Wealthy Southeast Asian women in the 1400s, one could argue, had it pretty good.
A man was not quite a man unless an incision was made in his testicles and semi-precious jewels were inserted — all for the pleasure of the ladies. A girl could tell who was worthy of her attention by the jingling sound of a boy's gait as the stones clink-clinked.
The insertion of "Burmese bells," says professor Sun Laichen of California State University at Fullerton, spread to China around the middle of the 15th century, where women took up a related surgical practice.
Yet, at the same time, certain Southeast Asian tribes found as much beauty in a swanlike neck as modeling agencies do today — and women suffered for the extreme interpretation.
And who doesn't have an image of Chinese women during the Han dynasty hobbling about on "lotus blossoms" to entice suitors with their tiny shape (and odor, some scholars say, as the rotting flesh curling around itself served as an aphrodisiac).
Occidentals dabbled in the scary body-modification department too. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Victorian women had lower ribs removed to create smaller waists. Arsenic made white skin whiter. Belladonna, which means "beautiful woman" in Italian but is actually a toxic plant, made the pupils as large as a pot head's.
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