Lip sewing

Body Modification Culture

Lip sewing is rooted in body modification culture, and is considered to be a ritualistic modification, with much symbolism connected to the idea of closing the lips by play piercing.

Lip sewing may be done for aesthetic reasons, or to aid meditation by helping the mind to focus by removing the temptation to speak.

Procedure

Sutures are often used to stitch the lips together, though sometimes piercings are made with needle blades or cannulas and monofilament is threaded through the holes. There is usually a fair amount of swelling, but permanent scarring is rare.

In the media

Bmezine (an online magazine for body modification culture) published an article about a 23 year old film student Inza, whose quest for body modifications was very varied. When asked about her experiences with lip sewing, Inza said

It happened quite spontaneously. I wanted to try play piercing, and since I’m very bad at piercing, I had been looking for a piercer who would be interested in doing it for me. I knew someone who was organizing an exhibition, and he said that a piercer who was a friend of his wanted to do a performance and that I should speak with him about doing something together. So I talked to him, he proposed that we do a mouth sewing that day! I hadn’t expected to be asked to do it so soon, but because I wanted to try play piercing really badly, and I couldn’t find any other piercers who would be willing to do it, I agreed. It was the first and the last time I did a of body ritual as a public performance. We didn’t use thread — instead we used large gauge needles going through both of my lips.

I don’t have particularly good feelings about that experience, but it remains important because it was the first time I did a play piercing, and because of it, I immediately knew it was something I wanted to continue to explore.

Lip sewing as protest

On January 19^th 2002, nearly 60 detainees in Australia's biggest camp for illegal immigrants sewed their lips together in protest over delays in processing their visa applications. The Guardian newspaper reported this.

Examples of lip sewing (images)

Sources

[http://www.bmezine.com/ritual/lipsew002.html Lip sewing on bmezine]

[http://wiki.bmezine.com/index.php/Lip_Sewing Lip sewing in a body modification encyclopedia]

[http://www.bmezine.com/news/steppingback/20050530.html Brutal Beauty: One's quest for altered states]

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,635916,00.html Asylum seekers sew lips together]