Another week has come and gone.  The weekend is just about here, but before it can start there’s just one more piece of business left to take care of… the news of the week.  After last week’s lengthy catch-up post, this week is is a little light on stories, but it does have some interesting ones.

First up is a story that could be considered a follow-up.  I recall a story last year about some scientists who were developing a way for people with spinal cord injuries to move around, using only a tongue stud.  Well since then they’ve created a number of test models, and they’re being used in trials right now.

The Tongue Drive System is getting less conspicuous and more capable. Tongue Drive is a wireless device that enables people with high-level spinal cord injuries to operate a computer and maneuver an electrically powered wheelchair simply by moving their tongues.  The newest prototype of the system allows users to wear an inconspicuous dental retainer embedded with sensors to control the system. The sensors track the location of a tiny magnet attached to the tongues of users. In earlier versions of the Tongue Drive System, the sensors that track the movement of the magnet on the tongue were mounted on a headset worn by the user.  “By moving the sensors inside the mouth, we have created a Tongue Drive System with increased mechanical stability and comfort that is nearly unnoticeable,” said Maysam Ghovanloo, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In recent months, Ghovanloo and his team have recruited 11 individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries to test the headset version of the system at the Atlanta-based Shepherd Center and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Trial participants received a clinical tongue piercing and tongue stud that contained a tiny magnet embedded in the upper ball. They repeated two test sessions per week during a six-week period that assessed their ability to use the Tongue Drive System to operate a computer and navigate an electric wheelchair through an obstacle course.  “During the trials, users have been able to learn to use the system, move the computer cursor quicker and with more accuracy, and maneuver through the obstacle course faster and with fewer collisions,” said Ghovanloo. “We expect even better results in the future when trial participants begin to use the intraoral Tongue Drive System on a daily basis.”

How different is a clinical tongue piercing from a normal tongue piercing?  Also, it should be noted that Anatometal is contributing to this endeavor, which means that when they do go into production, the jewelry used for the stud will undoubtedly be high quality.

Now a weekly news roundup wouldn’t be complete without some criminal activity, and this week we’ve hit a new low.

Police said a man traded tattoos, piercings and marijuana with at least five teenage girls in exchange for nude photos.  The father of two of the girls said his daughters met Ford through a mutual friend. He told Channel 11′s Timyka Artist that Ford would leave cash under a rock for the girls after they sent him the photos. Other times he would pierce and tattoo them.  The girls’ father, who did not want to be identified, said his daughters are now being tested because he suspects that Ford reused needles.   “It was never in a professional place, always some seedy situation,” he said.

Allegheny County police said the five teenage victims are from Brentwood Middle School between the ages of 12 and 14 years old.

12-14.  Something tells me that if this guy is found guilty, he’ll have a lot of friends in prison.

Moving on, 3News from New Zealand has a story about Dr. Reverend who uses a pretty unique medium for his art..  his own blood.

Five years ago the Sydney tattooist, Dr Reverend, was getting regular blood tests because of liver problems when the inspiration to paint with blood struck him for the first time.  “The down side was I got such a kick out of it I did another one and thought ‘I wonder if I can run it through an airbrush’,” he says.  “I  could get my blood to run one of these like paint and after that there was no turning back”.

And so at the Melbourne tattoo convention the doctor took things to their logical extreme and connected an IV line and painted straight from his body.

Here’s a link to the video of the interview, which includes footage of him painting directly from his vein.

While we’re on the subject of blood, The Vancouver Sun has done an extensive feature of scarification, including a video of a scarification in progress.

Women have long gone under the knife for the sake of beauty. A growing trend in body modification, however, is now seeing them do so in the name of art.  Unlike tattoos, which use needles to create a permanent design, scarification involves carving patterns into the flesh with a scalpel. And to hear it from industry insiders, an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of those being cut aren’t countercultural thrill-seekers but rather professional women, ages 25 to 50, desiring something more understated than traditional ink.  “It can produce the same type of image as a tattoo but it’s a lot more subtle and less aggressive,” says Keith Kennedy, a Calgary scarification artist for the past eight years.

Few scarification artists advertise their services out of fear this “grey area” of body modification will be made illegal in Canada. A handful, however, are working directly with medical and health officials – Calgary’s Kennedy included – to demonstrate that, when done correctly, this unique art form is legitimate and safe.  Dr. Mariusz Sapijaszko, past president of the Canadian Society for Dermatologic Surgery, is among the doctors who’ve observed scarification firsthand.  “Based on the medical school training that I received, we viewed scarification as a form of self-mutilation rather then body art,” says Sapijaszko, who practices in Edmonton. “(But) I found the scarification artists to be extremely skilled in design, planning and execution of the scarification process. They were meticulous in their technique and obviously had tremendous experience.”

