TransVision 2004 Coverage: Part One [The Publisher’s Ring]

Posted on August 12, 2004 by Shannon Larratt

TransVision 2004 Coverage
PART ONE: A RAMBLING OVERVIEW OF TV2004

“Transhumanism is a way of thinking about the future that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase.”

– Prof. Nick Bostrom, Oxford University

IMAGE SIDEBAR

Below are a few photos we took at TransVision. I felt a little bit like a “science groupie” asking people to let me take a photo with them, but hey, it was exciting for me! I should also note that in this article I’ve barely skimmed the surface of most of these brilliant minds — I strongly encourage you to check out their websites and google them for more.

Steve Mann (wearcam.org) speaking about wearable computing, glogging, and sousveillance. I really urge you to visit his websites to learn more about how he’s augmenting and mediating the human experience using a cyborg body.

João Pedro de Magalhães of Harvard Medical School talking about his work in trying to find — and one day cure — the genetic causes of aging. You can see in this picture how unfortunately empty the event was.

Dr. Rafal Smigrodski (Gencia Corporation) talking about his work on mtDNA replacement which could cure diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimers, and diabetes, as well as dramatically extending lifespans.

Biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey talking about life extension by “cleaning” our cells of the toxic aggregates that our bodies are currently unable to deal with. Great beard, great mind.

Allen Randall’s talk on “Quantum Miracles and Immortality” included discussion of a number of amusing thought experiments. In simple terms, quantum theory suggests that all possible states exist at once (ie. there are multiple worlds, like in that show Quantum Leap). Therefore, if you try to kill yourself in a way that has an (impossibly high) high chance of success in every one of these worlds, only the immortals survive — thus creating a quantum state that favors your immortality. I’m not really sure if this talk was supposed to be serious or just really funny, but I enjoyed it and I’ve always been a sucker for philosopher mathematicians.

Torsten Nahm from Bonn, Germany talking about aging, and arguing that being biological (wetware) sucks because of that aging. By moving into a digital form, we can become immortal, make backups of ourselves, experiment with different lives, and anything else we’d like. However, we need to decide whether the transition from one form of being to another involves not only rebirth, but death.

Ben Hyink’s talk on preserving network integrity during the process of uploading. That is, how do you keep an entity alive and conscious as it transitions into a new body? Unfortunately like many of the plenary talks, Ben was not able to fit all of his interesting ideas into the allotted time.

Anders Sandberg introducing Nick Bostrom’s closing talk. I first interviewed Anders for BME back in I think 1996. Anders’s enthusiastic online promotion of transhumanism has introduced thousands and thousands of people to a more forward-leaning way of thinking. I really liked Anders, although I only got to speak to him briefly. Super nice guy… actually, everyone I met at the event was really nice.

Nick Bostrom of Oxford University and the WTA puts transhumanism — and our need to embrace it — in simple and convincing terms in his closing talk. Nick is also the author of the transhumanism FAQ which is an excellent introduction to the subject along with Anders’s pages.

With George Dvorsky of Betterhumans, one of my hosts (Simon had already slipped out; I’d hoped to include both of them). As well as his work with Betterhumans, you may also want to check out his personal site and blog.

With Rudi Hoffman, “Cryonics Insurance Specialist”. I really got a kick out of Rudi — as much as he’s a real cliché of a salesman, he’s a a lot of fun and an incredibly enthusiastic spokesman for jumping into the future by jumping into a vat of liquid nitrogen. Contact Rudi if you’re trying to find an affordable way to have your brain — or entire body — frozen Futurama-style.

A group photo taken near the end of the event. Shannon Bell is on the far left (when I mentioned that Shannon had joined us to friends, they were extremely excited — she has a reputation for being one of the best professors you can have at York University, as well as being a distinguished author and researcher). In the middle of the front row is Stelarc who you’ll meet in more detail in part two of this article, and between them is José Luis Cordeiro who will be hosting TransVision 2004 in Caracas, Venezuela.

Transhumanism, at its simplest, is a way of thinking and being that embraces the idea that our experience as homo sapiens is just one small step in an ongoing evolution, and that we should take an active rather than passive role in “making ourselves better”. Transhumanists are a mix of philosophers, futurists, sci-fi buffs, and bona fide scientists advocating ideas such as uploading (the transfer of consciousness into computers), genetic enhancement, immortality, machine-human integration, and nanotechnology. Body modification culture lies on a related path and represents a real-world application of breaking the biological mold and transforming ourselves into something we perceive as “better” than what nature gave us.

TransVision, the yearly convention of the World Transhumanist Association, took place in Toronto, Canada for 2004 and BME was there thanks to an invitation from our friends over at BetterHumans. It took me a moment to actually figure out where it was being held, because nowhere on their website did it list an address or even the name of the building that was being used — but, after a bit of googling for the JRR McLeod Auditorium, we made our way to the University of Toronto Medical Sciences Building.

The conference had drawn speakers from all over the world — a sizable European and Scandinavian contingent, South Americans, and of course plenty of Canadians and Americans. It seemed to touch on every demographic from young fashionable cyberpunk kids, übergeeks, scientists, artists, and one seeming half-wit conspiracy nut that asked “how many methods of human improvement are there”, besides “chemical augmentation” (which he certainly seemed to be enjoying) at every talk he attended. One thing that surprised me was how empty the event was and how few people other than the speakers seemed to be there — many of the talks I would attend had less than twenty people sitting in the auditorium, with most of the seats empty.

After picking up our press passes, Phil Barbosa (who’d joined me to help film the event) and I went to the front row to wait for the opening talk by Steve Mann to begin. Steve Mann is the real deal. A genuine geek that looks every bit the part, Steve Mann has lived with wearable computing and camera technology since the mid 1970s and is a leading — and seed — researcher in these fields. He’s vehemently anti-corporation, is a political activist on surveillance issues, as well as being an environmentalist using guerrilla installations of solar cells and wind turbines.

Mann concentrated his talk on what he’s best known for: glogging, or “cyborg logging”, a form of literature (if that’s the right word) that predates but closely resembles blogging and moblogging and mandates that the glogger extend their body and consciousness into artificial and reconfigurable appendages. Using his wearable computing and media system, sometimes in collaboration with other cyborgs, he explores, documents, and shares his view of the world he sees. His inverse surveillance or sousveillance (“watching from below”) regularly brings him in conflict with those watching from above — he observes that those who run their own surveillance cameras are usually those most offended at his sousveillance of them in return. Mann went on to talk about “dusting”, a slightly improved version of an additive compositing technique that’s been in common use since the beginning of photography, which he seemed to think was important. This illustrated one of the pitfalls about becoming so engrossed in personalized technology while being heralded as the primogenitor — a difficulty in recognizing or taking seriously work done by other researchers.

As much as Steve Mann gave a largely brilliant talk, it also illustrated a fundamental problem in passing knowledge and ideas from hardcore geek culture to the mainstream: it’s not that charismatic (Reason magazine described Mann as “rather creepy” and spoke of him derisively in their event report). Steve displays a sense of humor that’s highly personal and a difficulty in communicating with other humans, which is genuinely ironic given the amazing tools he’s helped developed to facilitate these communications. His websites are ugly and primitive, the photos of him wearing his inventions are “unflattering” to say the least, and he uses common terms in ways that are awkward and unconventional (such as his insistence that Linux and other open source programs are not software, because wares are items of commerce — better tell that to the open source software movement). The best chefs understand that the way they present their dish greatly affects diners perception of it… Scientists need to embrace the reality of human interaction and start to include marketing as an important part of transhumanist dialog. Body modification for example is successful not just because it’s “right”, but also because it’s cool and accessible.

The title of Steve Mann’s talk had been “Glogging: Sousveillance, Cyborglogs, and the right to self-modification.” The right to self-modification is of course something that I’m very concerned about since it affects the readers of BME (and myself) on a daily basis, and is one of the key points where transhumanism and body modification intersect. Ultimately if we’re going to leap forward from these dirty ape fleshbag bodies of ours, we have to embrace the right of every individual to transform themselves in any way they see fit, be it a split tongue or be it a robotic tongue. Unfortunately, Mann hadn’t mentioned a word about it in the talk, which I found odd given that it was part of the title, so I asked him about it afterwards — given that in many parts of the Western world, even traditional “self-modification” like tattooing is illegal, was there any movement inside transhumanist circles to politically fight for the right to self-modification?

While Mann didn’t know of any such battle, he does have an interesting counter-attack to those who tell him he has to remove the electronic parts of his body — he says “sure, but only if you sign this form assuming liability if I’m injured due to not having them.” It’s a curious idea — if an augmented human is “more” than an unaugmented human, does that mean that in relative terms a normal human is handicapped? Is taking a cyborg’s electronics away the same as telling someone they can’t wear their glasses, or can’t ride on their electric wheelchair? Since we can always improve, where does one draw the line — and should one draw such a line at all? If we’re thinking along such paths, is not genetically improving your child a modern form of child abuse? Or will political correctness force us to define “human” as “stupid and limited, and that’s how we like it?”

Later in the conference I attended a talk by Dr. Rafal Smigrodski, a specialist in mitochondrial genome manipulation. In “how to buy new mitochondria for your old body” he describes what he believes could add a decade or more to people’s lifespans, as well as curing many mitochondrial disorders using a technique not so different from the Keith Richards urban legend in which he solves his heroin addiction by flying to Switzerland where all of his blood is removed and completely replaced with new, healthy, and unaddicted blood. Dr. Smigrodski touched on the right to self-modify issue as well, pointing out that he’s been forced to concentrate his research on those with diseases or otherwise improperly functioning physical forms — and that convincing governments that aging is a disease will be far from an easy thing, even though aging appears to be a terminal condition that we all suffer from. I think it was Nick Bostrom that would say later in his closing remarks that most people have a Stockholm Syndrome type relationship with aging, whereby they give artificial value to that which has imprisoned them.

From my point of view, the right to self-modify is something that transhumanist researchers should be embracing. It’s all well and good to develop technologies that ease the suffering from extremely rare disorders, and maybe that gives us “expendable” people to experiment on (it’s a terrible way to put it, but if we use the ill as fair game to do our early experiments on, that is what we’re doing), but until these technologies are available in unrestricted form to the general public, they’re not particularly transhumanist. Perhaps I’m speaking callously, but in my opinion, if we’re to move humanity forward, we should be concentrating on transforming the best of humanity into something even more, rather than trying to alleviate suffering in that tiny, tiny minority of people who are born with terminal or crippling diseases.

Aubrey de Grey as well gave a fascinating talk on “removing toxic aggregates that our cells can’t break down”, but he as well must face these same issues — how do you start using these technologies to enhance humans, rather than just fixing them when they break? I don’t want to keep repairing my old Ford Escort… I want an upgrade to a flying Lamborghini.

I’d come into the conference assuming that most transhumanists shared my own views: that we should be aggressively transforming humans into the things we dreamed of as children slumbering after spending the day reading science fiction, beings with far more power and options than we have as humans. However, there’s certainly no agreement inside transhumanism that this is the right goal. Mark Walker, editor of the Journal of Evolution and Technology and research fellow at Trinity College, spoke on the Genetic Virtue Program which he proposes is “the only hope on the horizon that humans might remove themselves from the slaughter bench of history.”

