Hello! My name is the name of the current month. I use it/its pronouns.
I like to leave both temporary and permanent marks on people and people-shaped entities. This website has some information about how to do that! It's also got my blog and various other thoughts I've wanted to gather in one place.
Coming soon...
I'm using "marking" as an umbrella term for actions that leave a visible change to your own (or someone else's) appearance. It encapsulates a lot of things that have felt distinct, and helps me think about them as a group. The throughline - what makes this interesting to me - is making the invisible visible, and creating harmony between the internal and external worlds. It's like breathing or singing. It's a part of the process of being in the world. It can be magic or body modification or self-harm. This isn't really a kink to me, but a lot of people see it that way. It's about how you hold it.
The internal and external are both infinite, but the paths between them (breath, touch) are limited. Through breaking the skin, you create new pathways for energy to flow (metaphysically, this is a type of eye). You can use this to bring things out of the internal world so the external is a better resonator and clearer conduit, and to change the external world to effect internal transformation. This is about harmony of the soul (whose boundaries lie beyond the skin).
When you paint on or bite someone and then every day they (and others!!) see and feel the marks, this makes visible your emotions and link to them. Getting tattooed with others makes visible the bond. Scars make pain and strength visible, along with the intentions you bring. They can mark significant events, shifts, promises, or things you wish to carry with you always. This is also why symbols are important to me; they are the language (in the sense of Walter Benjamin) we use when creating marks.
Or, from another, much more morbid angle:
The damage feels like the literalization of a prior brokenness that only I could see, as if the sensation preceded the violence. I think there are many people in this world whose fate is traveling backward to meet them, and they live with their ghost wounds waiting for time to kiss them and make visible what they have held all along.(PSYCHO NYMPH EXILE)
In addition to wearing off, marks can wear in, metaphysically being absorbed into the body. For example, I was compelled to draw eyes in blood on my chest over the course of a month; each one wore in as it faded, and once I had done all three, the task was complete. Another example is painting on the bottoms of shoes; the words and symbols wear in to the shoes, strengthening and empowering them as they fade. At this time, it is unclear what causes something to wear in instead of wear off.