Some ethnic groups practice ritual mutilation, scarification, burning, flagellation, tattooing, or wheeling, as part of a rite of passage. In some cases, the term may apply to treatment of dead bodies, such as soldiers mutilated after they have been killed by an enemy. The traditional Chinese practices of língchí and foot binding are forms of mutilation. One form of mutilation that has captured the imagination of Westerners is the "long-neck" people, a sub-group of the Karen known as the Padaung where women wear brass rings around their neck. The act of tattooing is also considered a form of self-mutilation according to some cultural traditions, such as within Christianity. A joint statement released by the United Nations and numerous other international bodies opposes female circumcision as a form of mutilation. Whether or not male circumcision amounts to mutilation is a subject of academic debate. The Danish Society for General Medicine has declared non-medical male circumcision an ethically unacceptable mutilation while the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has condemned non-medical male circumcision as a "violation of the physical integrity of children.

Castration is also a form of mutilation, as are body piercing some forms of extreme body modification, and some cosmetic surgery. In times when even judicial physical punishment was still commonly allowed to cause not only intense pain and public humiliation during the administration but also to inflict permanent physical damage, or even deliberately intended to mark the criminal for life by docking or branding, one of the common anatomical target areas not normally under permanent cover of clothing (so particularly merciless in the long term) were the ear.Maiming has often been a criminal offense; the old law term for a special case of maiming of persons was mayhem, an Anglo-French variant form of the word. Maiming of animals by others than their owners is a particular form of the offense generally grouped as malicious damage. For the purpose of the law as to this offense animals are divided into cattle, which includes horses, pigs and asses, and other animals which are either subjects of larceny at common law or are usually kept in confinement or for domestic purposes. In Britain under the Malicious Damage Act 1861 the punishment for maiming of cattle was three to fourteen years' penal servitude; malicious injury to other animals is a misdemeanor punishable on summary conviction. For a second offense the penalty is imprisonment with hard labor for over twelve months. Maiming of animals by their owner falls under the Cruelty to Animals Acts.

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