The basic idea is that since behavior is at least thirty to forty percent inherited (so you will act like your parents) and thus genetic in nature, that by using genetic manipulation we can, in time, breed a race of humans that are more compassionate and loving, and less aggressive, greedy, and prone to lying (and presumably sinning). While there is a certain truth to Walker’s proposals, the idea of using science to limit humans rather than expand them wasn’t really received that well by the audience. I pointed out that historically progress tends to be made by selfish, aggressive, and sometimes even “evil” people, and that breeding a society of well behaved losers might not be in our best interests as a species. One neurologist in the crowd pointed out that the ability to lie was an important part of an advanced mind, closely linked to the ability to consider different variations on the same idea, and that attempts to genetically force moral behavior might have to sacrifice intelligence in exchange — but Walker’s ideas certainly underscore the fact that there are a myriad of ways to move humanity forward (as well as many definitions of “forward”), and that transhumanism covers a very broad range of politics and faiths.

As is probably clear, I enjoy the hard science, and I believe that we must embrace the absolute right to use that science to better ourselves. To me, that’s the whole point — if all science does for us is fix people who are born “broken”, then we’re actually moving in the wrong direction. While I certainly hope that we can care for all people, if resources are going to be poured into improving humanity, I’d like to see it poured into improving the best humans, thereby moving us into the future. Because of this, I was looking forward to seeing Natasha Vita-More’s “posthuman prototypes debate their own design.”

When Natasha got on stage, more flash bulbs went off than at any other talk I’d been to. With zoom lenses fully erect, an army of transhumanist men showed they were still slaves to testosterone — Natasha lives in a transhumanist body herself with obviously “augmented” mammalian features and a clear attention to fitness and form. I don’t say this to be crass — the mass appeal of extreme cosmetic surgery is very relevant to transhumanist bodies and I was looking forward to hearing her thoughts on it. Unfortunately her talk was rubbish and full of sloppy thinking and inadequate research. She’d “interviewed” a number of fictional and non-fictional post humans, including her own imaginary creation “Primo”, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and Honda’s Asimo robot.

She “asked” these entities what they thought about themselves, humans, and so on, and in her answers made it clear that she had little comprehension of the technology involved, and was primarily interested in making her own sadly uninformed comments. Most obviously she claimed that Asimo was a primitive machine that could do no more than walk up and down stairs, a foolish statement to put it politely. Her commentary on the other technologies was equally ignorant, and her own “Primo” creation showed that she couldn’t even use the terminology correctly (ever get annoyed at the technobabble in Star Trek?) let alone illustrate it in a way that anyone can take that seriously — even if you’re just an “artist”, you still have the responsibility to understand the language you’re speaking. This saddened me, because Natasha is clearly a brilliant and creative women, but she disgraces herself when she speaks so foolishly.

Unfortunately Natasha was not the only person speaking this way at TransVision. I suppose that’s to be expected when you have a wide range of people commenting on such a diverse subject, but what disturbed me about it was that few inside transhumanism seem to have the courage to shout out “the emperor wears no clothes”, but instead seem to prefer a circle-jerk where everyone congratulates each other on how clever they are with little willingness to look at the thoughts critically — although they’ll galdly rip to shreds outsiders who criticize them.

In my opinion, transhumanism doesn’t need ill-informed people who go off on flights of “what if” fancy. You know what? All of us have been doing that since we were five years old. What transhumanism needs is transhumanists. Not people who talk about. People who do it. I have enormous respect for people like Steve Mann and Stelarc (or Todd Huffman with his magnetic vision) who are actually out there living transhuman lives and having transhumanist experiences, rather than just talking about them without any first-hand knowledge, as well as the scientists doing the foundation research that will make it possible. I am not convinced that the philosophers and artists are any different from science fiction authors — an important element in inspiring people to live as transhumanists, but no more than that.

As much as the conference was utterly unpromoted and almost unattended, there was an abundance of fascinating characters. Sitting next to me at several of the events was the boisterous and friendly Rudi Hoffman who was there selling life insurance for those seeking cryogenic suspension with Alcor — for about $40 a month you can buy an insurance policy ensuring that upon death you’ll be frozen a la Han Solo. Unfortunately the insurance doesn’t cover the cost of bringing you back to life — it’s hoped that future generations will do so for you. But still, your chances for reincarnation, as slim as they may be, are a lot better if you’re preserved in a vat of liquid nitrogen than if you’re rotting in a pine box buried in the ground.

Also sitting next to me — in the front row — for several of the talks was a tall, slender Asian man with a big bag of groceries. Oblivious to those around him, he prepared and ate several salads and fruit dishes, carefully weighing them and then entering them into a spreadsheet on his laptop as he ate, afterwards spending ten minutes loudly flossing his teeth. This seemed to me to be a strange thing to do, and by their strained glances at him, I think some of the speakers were debating whether or not they were being insulted. Later I discovered that he believed that in order to best achieve longevity one should adopt a paleolithic diet, since that’s what our bodies are presumably evolved to survive on.

Meeting José Luis Cordeiro, the host of TransVision 2005 (to be held in Caracas, Venezuela) was rewarding as well. Cordeiro has written extensively on both transhumanism and the socio-political future of Latin America, but even though his books sell well from Mexico southward, he’s had little luck reaching the North American market — as he opined in a seminar on writing transhumanist books (moderated by Simon Smith) information flows out of America, but rarely in. I believe that Cordeiro is exactly what transhumanism needs — an optimist (but a realist) with a technical background, and with a sense of humor and the charisma required to present far-out ideas to the general public.

All this said, I really must encourage readers to take advantage of events like TransVision when they happen in your area. Don’t underestimate the value of getting to meet world class thinkers — even the ones you disagree with — in person. Don’t underestimate the value of introducing yourself into dialogs you might otherwise not be able to have. As much as I didn’t think much of a few of the presenters, the ones I disagreed with the most are also the ones that got me thinking aggressively about where humanity is going and how we should take it there.

Finally, if I could say one thing to transhumanists in general, it is to follow Steve Mann and Stelarc’s example and make it real. Don’t just talk about far future fantasies. Taking the first step may not be as fantastical as masturbating over the year 3000, but it’s the only way that we can force transhuman evolution without being restricted by governments and corporations, who will act in the best interests of nationalism and capitalism, rather than humanity’s future. While it’s true that we’ll see the occasional Mr. Hyde as a result, I call out to Bruce Banner: it’s time to irradiate yourself.

Shannon Larratt
BME.com

Revenge of the Tattooed Nerds [The Publisher’s Ring]

Posted on July 20, 2004 by Shannon Larratt

Revenge of the Tattooed Nerds

“Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.”

– John Stuart Mill

One of the things I love about tattooing is that it attracts interesting people from all demographics. The simple truth is that some people feel a desire to permanently mark themselves with things that profoundly affect their lives. I don’t know if this is some genetic leftover that helped primitive humans hold their social fabric together, or whether it’s an unavoidable byproduct of being both narcissistic and sentient creatures. Either way, people get tattooed every day with the things that define their lives — and “nerds” and “geeks” are no different.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been talking to people with “nerdy” tattoos — computer logos, video game themes, science, math, and engineering imagery. Below you can read their stories in their own words:

The Cult of Apple

While I have received the occasional Intel, AMD, and Sun tattoo pictures, as well as a few Linux Tux and FreeBSD tattoos, no computer company has as many tattooed users as Apple does. We’ll begin this article by letting a few of those people explain their Apple tattoos in their own words.

Nicole, 21, Seattle
Apple Employee

I’ve been an Apple enthusiast since I was young, and when I was 12 years old I said my first tattoo would be the Apple logo. It was Apple and my skills in working with and fixing Macintosh computers (as opposed to PC repair, which seems to be dime a dozen) that allowed me to get a good job outside of the small town I grew up in, and allowed me to escape from that close-minded, racist place. It was also my enthusiasm for Apple that was a factor in meeting my life partner; without being Mac users, we probably wouldn’t have found such a common bond. I wanted to get the tattoo to symbolize my coming-of-age, because what it stood for was such a factor.

I actually had the logo tattooed in the September after I turned 18; that gave me nine months to get up the courage to get anything tattooed. The specific logo used is straight from an Apple sticker: size, shape and coloring. By the time I was tattooed, Apple had actually changed their corporate logo, but I had always pictured myself with the older rainbow logo. One thing that I’m quite proud of about the tattoo is the fact that no black ink was used. Every other Apple tattoo I’ve ever seen has a black outline around it. I read an anecdote from Steve Jobs (one of the founders of Apple), who was discussing the design of the logo. He insisted on having no black outline around the original logo, at great expense, but he wouldn’t settle for less. I had to shop around to find an artist willing to do it with no outline, but it was worth waiting for. It’s still as crisp and colorful three years later.

My personal reasons for having the tattoo weren’t that I was slavishly devoted to the company — I had the tattoo for reasons outside its duty as a logo. Even if the company went out of business, I had the tattoo my coming of age; and it was only a symbol of such. My feelings about Apple have become stronger after getting the tattoo; it’s always a blast to meet others with Apple tattoos, and it’s certainly a winner in “who’s geekier?” competitions. I actually started working for Apple about two years after getting the tattoo (where I’m still employed); and no, I didn’t show off the tattoo in the interview. The period between the interview and getting hired was pretty heart-wrenching; I wasn’t sure how I would feel, being rejected by the company that I have indelibly marked on my body!! Luckily, it was unfounded fear.

Apple customers can see my tattoo on a daily basis during the summer. Most customers don’t notice it (or don’t say anything), but the ones that do always love it. Everyone asks if I got it so I could get a job there. My co-workers love it as well. I showed it off in our first day of training together, and I’ve seen pictures of other employees’ tattoos.

Christy, 20, Ithaca, NY
Music major

I was never much into computers until I went to Ithaca College. My parents had a PC at home and I would use it for schoolwork, but when I went to college I bought a G3 iMac (which I later replaced with a G4 ibook) since our music program strictly uses Apple Computers. I use the computer to run music notation programs like Finale and Sibalius, but that in itself isn’t reason enough to get the logo tattooed on your body. The more I learned about the company and the people who used them, I fell in love. It sounds ever so geeky, but all of my friends use Macs, a lot of them for film editing that they do. We are all up on the latest software and hardware, and are fanatical about it. I couldn’t think of a more thrilling activity then watching Steve Jobs give his keynote presentation at the MacWorld Conference.

For a long time I just didn’t have anything that I felt strongly enough to tattoo on my body. Then I decided to tattoo an Apple on me! It just embodies everything that I am. It is more than just a computer logo to me. Apple computers are beautiful. I love design. I love to look at beautiful things. Architecture, fine art, interior design, superb tattooing, I just love it all. Apple gets it — they make beautifully designed products, and that is what I am about. The other main factor is when I think of Apple computers, I think of my friends and I smile. I met a lot of them through rendezvous on ichat at my school, and they mean the world to me. I didn’t get an Apple logo tattooed on me because I claim to be the goddess of computers, but what the logo has come to mean to me, and when a little Apple can make you smile so much, why shouldn’t it be tattooed on your body?

I had a “friend” design the tattoo for me though. As time progressed, we “grew apart”, and when I looked at my back I couldn’t think of all the happy things that it meant to me, just fighting and tears. I had to get it off of my back. I should have just left it as Apple designed it. I covered it up with an old school piece, which still isn’t finished. I most definitely am going to get another Apple logo though, on a different part of my body, which you may or may not ever see 😉

Sam, 30, Canada
Mac Consultant

I first started using the family Apple IIe computer in 1984 and used it exclusively while I lived in England until 1992. When I came home to Canada, I started using a Macintosh LC II as it would provide a similar setup to what I was used to. A year later my first computer was an Apple PowerBook 160. In 1995 I started tinkering with friends’ computers and by 1996 I started charging money for my services.