The doctor’s foremost caution is that nobody undertake the process lightly, noting the potential for infection, uneven scarring, keloids (rubbery lesions often accompanied by pain or itchiness) and social embarrassment.  “It’s critical that the artist is an expert,” says Sapijaszko. “The results, bad or good, are permanent.”

An in today’s final story, a study by dermatologists at Northwestern University has resulted in 9 steps to prepare your body for a piercing.

To stay safe, the paper describes these points to consider before getting your body pierced.

1. Know your infection risk: If you currently have an infection or an open wound, it’s a good idea to put off the piercing until you are healthy. Risk of infection is higher — especially if the piercer is poorly trained and working in an unsterile environment or using unclean equipment — or if the wound doesn’t heal properly.

2. Be aware of medical issues: If you have health problems, such as poorly controlled diabetes or other conditions that weaken your immune system, your chances of infection are higher and piercing is riskier.

3. Factor in lifestyle. A nose ring when you’re 20 may look cool, but it may not be so hip or accepted at 30 in some workplaces. If you’re planning to remove piercings frequently to conceal them at work or from your family, this may increase your chances of infection. It may also lengthen healing time of newly pierced skin. If you play a contact sport and your piercings are in an area where they might rip or the jewelry can snag on clothing, this may injure the skin.

It goes on, but you get the idea.  For most of us, it’s general knowledge (with the exception of the “coolness” factor), however for a lot of people these tips could end up being very helpful.  Ideally it’ll encourage people to stop going to mall kiosks to have their lobes pierced with a gun.

Well, that’s it for this week.  Have a great weekend, and remember to e-mail me those news stories you come across.

Wow.  Long time no see.  My apologies about the lack of news posts so far this year, but as of today they’re back and are sticking around.

Well, since it’s been so long there may be a couple of stories that are a few weeks old, so I’ll be covering them as well as catching up on this past week in modification news the world over.

To get things started I’d like you to meet Lisa Khoury.  Lisa is an assistant news editor for the University of Buffalo’s newspaper, The Spectrum.

Earlier this month Lisa caused a bit of a fuss with her article entitled “Why put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari?”  Here’s a couple of choice samples from her piece.

I get it. It’s the 21st century. You’re cool, you’re rebellious, you’re cutting edge, you have a point to prove, and you’re a woman. Awesome.  Ladies, I know you’re at least at the legal age of making your own decisions, but before you decide to get a tattoo, allow me to let you in on a little secret. A secret you may have not fully realized yet thus far in your life. What you must understand is, as women, we are – naturally – beautiful creatures.  Seriously, though. Your body literally has the ability to turn heads. Guys drool over us. We hold some serious power in our hands, because – as corny as this sounds – we hold the world’s beauty.

But something girls seem to forget nowadays, or maybe have not been taught, is that women hold the world’s class and elegance in their hands, as well. So what’s more attractive than a girl with a nice body? I’ll tell you what: a girl with class. Looks may not last, but class does. And so do tattoos.  An elegant woman does not vandalize the temple she has been blessed with as her body. She appreciates it. She flaunts it. She’s not happy with it? She goes to the gym. She dresses it up in lavish, fun, trendy clothes, enjoying trips to the mall with her girlfriends. She accentuates her legs with high heels. She gets her nails done. She enjoys the finer things in life, all with the body she was blessed with.  But marking it up with ink? That’s just not necessary.

But at the end of the day, are you really a happier person? Has this tattoo, for instance, caused you to learn something new about yourself? Has it challenged you? Has it led you to self-growth? Nothing comes out of getting a tattoo. You get a tattoo, and that’s it. You do something productive, though, and you see results. That’s a genuine, satisfying change in life. Not ink.  Invest your time, money, and effort into a gym membership, or yoga classes, or new clothes, or experimenting with different hairstyles if you’re craving something new with your body, not a tattoo.  I promise, it will be a much more rewarding experience, and you won’t find yourself in a rut when your future grandkids ask you what’s up with the angel wings on your upper back as you’re in the middle of giving them a life lesson on the importance of values and morals.

God knows the last thing this world needs is another generation of kids questioning their basic values and morals.

Oh Lisa.  Poor innocent Lisa.  It seems that Lisa didn’t realize that not only do modified people read the paper, but they’re also capable of sharing it with their friends online.  Needless to say the article went viral shortly after it was published.  Now, to be fair this is an opinion piece, however instead of just giving her opinions based off any kinds of facts, she played the moral highroad and claimed that women who get tattoos are, essentially, immoral trash.  The feedback she received online was staggering and forced her to write this “apology“.

