In 1810 an English officer of the East India Company named Edward Moor published The Hindu Pantheon, a compendium of Indian religious imagery assembled for a European readership. Among the plates was a smooth, rounded stone column set into a lipped circular base. Moor described it plainly as a…

Every society moves its children into adulthood, and a surprising number of them do it through the body. A boy is cut, a girl is secluded, a young man is tattooed, a young woman is bathed and dressed and presented.

Modification of the genitals is one of the older subjects in cultural anthropology, and one of the most carefully documented. Across published ethnography, researchers describe practices that alter, mark, or remove parts of the external female anatomy, carried out for reasons a community explains…

Roughly a third of the world's men carry the mark of a rite that has been performed for at least four thousand years — and almost none of the cultures performing it explain it the same way.

⚠ Content Warning This article describes a culturally sensitive Indian wedding ritual that involves partial breast exposure and symbolic (or literal) adult breastfeeding. The content may be shocking, disturbing, or uncomfortable for some readers. Reader discretion is strongly advised. Picture…