In 1999, I moved to Ottawa to become a Macintosh computer consultant working solely on Macintosh computers. In 2001 one of my service calls was to fix an iMac at One Body Piercing in Ottawa. This was when I started thinking about the body mod world. I thought it was cool and decided an Apple tattoo would be the natural choice given that it’d been a part of my life for almost twenty years. I always that Apple was to the computer industry what Harley Davidson was to the motorcycle industry — the definition of perfection. Besides, bikers have Harley tats and not Kawasaki, so why not an Apple tat for me?

I early 2002 I moved out of Ottawa, quit my job, and started my own Macintosh consultancy business. On my 29th birthday I went and got the Apple tattoo done. I never really cared about the pain because it wouldn’t last long. I didn’t want to get a tattoo that was too big, so one that’d hide under my watch was perfect. I was thinking about an outline that I’d get filled in later, but when I found out that the outline would cost the same as the filled in version, I got it filled in.

The few customers that I have shown my Apple tattoo seem to notice the logic of it, but I haven’t had any negative reactions towards it, except from my mother, but she’s okay with it now.

Joseph, 23, Upstate NY
Computer repair technician

My parents made me learn to type over summer vacation when I was about seven. The next year, I was required to learn TI Basic (on a TI 99/4a). There were computers available to me ever since I can remember. I learned how to write code, and the computer became something completely different, something much more useful. It seemed as if they could do anything. My first real job was working as “student help” at a school (where I work again now) installing network wiring and loading new computers for student use. Only for brief periods have I done anything else, and not because I wanted to.

I thought about the tattoo for a long time, and thought it would be kind of funny in a way, but also seriously considered it’s impact on my life and on my future. I finally decided I really didn’t want to have a job outside of computers in the first place. Fellow geeks should be able to understand a tattoo like this, shouldn’t they? I had rationalized that it wouldn’t really hold me back if I stayed in the computer field, and if I wasn’t in the computer field, it would be a constant reminder that I wasn’t doing what I really love. I don’t have any regrets.

When I initially approached the artist he was very excited, and we came up with the idea of an oval shaped plate missing from my forehead with a hole showing a computer inside. We discussed how the use of “torn flesh” had become common and expected. It was unanimously decided that we would use shattered bone as the outline for the opening. We got together later with a few photographs of parts as well as some real computer parts and I showed him some of the basics. I pointed out the important pieces that I required in the tattoo. I let him do the rest on his own and when I returned he had the tattoo drawn up. I don’t remember having any complaints about what he drew up, but I had to remind him what color some of the parts were during the process. It ended up being a computer processor in the center (the processor is a bare 500 mhz Motorola MPC 7400 chip) with two memory chips on one side and some surface mount parts on the other side on a green circuit board.

People have very mixed reactions about it. Most of them are good, but some people don’t seem to grasp the concept of the tattoo at all and have difficulty understanding why I would do something like that. I don’t often let people see it to maintain a low profile. I know for certain there are people I work with that don’t know I have it. People do occasionally ask why I didn’t get it tattooed on my ass or something, but I can’t understand why someone would ask as question like that if they understood what it was.

Zelda’s Army

Video game tattoos are probably by far the most common “tech” tattoos that are sent in to BME. While nearly every game and every character is tattooed on someone, two game franchises absolutely dominate in numbers: The Legend of Zelda and Quake, with Zelda-themed tattoos having by far the most profound and personal meaning to their wearers.

Wesley, 24, Murietta, CA
Piercer at The Electric Chair

Link, from the legend of Zelda, this guy was my brother growing up. I’m from a generation of latchkey kids who had the Seavers for parents and video games as baby sitters. Not to mention that I am still an avid fan of 8-bit video games. Be it playing them on an emulator or just washing the old cartidges off with rubbing alcohol and using one of my two NES systems.

How happy was everyone who played this game when they got a piece of Tri-force, a bomb, or pretty much any item in that game for the first time? I can recall it almost as well as I can recall my first kiss. So it was a no-brainer that celebrating Link was what I wanted tattooed on me. I hunted down the image on the internet and took it to Kim Durham. We tried placing it normally, but since I wanted to make sure that you could see it through my ear tunnels, so I put my plug back in and we used my ear to draw a circle on my neck then placed the transfer in the circle.

This stands as one of my favorite tattoos. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s one of my most complimented tattoos. The colors are vibrant enough to attract attention, and any person who sees it wants to wax nostalgic about one of my favorite conversation subjects; old video games!

Kathy, 22, Oregon
Botany/Chemistry Student

My twin and I grew up with a few best friends, and one of them was a boy named Kenny who we liked to play video games with. Mostly Zelda, but others as well. We would watch the Zelda cartoons on TV and dress up like the characters for Halloween and pretend to be the characters when we were playing. Kenny was always Link, Becky (my twin) was Zelda, and I was always Sprite. I was a little put off about always being the minor character, but we expanded the role when necessary. As more Zelda games came out we kept buying them and playing them, but the original was always my favorite. I painted my car like the map of the original. I do not play the game all the time, or hardly at all anymore, being busy with school, but it is a reminder of the most fun times of my childhood.

I decided to have it tattooed about 30 seconds after my twin came home with Link tattooed on her back!

The design is the most majestic and simple official picture of princess Zelda that I could find. The color was done to be complimentary to Becky’s Link tattoo. The location was done to match Becky’s as well, though my tattoo is about an inch larger. My feelings on my childhood will never change; I will always want to remember the best parts, the imagination that made everything we did magical. So, I still love the tattoo. I wish it were in a different place, though. I can’t ever see it, and I always have to stretch to put sunblock on.

My college peers usually love it, because a lot of people my age grew up on the game. Sometimes, if they don’t understand that it symbolizes my childhood, they think I’m a bit of a fanatic…

Patrick, 22
Software developer

I wanted to get a Nintendo tattoo since video games were the primary reason I picked my profession. Zelda is definitely a game that has stood the test of time and Link is a hell of a character. I decided to put it on my leg because I’m considering doing a sleeve of Nintendo video game characters. For the design and pose, I just brought some Nintendo Powers to my artist, Nate from Everlasting Art in Philadelphia, who will be finishing it this weekend. He drew a custom piece based on the magazine and some of my vague descriptions like “I want a sort of serious look on his face.”

My coworkers love it. Seriously. It’s sparked an interest in tattoos in several of them. Even my manager and the CEO don’t have any problems with it (or tattoos in general).

Myk, 20, BC Canada
Warehouse worker

I was born in 1983 and four years later the greatest game of all time came out: Legend of Zelda for the NES. I played that game all day long for months and months, and still play it when I get around to it. Every Zelda game after that I have bought and beaten just reminds me so much of my childhood, so why not get a permanent reminder?

In 1998 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released. It’s said to be the greatest in the whole Zelda series, which is true in my opinion. I faked sick a lot to get out of school just to play it. On the cover of the box is Link’s sword and shield which have been used in every game, but just hasn’t been shown in such detail until this game came out. I was obsessed with the design. I took the box to a local tattoo shop at 16 years old and an hour later I was sitting in the chair for the first time. The size, color and style are exactly as it looks, no change at all. I knew I wanted to get a full sleeve on my right arm one day, so I decided to get it on my left upper arm.

I don’t regret getting the tattoo, because it means so much to me, but I do regret getting it done at the place I did. I was young and just wanted a tattoo… I didn’t know I should check out other stores, check for cleanliness and so on. I now see that my Zelda tattoo is very poorly done, but it’s nothing that I can’t get touched up and make look better.

Scott, 21, Detroit Computer/Electrical Engineering Student

I grew up as a military brat, so being on the move and having little to no friends I turned to gaming and technology. I chose to start my sleeve with the Atari symbol because Atari is what started the gaming craze. I actually probably enjoy Nintendo’s work over Atari, but I’m a fan of everything gaming.

I’ve always wanted a tattoo sleeve, but being that I am a professional I couldn’t really go past the elbow. I wanted the brightest color I could possibly get so that’s why I chose Jime Litwalk to do my work — he is the color master. I don’t regret getting this work done. I’m a geek. You would never tell from my appearance, but the geek blood runs through me. I also have a strain of binary code tattooed on my back that spells out Apollo, the Greek god of music and philosophy. Music is another major influence in my life.

Science and Engineering

Tattoos are far from limited to “fan” artwork. While you could unfairly write off the tattoos already mentioned as no different than someone getting an Ozzy Osborne tattoo (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), many people working in science, math, and engineering, choose their own glyphs based on those professions.

Chris, 31, Melbourne
Sound engineer, drummer

This tattoo, along with its partner on the other wrist, “wavelength = velocity/frequency” represent physical constants. They also represent the basis of my work, and of my passion. They were done at a time in my life when I desperately needed something constant, and to help me focus on a long term goal.

I drew up several designs, and drew them on my wrists with ink, to make sure I was going to be happy with the result. I did experiment with different colors in the flames, such as blues and greens, as in a natural gas flame, but it didn’t work at all. Choosing the font for the symbols took the most experimentation.

It hasn’t affected my work at at all. I get other sound engineers asking what the formulas mean though!!

Luigi, 23, NYC
Construction Safety Inspector

I spent four years studying electrical engineering, and I didn’t drop out to some easier subject like some other students. I graduated with a BSEE… not that you can call me a doctor, but it’s still a small accomplishment. Because of this small accomplishment, I got my tattoo. To me, the transistor revolutionized the world due to faster and smaller computers and anything else that can benefit from them. It also has to do with the fact that transistors are in just about everything.

The design is from the IEEE schematic symbol for a transistor. My feelings for the tattoo vary, but for the most part, I don’t regret it. It has had no negative impact on my professional life and can be covered by my watch when I need it to be.

Niki, 20
Computer science and mathematics student

My first introduction to the Mandelbrot Set occurred during my third year of high school. My pre-calculus teacher had some time towards the end of the semester to showcase some of the more interesting sides of mathematics. Of course the Mandelbrot Set (and fractals in general) were included in this mathematical menagerie and really peaked my interest. Infinite amounts of infinitesimal detail becoming increasingly more complex as small changes were made to the input. Needless to say, this laid the foundation of my fascination with mathematics.

During my senior year of high school I was fortunate enough to have a couple of incredible teachers who acted as catalysts and really ignited my interest in math and computer science. After graduating high school I began my college career majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics. Come fall I will be starting my third year. So far I have been very fortunate and have had many talented professors for both computer science and mathematics, for which I am very thankful.

What better way to express my love for math and computer science than to get a tattoo? And here is this Mandelbrot Set — a mathematical concept that can only be visualized using computer science! It seemed quite natural.

To make the design I wrote a program that would generate the Mandelbrot Set. I decided to shade all of the points not contained in the set green (as green is my favorite color). I had planned to have the formula scarred into my back with the image tattooed over it (and in fact I still plan on doing this). However at the time I did not know any scarification artists and opted to have the formula as part of the tattoo.

I find that more and more each day I realize how right this path is for me. Aside from my Mandelbrot Set tattoo, I also have the letter i scarred into the back of my right calf and the square root of negative one scarred into the back of my left calf (both of which represent the imaginary number). I certainly plan on getting more math and computer science related work done in the near future. My coworkers and clients who do know about it have overwhelmingly responded in a very positive manner.

Michelle, 20, Florida
UF Brain Institute Lab worker

My familial situation growing up wasn’t a typical one, and consequently, I often wondered about the effects it had on my mental and emotional development and state. Basically, I wanted to know why I was the way I was, and eventually, why people are the way they are. That’s why I decided to study behavioral neuroscience.

Initially, I thought of this tattoo as my own take on the symbol of the heart. I’ve come across many heart tattoos and I am always reminded about how feelings, whether physical or emotional, stem from the brain and nervous system, not the heart. The death of my grandmother was a more immediate impetus for me going to the shop and actually getting it done when I did, since the tattoo also has another more personal meaning for me.