I’m a 19-year-old college sophomore, I help run my family’s restaurant, I’m a writer and editor at my school’s newspaper, and a woman from Australia says I’m “sexist.” A professor from the University of Illinois wonders about my mental stability. A man double my age is calling me “ugly.” In the past 48 hours, authors, war veterans, mothers of small children have told me I’m ignorant, worthless, brainwashed, classless, disgusting, hypocritical, and judgmental.  A man from New Zealand called me bigoted, self-righteous, conservative rubbish.

Alright, so the reaction was pretty harsh, however stating your her means she’s implying that because she’s young she shouldn’t be criticized for her opinion.  But I digress, let’s see how she handled the rest of the apology. (Emphasis mine)

I wrote an opinion piece about tattoos for Monday’s Spectrum. As a female, I took the woman’s stance and said I’m beautiful without a tattoo.

I never meant to be vindictive toward an entire subculture. That’s why its response was so unexpected to me. Its words were different; it wanted to eviscerate me.  I am sorry to anyone who took my words as a personal attack. I am sorry to anyone who felt disrespected in any way. This column was meant to express my opinion and explain how I live, not to tell you that my way of life is in any way superior to yours.  I was misinterpreted. These strangers have slowly and in the most painful way possible ripped me to shreds within the past 48 hours.  Their hate will be tattooed in me for a long time, but only as a learning lesson.

Many points, especially about feminism, were taken out of context and turned into something demeaning. My point about my body having “the ability to turn heads” stemmed from the fact that I wasn’t the healthiest teenager, so when I learned more about health and fitness after high school, I found meaning in that. Not because I was becoming skinnier (for the record, I in no way find myself slim), but I found that I was setting goals for myself, and, for once, achieving them. I felt happier because I felt healthier. Each day I felt like I would live a longer life, and my future kids wouldn’t have to worry about their mom dying from smoking cigarettes or not exercising regularly, the way I worry about my parents.  The whole clothes thing? Well, when I lost weight, yeah, I was actually interested in dressing myself for once. Do I wear tight fitted clothes every day to school for the aesthetic, sexual pleasure of the men around me? Eww. I wore the same jeans for about 17 years and recently discovered there are other styles out there for me to try out, I guess what I was getting at was perceived as something much more shallow to my readers.

But no one was conversing about my points. Instead, they were taking certain lines out of context, and it was no longer a conversation, but an appalling backlash.

Dear Lisa.  This half-hearted apology only tells us one thing.  It tells us that you really don’t feel bad about what you said, and that the people who were understandably offended should apologize to you for being so mean.  You say you were misinterpreted, and that you never meant to be vindictive, yet you state in your apology that you “took the woman’s stance”.  So your opinion should be taken as you speaking up for all women?  Or does it mean that all men have the opposite stance and believe women are only beautiful with a tattoo?  You then go on the explain why you feel you’re beautiful without a tattoo, without actually giving any reasons that having a tattoo would make you feel otherwise.  But if we go back to the original article, at no time do you mention that your opinions are just about yourself.  In fact, you state multiple times that elegant women, women with class, etc. all have no need of a tattoo to make themselves feel beautiful.  No mention of your own experiences at all.  I hate to break it to you but you ARE being vindictive to a subculture, and there was no misinterpretation of your words.

I want to bring something up that ModBlog readers will know, and Lisa probably doesn’t.  Tattoos aren’t always about aesthetic value or beauty.  There are many different reasons for women and men to get tattooed.  Lisa’s belief that tattoos are only for beauty reveal her willful ignorance, as well as her inability to see why she offended as many people as she did.  To her a classy woman is one who works out, gets her hair and nails done, wears outfits that may be slightly uncomfortable, and put on make-up.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news to Lisa, but all of those “classy” things are actually forms of body modification.  Dying your hair, altering your appearance, changing your body through working out, wearing high heels, etc. all change how you look from your “normal” appearance.  They’re the ones hiding who they are by putting their bodies through sometimes torturous rituals just to make themselves more appealing to others.  At the end of the day, with all your make-up gone, heels off, and clothing on the floor, you’re only as beautiful as you see yourself.  That beauty comes from confidence, and the feeling that when you look in the mirror you’re seeing the person who you want to see.  Just because you see yourself without any tattoos doesn’t mean you’re better than those who do.  We modify our bodies not because it’s cool or trendy, we modify ourselves to show the world, and that person in the mirror, that we can be exactly the way we want to be.  The bottom line is that we respect ourselves and others not by how they look, but by how they act, and people like Lisa Khoury should do the same.

