Taboo Episode Guide

Episode Guide

• After Death

  Cultural dealings with dead bodies.

• Bizarre Bodies

  The lengths people will go to to change their looks.

• Blood Bonds

  Unusual definitions of family.

  Next on: Monday 14th December 5:00am EST - National Geographic Channel
• Bloodsports

  Lure and horror of ritualized violence.

• Body Art

  The art, meaning and mystery of tattoos.

• Body Cutters

  People who reshape their bodies by extremes.

• Body Extremes

  An Australian health therapist drinks his own urine; men and women in the Philippines sell their kidneys to wealthy foreigners; a woman in Papua New Guinea breast-feeds a pig.

• Body Perfect

  Methods for achieving beauty.

• Child Rearing

  Child rearing techniques around the world.

• Creature Cures

  Using creatures like leeches, baboon claws and bees to cure common ailments.

• Crime Scene

  People deal with the aftermath of fatal crimes.

• Delicacies

  Food delicacies from around the world.

• Drugs

  The societal impact of mind-altering drug use.

  Next on: Saturday 12th December 1:00pm EST - National Geographic Channel
• Drugs

  Some cultures incorporate mind-altering drugs into social and religious life.

• Evil Spirits

  Good vs. evil spirits.

• Extreme Childhood

  Indian children participate in a self-mutilation ritual; young children kickbox for extra income for their families in Thailand; a 5 year-old continues to be breast fed.

• Extreme Cuisine

  Food delicacies from around the world.

• Extreme Eats

  What one can eat may be nothing more than mind over matter.

• Extreme Entertainers

  Determining the line at which entertainment becomes grotesque.

• Extreme Healing

  Stepping beyond the bounds of modern science to place health in the hands of the spirit world.

• Extreme Living

  People who live in extreme conditions.

• Extreme Punishment

  The lengths some societies go to to punish a crime.

• Extreme Rituals

  Young men leap head-first from a 70-foot tower in a potentially deadly ritual; a girl tattoos her face before marriage as part of her transition to womanhood; a 70-year-old man participates in a bloodletting ceremony.

• Food

  What humans eat.

• Gender Benders

  People who cross the gender lines.

• Gross Grub

  People eat cheese crawling with maggots, rotten fish heads, grilled guinea pig and eyeballs, blood and brains.

  Next on: Monday 7th December 4:00am EST - National Geographic Channel
• Gross Work

  People who make a living doing uncommon jobs.

  Next on: Monday 14th December 4:00am EST - National Geographic Channel
• Healers

  Some unorthodox healing practices go beyond science.

• Initiation

  Boys in Brazil put their hands in gloves filled with fire ants; boys have whipping competitions in West Africa; a woman in South Korea must become a shaman to save her life.

• Initiation Rituals

  Some people perform extreme acts to be accepted and to prove their worth.

• Jobs

  Some jobs are so disgusting that few people are willing to do them.

• Justice

  Abandoning modern systems of justice for older and more controversial methods.

• Looks That Kill

  Joan Bakewell continues her examination of censorship with an exploration of violence, using excerpts from film and television. Recent decades have witnessed some of the most extreme violent acts ever, raising the question of whether society has become desensitised to the unsavoury aspects of life portrayed on screen

• Marked for Life

  The lengths which people will go to identify with their community through skin markings.

• Marks of Identity

  Extreme tactics people use to distinguish themselves as part of a group.

• Marriage

  Acceptable marriage practices based on culture.

• Mating

  Some people go to extreme lengths to find mates.

• Nudity

  Shedding clothes as an act of expression or liberation, and even as a means of worship.

• Outcasts

  People who have been cast out of their community.

• Outsiders

  Every society contains people who live on the fringe, either by force or by choice, and must suffer the consequences.

• Pets

  The devoted and bizarre world of pet ownership.

• Proving Ground

  Measuring people's worth by the ability to overcome the fight-or-flight instinct.

• Quest for Acceptance

  Students of human behavior and cultural norms provide perspectives on extreme rites and tests of faith from around the world.

• Rites of Manhood

  People jump naked over the backs of 30 cows, undergo sex-change surgeries, or slice and scar their upper bodies to resemble crocodiles in order to be considered men.

• Rites of Passage

  Cultural practices guiding people into the next phase of life.

• Sacred Pain

  Self-mutilation in the name of faith.

• Sex

  Love and lovability may differ from one society to another.

• Sexual Identity

  Some people go through their life feeling they were born the wrong gender.

• Sexuality

  Boundaries between what is man and what is woman.

• Signs of Identity

  Different ways individuals express themselves through their bodies.

• Skin Deep

  Repeatedly cutting skin to create the effect of crocodile skin; a tribe of people's belief in physical perfection is so deep that some individuals kill their babies.

• Spilling Blood

  Animal sacrifice in Nepal; the traditional whale-slaughtering tradition, Grind, in Denmark; cockfighting in Bali.

• Spirit World

  Extreme measures people go to in order to get in touch with a higher spirit.

• Supreme Devotion

  Some religions measure piety by physical suffering and self-inflicted pain.

• Tattoo

  A look at what permanent skin art symbolises to different cultures all over the world

• Tests of Faith

  Extreme tests of faith.

• The Third Sex

  Some interpret sexuality as cultural or genetic.

• Touching Death

  A man evicts bodies from rented burial plots in Manila; an autopsy entrepreneur contracts out his services; a woman performs Buddhist rituals at the scene of a fatal car accident.

• Trial by Fire

  Many traditional cultures require boys to pass through initiations of pain and fear in order to become men.

• Trials of Faith

  Extreme rituals for testing one's faith.

  Next on: Monday 7th December 5:00am EST - National Geographic Channel
• Voodoo

  West Africa is the birthplace of voodoo.

• Witchcraft

  Supernatural powers.