The tattoo is six rendered neurons across the right side of my rib cage. The one closest to my front is colored in blue and purple, while the five nerve cells behind it are shaded in black. This is because the five colorless neurons represent five people in my life that I was close with that have died, and the colored one represents me. They are all connected to me, and have influenced my life, both while alive, and in their passing. I decided to get it done over my ribs because my tattoos have to be concealable (and my back is sort of reserved), as I intend to pursue a career in research work, and unfortunately, body modification tends to be discriminated against in most professional fields. I also don’t really get tattoos for other people, so if anyone else can’t see them, that’s fine with me.

Blake, 22, Toronto
Bank Worker

Computers and technology are so fully integrated into society, to the point that without them we wouldn’t be able to function properly. Without computers and computer related technology, we would fall apart. It’s gotten to the point where we rely on them to live… or at least live as we’ve become accustomed to living. So why not push this one step further and display the facts permanently on your body?

Technology and computers control how we live, control our bodies and ultimately control the way we look at the world — in essence, our minds. My tattoo is the DNA double-helix encompassing the binary form of words for “MIND” and “BODY” pretty much summing up these disturbing realizations — that I’ve come to accept, rather than fight. The world of computers will one day, without a shadow of a doubt, end up like a potato bug on it’s back — taking us along with it — but at this point, there is not a damn thing we can do about it… but wait.

Whether it’s liked or not, no one will actually put a great deal of thought into anything you say when you tell it to them. Now, throw in a factor that makes a person ask you a question that involves their interest… makes them want to know (whether it be guided conversation — misdirected truths — media manipulation — or something that people like to look at, like a tattoo). You now have that persons attention, with their mind open, ready to absorb information — whether they accept it — understand it — or choose to debate. I wouldn’t be surprised if a great deal of life changes conversations started over, “Hey, nice tattoo. What is it?”.

Aubrey, 20, Philadelphia
Computer Programmer

I grew up with a biochemist for a father and a physician for a mother. Logic, rational thought, and curiosity were all things that were completely encourged in my childhood. My
parents built a computer from a Tandy/RadioShack when I was less than a year old (maybe before I was born, I’m a bit fuzzy on those periods), so we’ve always had a computer. Putting this encouragement together with the computer resulted in me breaking, rebuilding, and understanding at least half a dozen machines since then — usually with my parents’ support.

Really, my tattoo is about my general love of information technology, and my belief that it is radically and fundamentally reshaping how humans live. We are evolving at a rate never before seen on this planet. Basically, because the time between different generations of technology is shrinking rapidly, our evolutionary progress is increasing proportionally.

I wanted a tattoo. But, I don’t feel comfortable with having a representational tattoo on me so instead I looked for designs symbolic of what I enjoy in life. I’ve always loved computers.

I’d originally wanted to have my entire scalp tattood with the schematic of an Intel 486DX2 (the first computer that was ever mine). But, due to the fact that such schematics are nearly impossible to find in a visually pleasing form, and due to their complexity, this wasn’t really going to work. I started looking for something simpler.

There’s exactly one thing responsible for me having a computer to write this on: the transistor. Had we been stuck using vacuum tubes forever, we would never have had any computer smaller than a living room, or with clock speeds faster than a few megahertz. Furthermore, the schematic symbol for a transistor is also visually interesting, and unmistakable to anyone who’s ever spent time with electronics schematics. It was,
honestly, an easy decision.

I am, and have been for a while, a transhumanist. Having people constantly asking me about my tattoos gives me the perfect chance to talk to them for a bit about my views on technology and where we should be going with it. I know that makes me sound a bit like somebody wearing a “Ask me about [Insert God X]” headband, just sitting around hoping
somebody will let me preach. But, the truth of the matter is that I preach even if people don’t ask.

I’ve been hired for jobs (where geeks had hiring and contracting power) partially because my enthusiasm for technology was made obvious by tattoos. I find it’s very easy to get someone to very quickly believe you actually do love what you’re doing when you can point at your arm and say, “Yeah, that’s a transistor. And I got it in art school.”

Clients and jobs where geeks didn’t have any power almost never “get” my tattoos. I do nothing to hide my ink or piercings from clients, and so they see them, but they almost never say anything about them. To the few who have said something, I’ve gone on and explained what a transistor is, how it works, what it does, and other such information. Any points I’ve lost for having ink tend to be made up quickly with my ability to, in five or ten sentences, tell these marketing types how a computer physically works.

Linux fans? I’m stealing this prompt to tell a brief anecdote. I just got home from the Fifth HOPE in NYC. It was amazing. But, one of the most amazing things was the number of people who understood my transistor tattoo. Up until this time, I’d kept a tally of how many people had properly identified it. It was at thirteen in three years. After just a few hours at HOPE, there was no point in counting anymore. Admittedly, I changed the rules, in that I was counting people pointing, nodding, smiling knowingly while looking at it, and so on, but it was obvious, even without precise numbers, that dozens of people understood it. Not only did they know the symbol, but they made the context jump (which engineers of the older generation never seem to do, even when they think it’s cool after it’s pointed out), and understood why I would have such a thing on my arm. It was very, very liberating, and the tradition of the count has been abolished.

8-bit Gamers

Perhaps because of the nostalgia factor, the games most often etched into permanence are older 8-bit games, and the design of the tattoo regularly reflect an embracing of this technology.

Jolene, 26, Indianapolis
IUPUI Research Associate

I wish I could say that Galaga has been an obsession of mine ever since its inception as Galaxian for the Atari 2600, but the truth is I didn’t discover this fabulous game until I started frequenting the local arcade by my college. A friend of mine and I would go there late at night when we couldn’t sleep. We would just show up in our PJs and play Galaga until 3 AM. We fell in love with the game. It was our escape from school.

I had been thinking about getting it tattooed, but the actual decision was sort of last minute. I was in grad school, taking this class over the summer that was called “Digital Media and Pop Culture.” It was basically all about visual effects in films, the history of video games, stuff like that. On the last day of class, we had the opportunity to earn some extra credit points by sharing a story or experience having to do with movies or video games. So the night before, I went and had the Galaga fighter ship tattooed on my back, and when I told my story and showed the pictures of the process, my professor was extremely impressed. Needless to say, I earned those extra credit points.

I’ve since been planning out which aliens to include, and what challenge stages to integrate into the entire design. I’ve also decided that eventually, one day, when I retire from the game, I will tattoo my high score between my shoulder blades. As far as the design goes, I’ve been recreating all the graphics using Adobe Illustrator from pictures I’ve found online or that I’ve taken myself while playing. Since my skin is such a pale shade of white, I’m having to outline the graphics in a thin black line so they will show up better on my back (this started with the fighter ship, which is white in color, but had to be done in more of a grayish tone on my skin so it would be visible).

I still enjoy Galaga as much as I ever have. In fact, I’m probably even more cocky about my Galaga playing skills now that I have the tattoo, because it goes to show how hardcore I am about the game.

Russ, 26
Computer Engineering

Back when arcades were hot-shit, like during the days of Mr. Do, Dig Dug, Jungle Hunt, and Berserk, my mom worked at a bowling alley on Cape Cod. The arcade in the bowling alley was loaded with video games, and also loaded with quarters. Every morning when my mom would open the alley, she would tag me along, and the service operator would come to empty the quarters out of the machines. After he rid a machine of its bounty, he would load it up with the maximum allowable free credits (usually 9). Then I’d have about an hour and a half to play free video games all morning until clients started coming in. This lasted a while before the local kids caught on that there were free video games. This was probably the nostalgia I was trying to commemorate with these tattoos.

I wanted a tattoo, and I wanted something that sort of defined me as a person. I spent a lot of time playing Nintendo when it was in its prime, and knew that my love for old school video games was never going to wane. I tend to be a huge fan of pop culture in general, so any tattoo I was going to get was going to be along those lines anyway.

On my right arm I have an Atari logo, and underneath it are four recognizable icons from the early eighties: Blinky from Pacman, a Space Invader, a Pooka from Dig Dug, and Mario from Donkey Kong. The Atari logo was my first tattoo, which reflected the first real “video games” that I ever played. The four icons below it, I felt, encapsulated a general range of the sort of thing anyone living in the arcade era could be familiar with, and I also thought those four icons were pretty representative of something I would want on my body forever.

My left arm has four icons from the Nintendo era: Link from the Legend of Zelda, Megaman, Super Fire Mario, and the Black Mage from Final Fantasy. Although they are pretty mainstream choices, I just wanted some kind of reminder that most of my early teens were spent having sleepovers and playing rented Nintendo games until 5 AM.

I don’t play a lot of newer games, so when people see the tattoos, they always assume I am a huge gaming fan, which I’m not, although I do love the oldschool. especially Robotron 2084.

Rahima, 20, Midwest
Entrepreneurial Management and Marketing

I still remember when I was four and my mom led me to the towering display of Nintendos at Kmart. Since then, I’ve gone through several different game systems (remember Virtua Boy?) and literally hundreds of games. I’ve had numerous other hobbies and interests, but none have stayed with me as long as video games have. Video games aren’t an obsession of mine, I only play four or five hours a week, if that, but I have always played them. I think because I haven’t become insanely obsessed with them, I haven’t have a chance to become burned out by them. I also feel that video games have been a huge part in allowing me to have a close relationship with my autistic brother. He doesn’t understand what goes on in most of the world, but he does understand video games.

While on break from college, my friend had a tattoo done, and I was insanely jealous of it, so I figured after years of wanting a tattoo, the time was right. The idea for the 1-Up mushroom just popped into my head and I instantly loved it. I figured I wouldn’t regret having the 1-Up mushroom on me when I’m older because video games represent so much of my childhood.

Most people love my tattoo and I like seeing the smiles and memories it brings back to them. Some people ask if I will regret the tattoo later on, but I really felt like it belongs on me. A month later after getting the 1-Up mushroom tattoo, I had the Goomba added on the inner part of my ankle. If anything, the tattoos serve as a great memory of my childhood, and something that I frequently look fondly at.

I do go to a rather snobbish business school, so some people are surprised by my tattoos. I know that I have potentially closed some doors with them, but I never wanted a piece of corporate America. I have thought long and hard about the possible consequences and discrimination I may face as a member of the modified community, and am ready to take on any and all of these challenges with open arms.

Steve, 24, Lynnfield MA
CIS Graduate

I have always loved video games, and I like my tattoos to be something that I can smile at, and at the same time be important to me. At one point in my life I had lost a lot of friends but video games were still there for me. When I went to school I made my first friends in the school’s arcade playing Gauntlet. They are now my closest friends. Video games are also a good outlet for me because when I get mad or am in a bad mood I can play a video game suited to my mood. I can blow things up, or I can play a video game that makes me smile, or even cry.

Nintendo was always something innocent. It reminds me of my childhood, and I miss the innocence that came with childhood. I originally just wanted a full sized Nintendo controller, but now my plans are to make my whole right leg a Nintendo piece — I just need more money!

Since I got my first tattoo I have become more open to people’s free expression. In my mind I was always tattooed anyway though. My feelings about people opposing the modified community have grown, and in a way it angers me. Sure it’s human nature to fear what we don’t understand but in these times we have enough problems and the last thing we need is something so petty such as this.

Other gamers

…But 8-bit gaming is far from the only kind immortalized with tattoos. As more time passes, the torch is passed to PC gamers as well.

