Keenan+notes

a lip plate is a piece of jewelry involved in a form of body modification which can be seen in both Africa and South America. Some people outside of cultures where lipliplip platesplatesplates are traditionally worn may also practice this form of body modification, for aesthetic, religious, or cultural reasons. The modern primitive movement in the West is especially associated with the wearing of lipliplip platesplatesplates among people in the developed world.

To wear a lipliplip plate, someone must pierce his or her lipliplip, and slowly stretch the hole. Classically, the piercing has been accomplished by cutting into the lipliplip and inserting a small peg, and allowing the piercing to fully heal before installing a slightly larger peg. Stretching a lipliplip to accommodate a lipliplip plate can take time, as the goal is to take advantage of natural tissue elasticity to create a very large hole in the lipliplip which can be filled with a plate made from clay, wood, or metal. Some lipliplip platesplatesplates take the form of hollow rings, depending on the culture.

The size of a lipliplip plate can vary considerably. Some are relatively small, while others can approach the size of a dinner plate. Although a number of theories about the different sizes worn have been posited, the most likely explanation has to do with the individual elasticity of the wearer. Some people are capable of stretching their lips much more than others, and all people are forced to stop stretching at a certain point.

LipLipLip platesplatesplates can be worn in the upper, lower, or both lips. Both men and women have historically worn lipliplip platesplatesplates, with many people crafting their own. African women in the Mursi tribe, a tribe famous for its lipliplip platesplatesplates, decorate their lipliplip platesplatesplates, turning them into complex works of art which are meant to reflect the personality of the owner. The Mursi are in fact so famous for their lipliplip stretching that some people in the West refer to a lipliplip plate as a Mursi.

Among tribal peoples, the lipliplip plate is designed as a personal ornamentation, and sometimes the lipliplip plate also has religious or social connotations. For example, Suri women historically started stretching for a lipliplip plate at the time of marriage. In the Northern Hemisphere, people usually wear lipliplip platesplatesplates because they find them aesthetically appealing, or because they want to identify with tribal peoples. Some people find this practice distasteful, either because of personal aesthetics or because they dislike cultural appropriation.