Yada yada yada I was looking at penis bifurcation and lots of weird shit came up. Sure there was a picture of a bifurcation. But there were pictures of people who have ruined their faces by inserting bearings, cutting and tattooing all sorts of weird things.
I saw an interesting one where a guy had a ring with the hole pointing vertically right through the penis. And it made me think...hmmm bifurcation and this ring thing are actually pretty mild compared to the other weird mods to the face.
And practically none of the mods are actually making the person better looking. In my biased point of view, where I don't actually have any mods of my own or want any. But wouldn't it be cool to make useful mods?
Like chop off your pinky fingers and re-attach them on either side of your mouth. I can see how that would be useful for eating. Ants and other bugs have something like that. But could it be done in a faithful to normalcy way? Minimize scars, make the fingers actually connected and functional via neurosurgery and motion therapy. Don't tattoo fangs and such.
But okay let's say you had an accident and your pinky fingers fell off..why waste the opportunity? Okay so your entire arm got chopped off, you got no shoulders anymore, why not keep the arm by attaching it to your back? Or maybe it's attached to your hip bone and points up... Or down as a third leg!
And again we are talking functional and normal looking mods. Why not? Why does it have to be weird dragon face?
I recently saw a cool mod where if you loose your leg they re attach your foot as a knee. That's what I'm talking about here. I've seen some people from India who've had their fingers chopped and they get a toe reattach and functional as fingers.
Anyway yada yada yada it's Sunday night.
I second whoever said body modification aiming towards standard beauty is called plastic or cosmetic surgery.
As for piercings and the more fringe stuff you mentioned, there are many reasons. Some people like the look of a lot of piercings, but many do it because of how it feels (especially in genitals, mouths and nipples) and not so much to achieve aesthetic beauty. Others like it because they find it fascinating, not necessarily beautiful but instead so exciting or interesting that they prefer it over vanilla or standard.