If you’ve been watching the Olympics at all this year, you’ve definitely seen athletes with strange circular bruises all over their bodies. (And you’re probably sick of hearing about it.)
Here's swimmer Michael Phelps and gymnast Alexander Naddour, with the circular, semi-purple little marks.
Justin Bieber has also sported the unnatural marks on various occasions.
As you may or not be aware by now, the marks are caused by a technique called cupping — a process that involves suctioning your skin for medicinal and therapeutic purposes.
Great! Now that you're up to speed, let's see how far you can make it into this post without crying out in sheer disgust.
1. We'll start off with something easy... the back of this man being suctioned. Nothing wrong with that, right?
2. They kinda look like giant mushrooms sprouting up under his skin that have been trapped in little glass terrariums. Adorable.
3. And here's what it looks like this once they take the vacuum off...deep red...almost purple.
4. The pores delicately fill with blood, and a bunch of little needle pricks help them breathe.
5. Now THESE ONES! These ones look like they could explode at any moment, right?
6. Here's the worst part...it's become a popular trend to post Instragram photos of the process being done to you. :(
7. And pretty soon it'll be common to see something like this as you're walking down the street, just trying your best to keep your lunch down.
8. Look at her face. That's the face of a woman who's incubating alien eggs in her arm.
9. Oh! And here's something that's fun. Did you know that cupping can involve the expulsion of blood? It's called "wet cupping."
10. Yeah! Looks really great, right? (Apologies in advance for the next series of photos.)
11. Ah, yes! Look at all that life-giving blood.
12. Really look at it.
13. So, so much blood.
14. Just a reminder: this guy paid to have this done to him.
15. If you're anything like me, you don't want to want to look at any more of these, so let's not. Let's all just go lie down and wait for death to take us.