Shan, 28, Dallas
Obscurities Counter

Most of my tattoos spawn from childhood memories. At the age of nineteen, my uncle was paralyzed from the neck down in World War II. Every month the government would send him a large check to compensate for his disability. He would use that money to find ways to entertain himself. I lived with my uncle most of my early life. Every week some new gadget was coming in the mail. I was about six when the computer arrived; we unpacked it, and plugged it in and wow, was it amazing. As I was going through the bags I found a strange box with the word Ultima on it. My uncle not being able to really move his arms, always needed help with his toys. I was his arms and legs in a land far away, killing dragons, and collecting gold, or flying through space, discovering new alien races. Everyday after school, turned in to every night after school, and then every morning before school. If I had any free time, I was behind that machine in a different world.

Most kids my age didn’t have computers; in the early eighties they were pretty expensive. Everyone else had Ataris, so of course we got one as well. The games this machine would let you play just weren’t as involved, and were really basic. I still played them, but it wasn’t until the Nintendo that I really got hooked on platform gaming. First Nintendo, then Sega (you had to have both in my neighborhood). Computers were still a rare thing, but slowly they became more inexpensive and the games were easier to find. As I grew, so did the machines, faster processors, amazing graphics, surround sound audio or 3-D realistic environments. It’s a whole new world, and you can visit it too. That’s what always attracted me, the interaction between the artificial intelligence, and the choices I could make. There are no limits. Sure you can read a book, and explore other worlds, but how often can you decide what the outcome is, and watch it all happen with your eyes, not your imagination.

Tattoos are a huge part of my life, they are my work, my memories, and the things in life that make me happy. Throughout history people have had tattoos for many different reasons. Sailors would get symbols to keep them afloat, or to remind them of that woman they met at port. Warriors would get symbols to scare their enemies or to show rank. I get tattoos that remind me of the things I love, and what I want to carry with me for the rest of my life. When I look in the mirror, or down at my body, I feel the opposite of regret. I smile and know what I have done is right.

The Lizardman, 32
Performance Artist

This tattoo was partly motivated by my love of goofy things — especially in otherwise often serious arenas like permanent body modification. I was also interested in exploring an atypical tattoo location (fingertips). The idea of getting a gaming based tattoo was very simple since it is something I really love to do. Outside of sex it is my preferred and driving force when it comes to pleasure oriented experience!

Coming up with the idea and being amused by it was enough but I held off for a few months just to be sure I really wanted to do it, as is usual for me. I didn’t see a drawback, so I got it. The idea itself contained all the design elements — to have the standard FPS control keys tattooed on my fingers as if prolonged gaming had imprinted them there.

If you enjoyed this article, you can check out lots more tattoos like these in BME’s Geek Tattoo Gallery. If you’d like to send in your own for that gallery (and get a free membership in return), just email a crisp high-res photo of it to [email protected]. Thanks,

Shannon Larratt
BME.com

Shannon Larratt Interview [The Publisher’s Ring]

Posted on July 5, 2004 by Shannon Larratt

Shannon Larratt Q&A

“Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.”

– William Hazlitt

After a quite some time of people suggesting it, I’ve finally done my own Q&A column. All of these questions were submitted by IAM members, and I hope I’ve done an acceptable job answering them. Before you read this, please understand that these are just my personal views. The site is made up of a wide range of people with an incredibly diverse set of beliefs, and this is just one of many of them. So please don’t be terribly offended if you don’t agree with one of my views.

Please excuse the pretentiousness of some of the answers.

shawn.spc: Do you remember what you did four days ago?

No, I don’t. My memory lasts between five minutes and a few hours most of the time, although I do of course have a dotty memory of events, but it’s unclear, muddled, and not in chronological order. While I’ve done my best to structure my life in a way that makes this unimportant, it is very damaging to my social relationships. It makes it hard for me to know who I know, who I can trust, who I shouldn’t trust, and who is lying to me or telling the truth. I have to rely on notes, automated assistance, and of course Rachel to get by.

It also makes it extremely difficult for me to write longer essays because when I’m writing them and proof-reading them I can’t remember more than a few paragraphs at a time, so I tend to repeat myself a lot. To combat that I try and write an outline and just expand it gradually, writing a sentence at a time and “filling in the blanks” as I go. I program the same way at this point — one of the good things is this all has forced me to start properly documenting my code!

Anonymous: What is it in Rachel that makes you think she is so amazing and spectacular? Is she really pretty in person or is it just fancy camera work on your part? Does she really “hold you together” as it says on the staff page?

Yes, absolutely. I don’t think people who don’t know me personally understand just how non-functional I am. While parts of me are totally supercharged and far outperform the average person, other parts of my life and persona are extremely troubled and hard for me to control. I think that part of the reason that I’ve worked so hard to have success in an independent lifestyle is that it’s put me in a position where these shortcomings are less relevant. Even still, they’ve progressed to the point now to where it is difficult for me to run my own life, and without her help I would probably fall apart. She’s incredibly intelligent and competent (it’s not as if she’s just “the girlfriend” — she’s an equal partner and probably does more day-to-day in running the site than I do) and her skills perfectly complement mine and I think vice-versa as well. (As an interesting side note, I’ve seen this same sort of partnership in both other programmers and in many body artists that I respect).

And yes, she really is that beautiful in person.

FroggerJenkins: Providing a service of this magnitude, while amazing, must be tiring. Do you ever regret launching BME?

Sometimes the amount of time I have to spend working depresses me, because I often get up at 6:30 AM and work late into the night. At this point I have very little time for anything of my own and it’s starting to wear on me. Sometimes I think as well about how much more money I’d have if I spent more time on work and less time on BME, but I’ve never regretted launching BME. I also think it’s important to note that I’m really just a facilitator or catalyst — I help direct where BME is going, but BME is an expression of thousands and thousands of people, not of me.

xMeMNoCHx: While I enjoy reading your diary posts and articles, a lot of them always seem to deal with darker subjects (the nature of the business I guess)… what in life right now enables you to take a step back and say “damn, it’s good to be me!”?

Not that I don’t enjoy being me, but I’m not sure that anything makes me say “it’s good to be me” in the sense of “rather than someone else”. Every one of us should be able to say that they enjoy being alive. Unfortunately many of us are imprisoned by society and are unable to fully be ourselves and express the things we need to, and thus become miserable.

That said, I did go yacht shopping today, and until we moved back to the city Rachel and I did have matching “his and hers” Porsches. We’re both very hard workers and have always been financially rewarded for doing so. This has allowed us to do things for our friends and community that make us happy, and it lets us raise our daughter without a financial spectre always over our heads. I am very grateful for this.

Uberkitty: If you could suggest a single book to the entire world what would it be? What about suggesting all the writings of a single author?

I highly recommend “The Good Life” by Scott and Helen Nearing. If any single book influenced major change in my life that is probably it. His other books are brilliant as well. I also think everyone needs to read “War is a Racket” by Major General Smedley Butler (which you can read for free online), an anti-war essay written between the first and the second world war. People hear it so much that it must read like a cliché, but those who don’t learn from history really are doomed to repeat it. So more so than focusing on individual authors, I think it’s essential that people read classics, especially those that touch on the issues we believe are “new” or politically relevant today.

ServMe: From what I’ve seen and read, you seem to be living proof that as long as you want to accomplish something bad enough, you can. I suppose that as most other humans you have failed at things, so do you see those failures as the end of something, or just as an intermediary step towards reaching your goal — or coming up with something even better?

I’m not sure if there’s such a thing as success or failure in the way that most people use it. Sure, sometimes a task works the way you wanted it to, and sometimes it doesn’t. But I’m not entirely convinced that the purpose of life is to “win” — I think the purpose of life is more to discover, accept, and experience being alive (and I think body modification is a tool in achieving that for some people). Failure is a part of that, and while I don’t seek out failure, I do my best to appreciate it when it occurs. The only real failure is not appreciating being alive, and there are of course days where I have that failure.

serpents: You have very strong, well-thought out opinions, and very persuasive ways of making those known. You also have a fairly strong natural magnetism of person. You also speak of your narcissism fairly regularly. It’s obvious that despite your best effort, it does seem that a “cult of Shannon’s personality” tries to form itself within IAM members from time to time in that a proclamation from you is instantly carried on high by the masses as gospel, and people who were only moments ago defending their attitudes to the death can sometimes backpedal just as fast to align themselves with your opinions. The question is what keeps you from totally taking advantage of it, setting up an island nation and proclaiming yourself god-king before an adoring mass of followers?

I don’t want followers. Followers are not interesting travel partners in life. I hope that if people back-peddle on their statements because of something I say it’s because they’ve considered what I said, debated it for themselves, and come to a similar conclusion as I did — just believing something “because Shannon said so” is foolhardy. I’m sure I say stupid stuff all the time and I hope that people respect themselves enough to be able to decide on their own which of my words are right for their life and which are not. I have no desire to lead anyone anywhere, although I’m thrilled when people decide to follow a parallel path, and if something I’ve said or done has helped them find it, I’m honored to have been able to do so.

lilfunky1: Have you ever tried to make someone (such as your parents) try and understand the reasons behind your modifications? Did you give up? Or was it never any of their business?

If people understand themselves, then they will understand me as well. The key to understanding what makes other people work is understanding what makes oneself work. While I can try and help others learn about themselves, when it comes right down to it, they have to do it on their own. The people in my family who understand me are the ones that understand themselves.

Netzapper: Would you support a measure (enacted by the United Federation of Planets, Q Continuum, God, or some similarly omnipotent organization) to replace all of the world’s firearms, missiles, artillery, etc. with swords, ballistas, trebuchets, etc.?

When I first read this question I interpreted it as a swords into plowshares question. So my first answer is one to an imaginary question.

Well, that did of course happen in Japan in 1588 when Hidéyoshi and his samurai banned the ownership of swords and firearms by all but the noble classes. They scoured the country telling the people that the swords were going to be melted down and turned into a giant statue of Buddha. Of course, once the swords and guns were all in the hands of Hidéyoshi, they were instead turned into a giant statue of him, and Japan has been a police state ever since.

Sometimes freedom and liberty have to be defended, and I don’t believe that will ever change. Giving up our ability — and our fundamental right — to do so is suicidal.

But in terms of the question that you actually asked, history hasn’t shown us that forcing soldiers to kill each other in hand to hand combat versus from afar reduces the amount of death or increases the “personal responsibility” the soldiers feel for that death. If anything, it makes it worse. So no, I don’t believe such a transformation would be positive

UrgentClunker: How would you define failure, and what would you consider your biggest failure to date?

Failure is not enjoying the game of life. Any time I get depressed and let my fears get the best of me, that’s when I’m failing. An interview bombing, a car accident, a poorly written article: none of those are failures. The only failure is when you don’t enjoy failing (not that one shouldn’t try and “win” every time). If I’m understanding him correctly, my father’s core lesson to my siblings and I was that life is the ultimate game, and victory comes first from enjoying it and second from coming out in first place (and that if you have to kill a hobgoblin, you must make sure he can scream his death scream on the battlefield to open the doors to hobgoblin heaven).

snackninja: Have you ever considered running for political office? What level of government would you feel most comfortable in?

I believe running for political office is an honorable aspiration, and I considered running for the office of mayor in Toronto on a secessionist platform to make Toronto a partially independent city-state. I still think it’s the right thing for both Toronto and Canada, and I’m starting to see more mainstream political groups making noise along the same lines. However, my extreme views on many subjects coupled with my appearance would make it very difficult for me to run for office. There are better ways for me to independently facilitate political change in the world.

What was the first concert you ever saw? The best one?

The best concert I ever saw was during Mojave 3’s first tour (although their final concert in Toronto as Slowdive was incredibly emotionally moving). Not including stuff I saw as a kid, I think the first concert I ever went to was the Sonic Youth tour promoting Goo.

