Branding persons

From Freepedia

Branding persons refers to the use of the same physical techniques as in livestock branding on a consenting or constrained human, a form of body modification (see that article for general considerations) similar to scarification (see that article for technical details).

Historical Use

The origin may be the literally dehumanizing treatment of a slave (by the harshest definition legally not even a person) as mere livestock: just a biological entity owned and sold for arbitrary use and abuse (as agricultural work unit, house slave or toy). This was practiced by the European slavers (sometimes there were several brandings, e.g. for the Portuguese crown and the (consecutive) private owner(s), an extra cross after baptisement) as well as by African slave catchers who solded almost all to them!

To a slaveowner it would be logical to mark his property on two legs just like cattle, or even more since humans are more adroit at escaping.

Brand marks have also been used as a punishment for convicted criminals, combining corporal punishment, as burns are very painful, with public humiliation (greatest if marked on a normally visible part of the body) which is here the more important intention, and with the imposition of an indelible criminal record- the mark was often chosen as a code for the crime (e.g. in Canadian military prisons D for Desertion, BC for Bad Character, most branded men were shipped off to penal colonies).
An intermediate case is when a convict is branded and legally reduced, with or without time limit, to a slave-like status, such as on the galleys (branded GAL in France), in a penal colony, or auctioned to a private owner.
Branding of the thumbs was used around 1600 at Old Bailey to ensure that the accused who had successfully used the Benefit of Clergy defence (by reading a passage from the Bible) could not use it more than once.

Persisting practices

Generally voluntary, though often under severe social pressure, branding may be used as a painful form of initiation, serving both as endurance and motivation test (rite of passage) and a permanent membership mark, mainly in violent 'macho' circles. Branding is thus practiced:
- by some street gangs
- in prisons
- even as an extreme fraternity initiation in the (now minorized) tradition of painful hazing (mostly paddling); it has been reported that future US president George W. Bush (jr.) did introduce in his fraternity at Yale, one of the Ivy League's most prestigious colleges, a new rite where the freshman has to strip to be branded with a hot coathanger on the butt crack, a pratice rather to be expected in a violent crime-flushed getto then among the richest nation's most priviliged intelligentia.
Branding can be used as a strictly voluntary body decoration.
In the sadomasochistic scene, it is practiced as a form of bodily mutilation with consent.
In extreme BDSM dominance and submission relationships, a consensual slave may desire/accept a branding as a mark of belonging and commitment (possibly to slavery rather than to the specific master).