Fakir Musafar
Encyclopedia
Fakir Musafar is considered the father of the modern primitive
movement. He has experimented on his own body with body modification
techniques such as body piercing
, tightlacing
, scarification
, tattooing, and suspension, and has documented, shared and taught others as part of his life's work making him an underground icon in BDSM
, kink
and fetish
communities.
in Reno, Nevada
in 1977.
's (Beyond Bizarre). In 1998 Musafar produced documentary segments for London Weekend Television's Southbank Show and Playboy Television's "Sexcetera". In 2000, 2001 and 2003 he has appeared in documentaries for The Learning Channel (Human Canvas Part I and Part II), TBS, FX Channel and Discovery Channel plus a major appearance in the 2001 documentary film "Modern Tribalism". In 2004 became a spokesperson for the National Geographic Channel's Taboo (TV series)
and has expressed "radical contemporary" views on body rituals on the Travel Channel
's "Eye of the Beholder" series hosted by Serena Yang.
Musafar's writing and photography appears in Theater Journal, Bizarre magazine (fetish and SM exploration), Skin Two and PFIQ (Piercing Fan International Quarterly). He has lectured and performed at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts
(Rapture Series, 1995); Copenhagen
's International Seminar on BODY:Ritual-Manipulation (1995) and Lisbon, Portugal's Festival Atlantico (1997). His photographic art was recently exhibited at the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles.
In February 1999, Musafar presented "My Reality, Your Reality, Reality of Those you Treat" as an invitee to the annual conference of the American College of Psychiatrists
educating on body modification
and shamanism
. His performance group performed "Metamorphosis" at the 1999 Los Angeles Fetish Ball as well as for close friend Annie Sprinkle
's Benefit Show at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco after her houseboat and archives were destroyed by fire.
Musafar continues to speak at colleges and universities and to New Age
and other special interest groups. Musafar is a Master Piercer and shaman with over 40 years experience in the body arts. He is also the founder and director of the School for Professional Body Piercing, the first in America. Starting in 1948, he championed the ancient practices and modern techniques in general use today and co-developed the established techniques of contemporary body piercing. Musafar's Body Piercing and Branding Intensives school is amongst the best in the world.
Musafar is featured in Modern Primitives
, published by RE/Search
, and in the full length documentary Dances Sacred and Profane. He also appears in the movie Modify.
Musafar was featured in the full length documentary film about Charles Gatewood - Dances Sacred and Profane. The "sacred dance" segment comprises Gatewood's conversations with Musafar, as they talk about body manipulation as a spiritual practice, and "the historical drive to find transcendence through pain". The last section of the film follows Fakir's preparation and enactment of the "SunDance", a spiritual ritual in which Musafar is suspended by steel hooks through his chest.
Musafar's partner, artist, author and educator Cléo Dubois
, often travels, lectures and performs with him.
Modern primitive
Modern primitives or urban primitives are people in developed nations who engage in body modification rituals and practices while making reference or homage to the rite of passage practices in "primitive cultures" These practices may include body piercing, tattooing, play piercing, flesh hook...
movement. He has experimented on his own body with body modification
Body modification
Body modification is the deliberate altering of the human body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self expression...
techniques such as body piercing
Body piercing
Body piercing, a form of body modification, is the practice of puncturing or cutting a part of the human body, creating an opening in which jewelry may be worn. The word piercing can refer to the act or practice of body piercing, or to an opening in the body created by this act or practice...
, tightlacing
Tightlacing
Tightlacing is the practice of wearing a tightly-laced corset to achieve extreme modifications to the figure and posture and experience the sensations of a very tight corset. Those who practice tightlacing are called tightlacers...
, scarification
Scarification
Scarifying involves scratching, etching, burning, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification.In the process of body scarification, scars are formed by cutting or branding the skin...
, tattooing, and suspension, and has documented, shared and taught others as part of his life's work making him an underground icon in BDSM
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
, kink
Kink (sexual)
In human sexuality, kinkiness and kinky are terms used to refer to a playful usage of sexual concepts in an accentuated, and unambiguously expressive form....
and fetish
Sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism, or erotic fetishism, is the sexual arousal a person receives from a physical object, or from a specific situation. The object or situation of interest is called the fetish, the person a fetishist who has a fetish for that object/situation. Sexual fetishism may be regarded, e.g...
communities.
Early life
At age four Musafar claimed to have experienced dreams of past lives. He gave himself his first body piercing when he was twelve. He performed the O-Kee-Pa suspension in 1966 or 1967. His first public appearance as Musafar was at the First International Tattoo ConventionTattoo convention
A tattoo convention is a meeting and exhibition for tattoo practitioners and enthusiasts, as well as anyone who wishes to see the world of tattooing up close....
in Reno, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
in 1977.
