Practiced in: Mauritania (Africa)

There are different standards of beauty in every part of the world. For example, despite the majority of Western brides stopping short of having their kidneys removed to lose weight before the big day, some cultures actually find huskier women more attractive…. and are prepared to go to disturbing lengths to put more junk in their women’s trunks. Enter the Mauritanian Fat Farms.

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Fat Farms are sort of the opposite of Fat Camps – a place where brides as young as five are sent to gain weight under the watchful eyes of wrinkled old crones, in order to become more attractive and get married as soon as possible. In the practice known as Leblouh, the girls are force fed a truckload of food—which might include more than 4 pounds of millet and 5 gallons of camel milk a day—and if they vomit, the supervising hags force them to eat it up. Failure to comply is reportedly often met with torture. So OK, maybe those places are not that different from Fat Camps.

The sad part is, this practice has virtually disappeared until a couple of years ago when a military junta took over the country and reinstated it, probably hoping that fatter women will be easier to catch or something. Not like anyone would sleep with them otherwise, being a bunch of civilian-terrorizing assholes with grenade launchers.

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Practiced in: parts of Malaysia

There is nothing more beautiful than a wedding. It is after all the couple’s first day as two happily married people, surrounded by friends, flowers and fancy foods. But for the tribes of the Tidong community in northern Borneo, a wedding is the first day of a grueling journey to the deepest levels of Hell and back. It’s the day when the couple must stop pooping for 72 hours.

The Tidong tradition dictates that a newly married couple be confined to their house and not empty their bowels or urinate under any possible circumstances for the entirety of 3 nights and 3 days. That’s why they are often carefully watched over by family members and given very little food or water. The Tidong people believe that if the couple makes it, they will lead a happy and long life with lots of non-dead children, so the stakes are pretty high here.

When you think about it, there is a spark of genius in this practice. Nothing binds 2 people for life like going through difficult times together, and there is nothing more difficult than being denied to go to the bathroom for nearly half a week. When the 3 days are up, these people will be closer to each other than ever before, because they will no longer be just husband and wife… They will be poop buddies.

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Written by Cezary Jan Strusiewicz – Copyrighted © www.weirdworm.com