What do you think the next major evolutionary change that the human race will experience will be?

Humans have remained largely unchanged through catastrophes of immense magnitude such as the most recent Ice Age. Humans are successful because we’re smart, but also because we’re incredibly adaptable. So I think it’s unlikely that we’ll see any natural evolution occurring. However, I do think it’s very likely that we’ll tinker with ourselves genetically more and more. It’ll start with gradual improvements — smarter, stronger, healthier, and able to survive in more hostile environments. Whether that eventually takes us into a form other than human, I don’t know. I hope I get to see some of it in my lifetime.

I think the changes facing humanity are more likely to come from our escalating technology. We’re on the cusp of entering space, and cities in orbit, on the moon, and on neighboring planets will very likely come in our lifetimes. We are also facing the risk of increasingly versatile, adaptable, and extremely intelligent machines who could potentially replace us inside the same time period. The Japanese are making terrifying progress in this, and I don’t believe they have the technological checks in place to keep it from snowballing out of control. It’s a very dangerous game, and I think we are making a terrible mistake in barreling forward so recklessly. Whether they are our children (and thus the next step in “human” evolution), or if they’re a science experiment gone horribly wrong is a question for the robot philosophers of the 22nd century to debate.

Celestial_Horror: It seems that many of the most knowledgeable modified people at some point became professionals, and performed modifications on others. Was there ever a point where you considered a career as a piercer or artist?

I did briefly tattoo, which I enjoyed, but to be perfectly honest I’m very introverted and fairly sociopathic. I like seeing my friends, but only for short periods, and I do not enjoy being around strangers. As a piercer, tattoo artist, or other body modification practitioner, you have to be extremely comfortable working with all sorts of people to give them the experience they need. I do not believe that I have the ability to do that.

kamikuso: When did you first get into computers and programming, and how did you go about educating yourself?

My father was always involved in computing and telephony projects as far back as I can remember, and from about the time I was five years old, worked mostly at home. Because of that I got to be around some amazing minds at a very young age, and had hands-on and relatively unrestricted access to new technology. My parents were very careful not to let me or my brother fall into the trap of television, so programming became my entertainment. I was encouraged to learn and loved doing it. I did later spend some time at the University of Toronto in cognitive and computer science, which helped make me less of a “sloppy” programmer, but I think it’s still fair to say that I’m exclusively self taught.

hotpiercedguy: Do you ever wish you were more or less revered? Are you happy with what “celebrity status” you currently have?

I couldn’t care less whether people think I’m a rock star or not (anyone who’s met me in person knows I’m not), although it makes me a little sad when people revere me — they really should be revering themselves instead. There’s nothing in me that isn’t in them as well. That said, having some level of popularity has been useful in spreading the messages I try and get out into the public mindset.

MoDvAyNe: When you started the IAM community, had you ever considered that it would sprout and become a family for others interested in body modification?

I had no idea. I wrote the IAM software because I wanted a tool to maintain my own online journal. I really wasn’t expecting it to be so popular when I opened it up to everyone else as well, but I’m very happy that it was. So many unexpected blessings and life-changing events have come for so many different people thanks to the community that has formed on IAM.

Fidget: In retrospect, is there anything about BME or IAM that you would have done differently, but don’t feel like you can change now that it’s established?

There are some organizational things that I might have done differently, and technologies that evolved differently than I’d expected at the time. I’ve made alliances with people from time to time that have betrayed me or ripped me off, but really, I think all of us could list endless things like that. Other than correcting things like that, I don’t think I’d change anything. The sites’ missions have stayed the same since day one.

Reverence: For most people it’s hard to come out of their shell. Visible modifications are hard for people, as you know, since society places a lot on outward appearance. How long did take you and how much thought was put into your visible mods before you had the work done? Or did you not hesitate at all?

I didn’t put any thought into it at the time because it was who I was, if that makes any sense. I don’t have to justify my modifications to myself because they make sense and they feel right. The only time I’ve had to “make excuses” for my physical appearance is for periods where others have tried to convince me that the modifications were a mistake.

I’m sure there are many people out there who choose modification for fashion or social reasons, and that’s cool and I don’t have a problem with that, but I didn’t choose it. It’s how I was born and it’s who I am, and nothing can or will change that.

That said, I think that people should know themselves pretty well before they go making decisions that could have a harsh impact on the rest of their life. If the modifications they’re making are going to affect their ability to find employment or even fit into the social mainstream, they need to very seriously consider whether they want to make such an immense sacrifice.

Kraz_Eric: I’m interested most in your religious beliefs. I’ve read hints here and there, but nothing concrete.

At its simplest, I believe that we (on this planet) are all part of a single entity, and that we are as interconnected and as dependent on each other as the cells in our own bodies. I believe that this superbeing is what most religions call God, and I believe that we are all God and a part of God. I think most religions try and express this in their own way, but they err in taking the metaphors used to explain this phenomenon too literally and thereby cloud the true nature of the universe.

sadlyinsane: Do you ever worry about the influence that you and your site carry on a large group of a younger generation?

Not at all. I believe in what I’m saying, and I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t think it was the truth, so I have no problem with it influencing anyone, no matter what their age is. I also believe that young people are the future (duh!) and that they’re a lot smarter than adults give them credit for. If that’s who I have an influence over, great!

starspring: Has the look and layout of BME or IAM been determined or inspired by any particular method or design source?

I pretty much just try and keep it as simple as possible. I don’t think that any of my sites really stand out as graphic design masterpieces, but I hope they’re easy to use. In terms of what I do online, my goal is to get the content to as many people as possible, so that’s what influences the design decisions.

medlabchick: Most people know that you would love to live on a tropical island but have you ever thought about building a cabin in the middle of the forest in northern Ontario? Believe me, no one would find you there.

Hey, I’d love to live in a fortified compound in northern Ontario, but I fell in love with and married an American girl who’s spent her adult life living in places like Phoenix, Miami, and New Orleans. While I grew up in a wood-heated house in Canada and love the winter, she’s not quite the fan of it that I am.

jasonthe29th: for what social justice issue would you be willing to give up BME completely? For instance, if giving up BME stopped the death penalty or abortion would you do it?

BME is a part of who I am, and a part of the thousands of people who’ve helped create it. Justice is absolute. You either have it, or you don’t. You can’t have “a little justice”. Thus I don’t believe that you can give up one freedom in exchange for another.

Raistlyn: What are the pitfalls of running BME and IAM?

I believe that BME stays fully inside the law and is a responsible publication. However, there are hateful people out there that have such a problem with who they are themselves that they choose to attack BME to distract themselves from the things they need to fix inside themselves. Because BME is totally above-board, they are constantly fabricating and calling in fake charges to various authorities.

The only other pitfall is extremely long hours which to be honest is burning me out and I have to figure out a way to reduce that workload if I want to keep maintaining the entire site. That said, it’s far more of a positive experience than a negative one. I have some concerns about how the community is changing as time goes by, and whether some of what BME does is relevant or desired, but, for now at least, I’m staying on course and sticking with the plan!

frzamonkey: What is the one thing that we as IAM members do that you wish you could change?

I just wish people were nicer to another. It’s pretty pathetic to watch people who could be friends getting off on tormenting each other for no apparent reason other than enjoying seeing someone else in pain. That’s about the only thing that really bugs me, when people think that rather than curing their own pain, they’ll instead invalidate it somehow by making everyone around them hurt as well.

t.thomas: Do you feel life is dress rehersal for something larger?

I don’t believe that there is something larger in terms of heaven or anything like that. It’s already here and we’re already living in it… we just have to open ourselves to it. Joseph Campbell put it perfectly when he wrote, “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

Erica: I remember that when you first did your modcode, you marked “I happily kill what I eat”. When and why did you become vegan?

I became vegan first for environmental reasons, kept with it for health reasons, and then stayed vegan long term for spiritual reasons. At the point I wrote that I was just transitioning to a fully vegan diet. Ethically, my primary problem was with factory farming and the truly brutal (and environmentally foolhardy) practices they employ, and morally I had real concerns that people were “hiding” the fact that a sentient living creature was giving up its life for our pleasure. I believe that if someone is going to eat meat that they need to embrace the death of that animal and on some level thank it for what it has given them. In the modern context, I don’t believe we can gain that awareness unless we are either raising our own animals for consumption and slaughtering them, or by hunting our own food. While I would not do it myself, I believe that by understanding the life-death-life cycles and taking an active and compassionate role in them one can perhaps justify eating meat, but at this point in my life I would not be able to bring myself to do so.

pella: I think I read some where that you studied art history at university. What are you favorite non-body mod related artists?

I’d like to think I appreciate good art from all eras, but I’m most partial to impressionists like Gauguin and Van Gogh, and as well to fauvism which of course grew from them. I like impressionist works quite simply because they’re beautiful and appeal to me aesthetically, and fauvism appeals to me emotionally.

Do you think a wider more in depth knowledge of not only body art but fine art is valuable for professionals in this industry?

I think an in depth knowledge of fine art and especially art history is valuable for people in all professions. Understanding the art that a culture produces is essential to understanding the context in which the events of the time happened — just knowing the time line is not enough. You have to be able to feel what the people living through it were feeling, and art is one of the only ways we have to transmit that information across time.

Cylence: Do you think it’s possible to take body modification too seriously? I mean, when you start referring to your eyebrow ring as “my transformative spiritual experience” and are willing to be unemployed and exiled from your family or commit suicide rather than take it out, has it gone too far? Obviously an extreme example but I think you see what I’m getting at. Can body modification become too much of a person’s identity, to the point where it is their identity?

I suppose one can take anything too seriously, but no, assuming the person is being honest with themselves, I don’t think you can ever take anything too seriously. “Transformative spiritual experiences” are often found in everyday events, and I would never question someone’s right to find value in that. If they’re wrong, their lie to themselves is far worse than their lie to me or you (since it’s really none of our business anyway). Clearly if someone is willing to ostracize themselves from their family and from society over their modifications they perceive them as extremely essential, and while I think it’s important to know oneself well enough to decide when something is healthy or unhealthy, cutting off someone’s medicine like that is rarely going to have a positive outcome. If someone needs modifications, I think they should be supported in that.

Shannon Larratt
BME.com

Gauntlet’s Jewelry Design Legacy [Running The Gauntlet – By Jim Ward]

Posted on May 18, 2004 by BME

Gauntlet’s Jewelry Design Legacy

When Janet Jackson flashed her breast at the 2004 SuperBowl creating a firestorm of controversy, she was wearing a Gauntlet nipple shield. The sunburst design was one I created in the mid 70s.

When you pay a visit to your local piercer and look at the tremendous variety of jewelry in their display case, it’s easy to assume it’s always been that way. What’s difficult to believe is that before Gauntlet, piercing enthusiasts were making do with earrings and all kinds of improvised contrivances. Although I’m always reluctant to blow my own horn, the truth is that I was personally responsible for many of the jewelry designs and piercing innovations most people take for granted.


Gauntlet’s first jewelry brochure.

Although Gauntlet officially became a business in November of 1975, it took nearly nine months before things began to come together enough for me to issue Gauntlet’s first jewelry “Folio.” To call it a catalog would be stretching things. It was simply a legal sized piece of heavy paper printed on both sides and folded into quarters. But to the best of my knowledge it was the first time any collection of body jewelry designs had ever been offered for sale to the public.

Despite Doug’s financial help, my budget was still very lean. I had little knowledge of photography, especially taking pictures of jewelry, which is an art unto itself. Since I couldn’t afford to hire a professional photographer and printing photographs would have been more costly, I chose to illustrate the first brochure myself with line drawings.

