I think it was the Gender thread I posted this on previously but this focus on mutilation all really reminds me of one cult in particular.
The one I’m talking about was a religious sect called ‘Skoptsy’. They originated in Russia and existed from the late 18th century up until the mid 20th century. Their practices mainly centred around a concept of sexual purity and in order to attain this the men castrated themselves and removed parts of their genitals and the women removed their breasts or nipples and mutilated their genitalia too, often involving the removal of the labia and the clitoris. Often they used hot irons, sometimes knives, and usually it was done without anaesthesia. Obviously, this meant that no children would be born to swell the ranks of the sect so they commonly tried to recruit both children and young people into their cult, who would in turn be mutilated themselves.
The Skoptsy cult more or less died out in the Soviet era, but pockets are believed to have survived in other Eastern European and Baltic countries possibly up until the present day.
Most peoples reaction of hearing about such a cult's practices is one of incredulous horror, but the truth is that their practices were based around a strongly held ‘belief’. And beliefs are often very misguided, dangerous and damaging.
The woman on the right whose breasts/nipples have been mutilated looks no different to me to the women who have had ‘top surgery’. But I bet no one would call what happened to her ‘empowering’.
) this year? 
And has he had facial surgery or just fillers, botox that kind of non-permanent tweaks?
