepting, just as people that you may run into at the local store or your bank may not be that accepting that you have gone and paid someone to burn through several layers of your skin to create a scar. The most common remark that I have heard when branding has been brought up is the reference to cattle. So, it’s a good idea to not only prepare yourself for the process leading up to your branding but also to prepare yourself on how other’s, even your family may react to you new body modification.
A question that I have asked myself many times, through the years when considering getting branded is, “Why do I want to disfigure myself?” Well, I have no simple answer for that. Do I really consider it disfiguring? Not really. Yes, branding is the process in which you burn through your skin to create a lasting scar and too many that would equal disfigurement but it just doesn’t to me. In choosing a design to wear both in and out of my skin, it is creating more of what I see as a wounded piece of art. I see myself as broken in many ways but that doesn’t mean my wound cannot be just as beautiful as other types of adornments that many whole people chose to attach to themselves. I know that it may seem like a simple comparison to equate branding to somebody wearing a ring or buying a certain coat but to me that is what it equals to… something simple but with a greater meaning.
~~,~~’~~,~~’~~{@ Surrender4love
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