In these days of desktop publishing, younger people have no concept of what was involved to produce printed materials before the advent of the home computer. The process was in constant evolution, but in the mid 70s a common way was to take the copy to a local printer. There someone would type it into a special IBM Selectric typewriter — anyone remember typewriters? — equipped with memory. At the push of a button the text would then be printed onto special paper that would later be cut up and pasted by hand into the final layout. All very primitive by today’s standards. Headlines were often produced separately using fonts that were on a strip of film. Each letter was exposed onto light sensitive paper and when finished, processed in photo chemicals. As an alternative you could do as I did and use rubdown lettering for headlines.

I was still groping my way. It took time to design and “test drive” the nearly dozen items that appeared in the first brochure. As mentioned in an earlier column, my first design was the nipple retainer. The bead ring, a scaled up version of a fairly common earring design, followed this.

In the months and years to come, jewelry designs were always being developed and refined. Some became classics that are still being reproduced today; some were consigned almost immediately to history. Others lasted for a while, eventually fading into obscurity for lack of interest by customers. Still others ended up on the scrap heap because experience proved a particular design was no longer appropriate. Regardless of their longevity, many of them have an interesting story.

For a great many years the standard bead ring with the attached ball was Gauntlet’s bread and butter. But some members of the T&P group, and others, wanted a design that appeared to be continuous. Had it been practical they would have been quite happy to have the rings permanently soldered shut.

One of Gauntlet’s early competitors was a short-lived business called Whatever Rings. It was run by a couple of gay guys who were heavy S/M players. They operated out of their West Hollywood apartment and solicited business through ads in the local gay press. The business was primarily a means for them to entice men into an S/M scene.

The “jewelry” sold by Whatever Rings consisted of gold wire formed into simple gold rings. There was no closure. While they might look nice, I personally considered them impractical if not dangerous. From experiments I had done I knew it was difficult to get the ends to line up perfectly, particularly after the ring had been inserted into a piercing. This could mean discomfort if the gap rotated inside the piercing. The gap, no matter how small, could also trap debris and quickly become a breeding ground for germs that could lead to infection in a fresh piercing.

The “Seamless” Ring.

Still, some people liked the look and insisted they wanted it. So I tried to make something at least a little more practical. I called it a “Seamless” Ring. It still had the small gap, but I perfected a way of crafting a pin coupling which, if nothing else would keep the ends in alignment. To minimize the risk of infection, I insisted that customers wait until their piercings had healed before wearing this type of jewelry.

Unfortunately one of my customers discovered the shortcomings of the design not long after I’d inserted them into his nipple piercings. His name was Alden, and he was part of the T&P group. He also enjoyed rough sex play. Early one Monday morning he showed up on my doorstep. It was obvious something was wrong. Apparently he’d gotten into some pretty heavy action on Saturday night. Someone he was playing with got a little too rough with his nipple rings and one of them had sprung open inside the piercing. He couldn’t rotate the ring or remove it and was in great discomfort. I had to open the ring with a pair of ring expanding pliers in order to remove it. After that he understood the benefits of wearing a ring with a closure especially if he planned on a rough night.

Handcrafted jewelry locks

The S/M B/D community were a significant component of my early clientele. A very common request was for a piece of jewelry that could be permanently installed. For most people this was nothing more than a fantasy. They still wanted something that could be removed whenever they wished it. So I set out to see what I could do with locks.

Back when I’d lived in Denver I’d wanted to put a lock in my ear piercing. In the early 70s it was uncommon for a man to have an ear piercing at all, and stretched piercings were something you only saw in National Geographic. There was no way I could see to get a lock through my ear.

I had some basic jewelry making tools and was easily able to get some silver sheet and wire. Using these I constructed a crude working lock. This design with its broken shackle and another with a solid one, made their way into my first jewelry brochure.

Unfortunately these handcrafted locks were never practical. If worn on any semi-permanent basis, they would soon become bound up with disgusting gunk and nearly impossible to open. I attempted unsuccessfully to remedy the situation by replacing the tiny spring with a pad of silicone rubber. Making the locks became a job I dreaded. They involved a lot of work that seemed wasted because of the inherent problems. By the time I issued my second brochure I’d dropped the design with the broken shackle replacing it with a simulated lock that needed no key and had no mechanism to get fowled up. Eventually I discontinued locks altogether.

A jewelry prototype that never made it into production.

Other attempts at permanently installable jewelry were made, such as a triangular ring that had two eyes, one threaded, that could be closed with a small lock. Since they weren’t waterproof, even commercially manufactured locks weren’t practical for long term wear.

There were a few hardcore souls who seriously did want something permanent. Soldering, of course, was out of the question. I did find one successful solution. The balls on our standard bead ring were hollow. I would cut a groove around the end of the ring that went inside the ball and fill it with epoxy. When the ring was closed the cement would be forced into the groove where it would set and make the ring impossible to open.

Arrow of Eros

I’ve written previously about the early development of barbells. Once I’d mastered the manufacturing problems it seemed natural to design some variations. The first was what I called the Arrow of Eros. To maximize comfort I didn’t want the head to be sharp, so I modified the shape to something like a Native American arrowhead. The two ends were forged out of metal. These were then taken to an engraver who cut the details. From there rubber molds were made so that the pieces could be cast. Though never a best selling design it nonetheless remained in the Gauntlet line for over twenty years.

body piercing barbells
Some of the many barbell variations offered by Gauntlet.

Other barbell variations followed. The second brochure included what I called Jeweled Studs. These had semiprecious stone beads set in pronged pearl settings. They were never very popular and in time disappeared from the line.

Over the years many other variations were introduced. None of them were ever as popular as the initial one with round balls which made it much more versatile.

An early nipple shield design.

To the best of my knowledge the concept of the nipple shield was original with Gauntlet. The idea was to offer a design that was more decorative and would appeal especially (though not exclusively) to women. As a gay man I still had a lot to learn about female anatomy because many of the first designs had an inside diameter that wouldn’t fit many female nipples!

At one point I contemplated using spring-loaded watchband pins to hold the shields on, but this proved impractical and unnecessary. The tension of the stretched nipple was sufficient to hold the shield in place.

S/M also had an influence especially on one particular design. Even in the early days there were people into play piercing. For them I came up with something like a spoked wheel which had a little more depth. This drew the nipple out so that hypodermic needles could be inserted through the spokes.

The septum retainer was a major breakthrough.
(Left: the original septum retainer, right: niobium retainers)

It might not exactly qualify as jewelry, but another early Gauntlet innovation was the septum retainer. You might be able to go to work with a septum piercing today, but in the 1970s it would have been unthinkable. Still, there were people who passionately wanted the piercing. That was my inspiration. The first septum retainers were made of oxidized copper wire covered with Teflon tubing. They were virtually invisible. Eventually they when replaced by an anodized niobium version which is offered by a number of manufacturers today.

Custom nipple jewelry.

Especially in the early years when I made almost all the jewelry myself, I had a number of clients who asked me to create something custom just for them. One of the first was Jim A. He wanted a simple gold nipple shield that would be held in place by a gold sword. The blade was made from quarter inch tubing that was pounded flat on one end, soldered shut, and shaped. A brass plug was soldered into the other end. This was drilled and tapped. The handle was wrapped with wire and a bit of flattened chain and ornamented with gold balls. Jim stretched his piercings up to a quarter inch just so he could wear his new jewelry.

Another man wanted a custom nipple shield. He told me he had a thing for feathers and wanted this reflected in the design. It was something of a challenge. Not wanting it to be big or heavy, the feathers have large cutouts and are counterbalanced by complementary shapes that are weighted with extra metal. He seemed pleased.

Multiple ear piercings weren’t exactly common in the early Gauntlet days. This man came in with two ear piercings and wanted an arrow made that would go through both of them. Here’s the result. The post was not straight but shaped to accommodate the piercings. The arrowhead was drilled and tapped to screw onto the post. It was so tiny that the only way I was able to screw it on was to use a pencil eraser with a slit cut in it to hold onto the arrowhead.

One of my more colorful clients was a Hungarian doctor who showed up on my doorstep one day. I was still working out of the house at the time, and he’d been referred to me by the Pleasure Chest, a sex shop that had recently opened in West Hollywood.

Dr. C was impeccably dressed in a suit and tie and had the bearing of a European gentleman. He explained that he wanted a frenum piercing. This was accomplished without a great deal of fuss.

I must confess I was a bit more nervous that usual. Although clean, the house and furniture were shabby. He was, after all, a doctor, and I was concerned that he would be uncomfortable being pierced in such an environment. Still, I brought out a clean bath towel and spread it on the couch for him to lie on. I laid out the bagged and sterilized equipment on a stainless tray. When I was finished he complemented me my technique as well as the cleanliness that I observed. It was a particular validation coming from him.

With casual European sophistication the good doctor told me that he and his wife were no longer sexually active. He had a young girlfriend who he particularly wanted to keep satisfied. To that end he commissioned me to make a cast gold frenum ring that would incorporate two penises and a ball on top that would stimulate her clitoris during intercourse. He quipped that he wanted to penetrate her with three penises.

Dr. C was quite happy with the finished piece of jewelry. Unfortunately he didn’t feel comfortable wearing it all the time, especially at the health club. Consequently he took it on and off frequently. Eventually the post would break off, and he would bring it to me for repair. The last time this happened he brought it in and chatted amiably about what a wonderful device it was. I told him how long it would take for the repair, and everything seemed satisfactory. I never saw him again. Whatever happened to him I never found out. After holding onto the piece of jewelry for several years, I eventually sold it.

For the first several years all my jewelry was either gold or a mixture of gold and silver. Although many clients wanted stainless steel I didn’t know how to make jewelry from that particular metal. Early on I attempted a design I called a triangular safety pin made out of stainless steel wire. It was abandoned fairly quickly because the hook closure tended to snag on clothes and bedding.

Gauntlet’s transition to stainless production was not an easy one. I resisted as long as possible and finally gave in because the price of gold had begun to rise alarmingly.

The challenges were many. First and foremost it was necessary to determine which of the hundreds of stainless steel alloys was appropriate for inserting into the body. The best information I was able to gather was that it needed to be low-carbon and nickel-free. At various times we made jewelry of 304 and 316 stainless. The industry standard today is 316L.

Then there was the matter of gauge. The standard gauge system used for steel wire is different from that used for gold and silver, so for the sake of consistency it was necessary to have all the stainless steel wire custom produced.

The coils of wire arrived from the mill and I discovered that it was too stiff to be easily shaped. Gold and silver can be softened, a process called annealing, quite easily by heating them red hot and quenching them immediately in cold water. If you do this to steel you only make it harder. The only way to get the wire soft was to send it out and have it professionally heat-treated.

At first I tried unsuccessfully to apply gold fabrication techniques to stainless steel. The results were disappointing to say the least. Eventually I found a company that was able to silver solder drilled stainless balls onto stainless steel rings and then electropolish them. For some reason the quality of the electropolishing was not reliable. Sometimes the surface was not mirror bright and on occasion the process was overdone and the rings came back measurably thinner than they should have been.

Many of these problems could have been eliminated had I not been convinced that the captive bead ring design was unsatisfactory. As someone who continually thought of piercing as an adjunct to sex play, I felt the ball could too easily come loose and get lost. I couldn’t imagine many people wanting to search for a ball lost inside a body cavity.