Alright, so with that mess behind us, we’ve got lots more news to catch up on.  So keep on reading.

Continue reading →

As I mentioned back at the end of December, I was putting together a compilation of the top news stories from 2011.  I based the top 10 off of both the e-mails I received and the size of the discussion the story created.  So without further ado, here are the top 10 newsfeed stories of 2011.

10: Raid in Indonesia results in 75 Indonesian punk music fans being detained, having their piercings removed and heads shaved.

This story happened in the 2nd week of December, which you would think wouldn’t be enough time to break into the top ten, but the religious debate that the topic spawned pushed it on to the list.  Religion is always a touchy subject, but to hear it being used as the reason to remove modifications from people hit close to home for a number of you.

9: Moms should remove jewelry when breastfeeding their children.

This interview on a blog for mothers got a lot of attention from the Modified Mom brigade.  The common belief was that the woman being interviewed had probably never breastfed with pierced nipples, and was just spouting off common urban myths.

8: Doctors are referring patients to plastic surgeons for “Designer Vaginas”.  Some as young as 11.

This story from August wasn’t even the lead story of the week, but it did garner the most attention, prompting discussion on consensual female circumcision (in this case labia reduction, not hood/clitoral removal) and the role of England’s public health services.  There were questions raised as to why male circumcision is covered by NHS, but labia reduction isn’t, as well as how old a person can be before they’re allowed to go through the procedure, especially considering an 11-year-old was referred to a plastic surgeon.

7: A beloved teacher came under fire from a local politician for the horrible crime of “teaching while tattooed”.

This story hit home for me personally as I am I former modified teacher.  What stood out the most for everyone wasn’t the fact that the local politician went after the teacher, but rather the school, the kids, and the parents who all stood up to defend the teacher, saying his tattoos and piercings had no bearing on his ability to teach.  Once the politician was shut down by the school board, there were no more complaints filed.

6: Circumcision party!

Yep, back to circumcision again.  This time it was a Guinness record attempt by a city in the Philippines that resulted in hundreds of boys being circumcised over the course of a few hours.  The Guinness record people declined to recognize the event as they don’t endorse any kind of mass medical procedure records.

5: Zombie Boy becomes the new face of fashion.

It was a big year for Montreal’s Rick Genest as he went from virtual unknown to being on television sets around the world.  When Rick was chosen by stylist Nicola Formichetti to be the face of Thierry Mulger’s newest clothing line nobody expected him to suddenly appear in Lady Gaga’s newest music video.  Well nobody except for Formichetti who is also Gaga’s stylist and appointed Rick as her new muse.  Since the music video Rick has gone on to become the spokesperson for tattoo concealing make-up.

4: Tattooed Pigs.

It wasn’t really a surprise that this story is on the list, as debates about animals tend to get heated.  To some this was flat out animal cruelty, while others pointed out that all of the pigs had been saved from slaughterhouses and were now living a life of luxury (at least as much luxury as a pig can have).  Of course there was the 3rd opinion that couldn’t understand why the pigs weren’t on their plates.

3: TLC’s Tattoo School.

Yep.  TLC tried to put on a TV series about a “tattoo school” that could teach you everything you need to know how to tattoo in 2 weeks.  And by “everything” I mean “just enough to do some serious damage to a person and possibly infect them with some kind of disease”.  Thankfully TLC pulled the show from its line-up quickly.  Unfortunately the school itself is still in operation, and teaching more and more people how to be a scratcher.

2: ABC News publicly mocking heavy modification on air.

The subject of the story was supposed to be ear pointing, however with selective editing and commentary, it ended up just being a story ridiculing the entire body modification community.  Starting with calling it a “fad” and using the line “can’t people be happy with what they have?”, it was obvious that there was going to be nothing objective about it.

1: Mom shoots botox into her child’s face.

And your number one story for the year is this one.  In addition to injecting her child with botox, the mom regularly has her daughter’s body completely waxed to prevent hair growth later in life, and has promised to allow her to get breast augmentation and a nose job as soon as possible.  Response to this was overwhelming, not only on ModBlog, but all over the world.  Within a few days of the story going public child services swooped in and removed the child from her mother and placed her with other family members.  It’s safe to say her pageant career ended that day as well.

So that’s it for 2011.  Starting next week we’ll be back to news as usual.  So remember, if you find a story you think should be included in the news of the week, just send me an e-mail with the link.  Have a great weekend everyone, and I’ll see you back here Monday.

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