Career
Musafar has documented and shared his explorations in writing, speaking and teaching others "body play". In the early 1990s, Musafar appeared in mainstream media shows like NBC's Faith Daniels Show, CBS's People Are Talking, CNN's Earth Matters and Discovery ChannelDiscovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
's (Beyond Bizarre). In 1998 Musafar produced documentary segments for London Weekend Television's Southbank Show and Playboy Television's "Sexcetera". In 2000, 2001 and 2003 he has appeared in documentaries for The Learning Channel (Human Canvas Part I and Part II), TBS, FX Channel and Discovery Channel plus a major appearance in the 2001 documentary film "Modern Tribalism". In 2004 became a spokesperson for the National Geographic Channel's Taboo (TV series)
Taboo (TV series)
Taboo is a documentary television series that premiered in 2002 on the National Geographic Channel. The program is an educational look into "taboo" rituals and traditions practiced in some societies, yet forbidden and illegal in others....
and has expressed "radical contemporary" views on body rituals on the Travel Channel
Travel Channel
The Travel Channel is a satellite and cable television channel that is headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, US. It features documentaries and how-to shows related to travel and leisure around the United States and throughout the world. Programming has included shows in African animal safaris,...
's "Eye of the Beholder" series hosted by Serena Yang.
Musafar's writing and photography appears in Theater Journal, Bizarre magazine (fetish and SM exploration), Skin Two and PFIQ (Piercing Fan International Quarterly). He has lectured and performed at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
(Rapture Series, 1995); Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
's International Seminar on BODY:Ritual-Manipulation (1995) and Lisbon, Portugal's Festival Atlantico (1997). His photographic art was recently exhibited at the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles.
In February 1999, Musafar presented "My Reality, Your Reality, Reality of Those you Treat" as an invitee to the annual conference of the American College of Psychiatrists
American College of Psychiatrists
The American College of Psychiatrists is an association of psychiatrists based in Chicago. It operates annual meetings, publishes a newsletter, presents awards, and organizes the PRITE exam for psychiatric residents and the PIPE exam for practicing psychiatrists...
educating on body modification
Body modification
Body modification is the deliberate altering of the human body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self expression...
and shamanism
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
. His performance group performed "Metamorphosis" at the 1999 Los Angeles Fetish Ball as well as for close friend Annie Sprinkle
Annie Sprinkle
Annie M. Sprinkle is an American former prostitute, stripper, pornographic actress, cable television host, porn magazine editor, writer and sex film producer...
's Benefit Show at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco after her houseboat and archives were destroyed by fire.
Musafar continues to speak at colleges and universities and to New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
and other special interest groups. Musafar is a Master Piercer and shaman with over 40 years experience in the body arts. He is also the founder and director of the School for Professional Body Piercing, the first in America. Starting in 1948, he championed the ancient practices and modern techniques in general use today and co-developed the established techniques of contemporary body piercing. Musafar's Body Piercing and Branding Intensives school is amongst the best in the world.
Musafar is featured in Modern Primitives
Modern Primitives (book)
Modern Primitives, written by V. Vale and Andrea Juno, is a RE/Search publications book about body modification, published in 1989. The book consists of a collection of twenty two interviews and two essays with individuals and key figures involved the field of body modification in the late 1980s...
, published by RE/Search
RE/Search
RE/Search Publications is an American magazine and book publisher, based in San Francisco, founded and edited by Andrea Juno and V. Vale in 1980. It was the successor to Vale's earlier punk rock fanzine Search & Destroy , and was started with $100 from Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti...
, and in the full length documentary Dances Sacred and Profane. He also appears in the movie Modify.
Musafar was featured in the full length documentary film about Charles Gatewood - Dances Sacred and Profane. The "sacred dance" segment comprises Gatewood's conversations with Musafar, as they talk about body manipulation as a spiritual practice, and "the historical drive to find transcendence through pain". The last section of the film follows Fakir's preparation and enactment of the "SunDance", a spiritual ritual in which Musafar is suspended by steel hooks through his chest.
Musafar's partner, artist, author and educator Cléo Dubois
Cléo Dubois
Cléo Dubois is a BDSM educator, writer, documentarian, ritualist, and personal trainer in the kinky arts.Dubois founded the Academy of SM Arts in 1995 in response to the growing need for a safe place to learn and explore BDSM from an experienced professional as many misconceptions and...
, often travels, lectures and performs with him.
See also
- Domination & submission (BDSM)
- Risk-aware consensual kinkRisk-aware consensual kinkRisk-aware consensual kink is an acronym used by some of the BDSM community to describe a philosophical view that is generally permissive of certain risky sexual behaviors, as long as the participants are fully aware of the risks...
- Sadomasochism
- Safe, sane and consensual
- Sexual FetishismSexual fetishismSexual fetishism, or erotic fetishism, is the sexual arousal a person receives from a physical object, or from a specific situation. The object or situation of interest is called the fetish, the person a fetishist who has a fetish for that object/situation. Sexual fetishism may be regarded, e.g...
External links
- Fakir Schools: Learn the Art, Skills & Magic of Body Piercing & Branding
- Excerpt of interview - Discusses modern primitives, from RE/SearchRE/SearchRE/Search Publications is an American magazine and book publisher, based in San Francisco, founded and edited by Andrea Juno and V. Vale in 1980. It was the successor to Vale's earlier punk rock fanzine Search & Destroy , and was started with $100 from Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti...