“To expose a long penis, and especially the head, was regarded as shameless and dishonourable, something we see only in depictions of slaves and barbarians.” – Paul Zanker, The Mask of Socrates The pen is mightier than the sword, but the penis… Well, not so much. Throughout history there has been a clash of […]
Africa Can you talk about ear stretching without talking about Africa? Well, you can, and I have. But I couldn’t possibly call this series finished without touching on the cultures and civilizations in Africa that have stretched their lobes over the millennia. To begin with, it’s important to understand how ancient and diverse Africa is. […]
Java The Javanese culture goes back more than 3,000 years, and stretching is a huge part of it. Today, Java (the place) is a province of Indonesia, and plenty of stretching still goes on there in the modern era. Back in the day, during the first millennium CE, the Sanjaya and Shailendra dynasties – which […]
The Eastern World The Eastern Roman Empire Rome fell on some hard times. Barbarians at the gates. Usurping Generals taking over the Empire, etc. But before everything went haywire, Roman emperors toyed with the idea of splitting the empire in half, to make management easier. That’s how they wound up with co-emperors in the […]
The South of the New world I hate using a phrase like ‘the new world’ because that was its European name. The people who lived there just called it ‘the world’. But that makes for a confusing blog title, so I’m leaving it and moving on. The Olmec The Olmec were an incredible culture. They […]
This section of the History of Stretching is mind blowing for a lot of people, because we’ve been taught in the western world, particularly in modern times, that stretching is a “primitive” habit. It’s often associated unfavorably with cultures that were viewed as backwards and heathen, and used as an excuse for persecution. What you’ll […]
According to scientists, around 130,000 years ago, Neanderthals were making necklaces or other jewelry from eagle talons. Dr. David Frayer from the University of Kansas, along with folks from the Croatian National History Museum, found evidence of carving and polishing on the talons, and suggested they might have been strung together into a necklace using […]
(Without having terrible things happen) You are about to embark on an incredible journey. Stretching a piercing is a practice that goes back thousands of years. The oldest mummified remains ever found, “Otzi” the caveman, had stretched lobes. Jewelry has been found in graves from the very first civilizations. It’s a practice that goes […]
