Stalking Cat, tiger body modification, and the limits of consent
The American man who held the Guinness World Record for the most permanent transformations to look like an animal was recently found dead in his Nevada home. The man, known by his Native American name Stalking Cat (SC), had since the age of 23, when he had his first tiger stripe tattooed onto his body, undergone a series of body modification procedures aimed at altering his physical appearance to resemble that of a female tiger. In addition to tattooed tiger stripes across his body and numerous piercings, body modification procedures that SC underwent included having his upper lip surgically split, his ears pointed and earlobes elongated, subdermal silicone implants (to change the shape of his face and to facilitate the wearing of whiskers), and flattening of the nose via septum relocation.
A BBC profile on SC from ten years ago states that SC “travels to Phoenix, Arizona to have his surgery carried out by body modification artist Steve Hayward. Cat cannot go under the surgeon’s knife because it is illegal in the United States for a medical professional to alter someone’s appearance beyond what society deems normal.”
What would happen if a person (who, we stipulate, has capacity to make medical treatment decisions under the Mental Capacity Act 2005) wanted to have a similar range of procedures carried out in this jurisdiction?
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