Stainless steel barbells presented their own difficulties. There was no way to produce them in house, so I went looking for a machinist to do the job for us. Part of the problem was that I had no idea how to locate the right person. The results were less than satisfactory. The first order of barbells I had made should never have seen the light of day much less been offered for sale. The machinist was unequipped to produce a stud with an internally threaded post. I ended up settling for externally threaded studs, and to say that I was frustrated is putting it mildly. In order to insert them without causing discomfort or damage to the individual, the externally threaded post first had to be dipped in melted wax. It was a compromise I hated.

When the stock began running low I started looking for another machinist and finally found one who was able to produce an internally threaded barbell stud. Unfortunately that was only half the challenge. The other was to produce a ball with male thread attached. The machinist produced short threaded pins that had to be secured into drilled and threaded balls. We tried various kinds of cement without success and ended up having to silver solder them. It was a solution, although again less than 100% satisfactory.

On occasion clients would ask why Gauntlet’s stainless steel jewelry was so expensive. I always told them that they could buy a nut and bolt at the hardware store for pennies because they were manufactured by the millions. At that time there simply weren’t enough people who needed stainless steel body jewelry to mass produce it like hardware. All that has certainly changed.

Niobium body jewelry, another Gauntlet innovation, is wildly popular today and available almost everywhere. In the early 80s craftspeople were beginning to make regular jewelry from anodized niobium. It was incredibly beautiful, and when I learned just how inert the metal was, I realized its great potential. The material was fairly inexpensive and could be anodized in an array of bright colors. It took some effort to perfect the technique.

The anodizing process required that the metal piece be attached to an electrode and submerged in a solution mostly of water. The more oxygen the solution could make available to the process, the better the results. Different craftspeople had their own secret formulas. I heard of someone who used Coca-Cola. What seemed to work best for me was a solution containing non-chlorine bleach.

Since there is no practical way to solder niobium, I finally was forced to embrace the captive bead ring. From then on it became part of Gauntlet’s jewelry line.

It’s been almost thirty years since I started Gauntlet, but the ideas and innovations that it pioneered are very much with us today. I often wish I were receiving royalties. I’d be a very rich man.

Next: The First Piercing Store Opens its Doors

Copyright © 2004 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to publish full, edited, or shortened versions must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published May 18th, 2004 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

“In the beginning there was Gauntlet” [Running The Gauntlet – By Jim Ward]

Posted on January 23, 2004 by BME

“In the beginning there was Gauntlet”
(quote from a post on rec.arts.bodyart)

Starting any new business can be challenging especially for someone who’s never done it before. The challenge gets multiplied several times when it’s in a new industry. To the best of my knowledge no one before me had ever attempted to do just body piercing as a profession. A handful of tattooists were doing it, but it was strictly a sideline.It’s not that someone else couldn’t have done what I did. The time just happened to be right, and I was the one who seized the moment. Within a few short years the world had seen the hippie movement, women’s liberation, and gay liberation. The sexual revolution was in full swing. I saw no reason to be ashamed because piercings turned me on and no reason why the rest of the world shouldn’t find out what piercing might have to offer them.

I imagine the process of starting a new business is pretty much the same anywhere, but here in California you have to file a fictitious name statement and run a notice in the newspaper to the effect that you’re doing business under that name. Then you need to open a business bank account and do the necessary paperwork with the State Board of Equalization for the privilege of collecting sales tax. Plus there are lots of little odds and ends. It’s pretty much a pain in the ass. But before you can do anything you need a name for your business.

Doug and I went back and forth trying to come up with something. He favored a mythological theme such as the name of a Greek god. I wanted something with a tough, masculine feel that would appeal particularly to the gay leathermen and S/M fetishists I perceived as my most likely customer base.

In the process of accessorizing my leather wardrobe, I had made a wide leather watchband edged with silver-colored pyramid-shaped studs. While watching television one night I removed my watch and set it on the end table. A short time later I glanced over to see what time it was, and in a flash the name came to me. GAUNTLET! It was everything I wanted the name to be. In addition to being rugged and masculine, it also had metaphoric implications. We have two sayings, “run the gauntlet,” and “throw down the gauntlet,” expressions for the ordeal and the challenge. Didn’t that precisely describe this business venture? I did have momentary second thoughts only because there was already a well-known leather bar in LA called The Gauntlet. But that didn’t seem to be a big problem since I’d be calling my business Gauntlet Enterprises.

Doug liked the name as soon as I told him about it. He was, however, of the opinion that I should incorporate. But since he didn’t want to be a stockholder or to have any legal attachments to the business, I opted for a sole proprietorship.

It was November, astrologically the time of year Scorpio babies are born. Scorpios are supposed to be highly sexual, so I thought it would be an ideal time for my business to be born. Since the sign ends around the 21st of the month, I needed to act soon. Thus it was that on the 17th of November 1975, I drove to the closest newspaper office, filled out the necessary forms, and filed the fictitious name statement. Gauntlet Enterprises was on its way.

There was now a flurry of activity. So many things needed to be seen to: the bank account, sales tax issues, setting up a place to make jewelry, developing jewelry designs, designing a logo… the list went on. Everything seemed to be happening at once.

My mental picture of the logo was of a stylized gauntlet forming the letter “G.” It could thus be used alone or combined with the remaining letters of the word.

The personal computer was still about a decade in the future. Artists and designers relied for the most part on traditional media to do their work. One of the newer innovations of the time was rub-on letters. Several companies made them, and though the market for them has largely disappeared, you’ll occasionally see them in art supply stores. At one time there were hundreds of fonts available in a variety of type sizes, with perhaps one or two sizes on a sheet. They consisted of a transparent plastic sheet on which an assortment of letters was printed, mirror image, and then coated with a pressure sensitive adhesive. You would place the sheet, sticky side down, on a surface and one by one rub the letters onto it.

After spending some time browsing through the catalogs at the art supply store, I found a font that seemed to have the character I was looking for and a letter “G” that had a vaguely open fist shape. The font was called Hondo. I purchased a sheet of larger sized letters.

A visit to the public library proved helpful. Browsing through several books with pictures of medieval armor, I found a number of images of gauntlets from which to draw inspiration.

Back home I gathered my art materials together and set out to create the logo. After rubbing a capital “G” onto a suitable piece of paper, I took a sheet of tracing paper and a pencil and began to sketch over it, trying various ways of creating a gauntlet from the letter. In time things came together and I had something that looked like it would work. After carefully tracing the design onto the sheet with the rubbed on letter, I used a draftsman’s pen to ink the details. It took several attempts to get things precisely right, but finally, success.

To be able to make jewelry I needed a jeweler’s workbench. Commercially made ones were very expensive, and I felt the money could be better spent. Using scrap lumber from construction sites and a piece of plywood from a packing crate, I made my own workbench. It might not have been much to look at, but it was functional and adequate for my needs. That bench was in use till Gauntlet’s demise nearly 25 years later, and by some twist of fate, and the generosity of Josh at Good Art, I still have it today.

Here on BME Gauntlet has earned the reputation for being “conservative.” In this forum that is something of a dirty word, usually used with contempt and derision. The same people who are quick to assume that I never took risks often fail to consider what things were like in 1975.

Because there was little precedent, everything I did in those days was a risk. No one had ever attempted what I was doing at least on the scale I intended to do it. There was no Internet providing vast informational resources at the tip of one’s fingers. Every piercing technique, every jewelry design, every material used for the jewelry or in the piercing process had to be subjected to a trial and error process. That meant taking risks. Rather than calling me conservative, a better word would be cautious. It was essential to me that every precaution be taken to assure the well being of every person I pierced or who wore my jewelry. What would the fate of the entire piercing movement been if I hadn’t proceeded cautiously and someone had suffered serious harm? How quickly would the movement have come to an abrupt end?

Fortunately, starting out with such a small customer base I was able to personally keep tabs on the people I did business with. If something went wrong, I had the opportunity to figure out why and immediately try something different. By proceeding with caution I could progress slowly and minimize the risk of serious harm.

Of course, without Doug none of this would have happened. He provided a catalog of “traditional” piercings, along with their often-colorful histories, which leant them credibility and implied that they were all possible. However crude, he had acquired some rudimentary piercing techniques. Over a period of years he also had managed to make contact with about a hundred fellow piercing enthusiasts. Combined these three things provided a foundation on which I could build my infant business.

Doug’s motives for setting me up in business were not entirely altruistic. He was married and had four adult children, but his heterosexual life provided no outlet for his piercing fetish or the expression of suppressed gay yearnings. By helping me start a piercing business he was hoping to have the opportunity to fulfill both these needs.

Primarily by placing classified ads in various gay and fetish publications, Doug had made contact with a couple of dozen gay men in the LA area who shared his fetish for piercing. As a means of helping get Gauntlet launched, Doug proposed that we start a social group for these men. We would get together once a month for a potluck supper. After eating and socializing anyone who was interested could get pierced with what Doug called “the laying on of hands,” his term for the moral support of the rest of the group. This gave me the opportunity to do piercings under his direction and at the same time bring in a little money from the sale of the jewelry. On occasion we’d all meet at a local restaurant and reconvene at someone’s home afterwards for the piercing event.

Left: The T&P group meeting at a restaurant. Middle: Eric at a T&P get-together. I’d silk-screened the Gauntlet name and logo on the back of his shirt. Right: Cliff Raven at a T&P dinner. On his left are his lover and well-known piercing celebrity Viking Navarro.

Initially Doug proposed calling the group the Society of Saint Sebastian for the saint who was martyred by being shot through with arrows. But that name thankfully never stuck. Instead it ended up just being called the T&P Group, short for tattooing and piercing.

Back in my fine art days I’d made some silk screen prints. The skill came in handy for a bit of advertising and promotion. I silk-screened some T-shirts with the Gauntlet name and logo on the front. I also bought a button making device and produced a series of buttons with drawings of various piercings, the Gauntlet logo, and the slogan, “We’ve got what it takes to fill your hole.” We gave these out to the T&P group and to clients who got pierced.

Designing and making jewelry for body piercing offered a wide range of challenges. Before Gauntlet most piercing enthusiasts had no choice but to make do with earrings or some makeshift contrivance of twisted wire. Frequently the material was a silver or gold plated mystery metal hardly suitable for the purpose.

Earrings were universally too thin. There were some loop style earrings consisting of a fairly thick tube with a thin wire that was intended to go through the piercing. Some hardy individuals managed to work the thicker loop through their piercings, a process that would have been uncomfortable to say the least. There still remained sharp edges which, if the ring rotated, could irritate and cut the tissue.

Bent pieces of wire also posed problems. There was virtually no way to provide a closure that would not snag on clothing or on the edges of the piercing itself.

From the beginning there was interest in stainless steel as a material for piercing jewelry, primarily because it was perceived as inexpensive and because many men preferred its silver color. Unfortunately I had no knowledge or experience with the material; every piece of jewelry I’d ever made was of gold or silver. Consequently the majority of my early jewelry was made from gold. I did design some pieces of silver, but the portion which went through the piercing was always of gold. Those who insisted on silver colored metal had to settle for white gold.

Our knowledge of jewelry materials at the time was quite limited. I had no idea just what effect the unknown components in various gold alloys had on people’s bodies. Even though I was using 14-karat gold, some people still had bad reactions to it. In those cases our only option was to insert monofilament nylon. We had no idea that nickel was a common allergen in alloys. I’m not proud to admit it, but Gauntlet’s first jewelry brochure included a piece of gold plated nickel silver jewelry. Fortunately we quickly realized its incompatibility and discontinued it immediately.

The one piece of jewelry that became Gauntlet’s bread and butter was what I called the Bead Ring. It might more accurately have been called a Fixed Bead Ring since the bead that acted as a closure was soldered to one side of the ring’s opening. In recent years the design has largely be supplanted by the Captive Bead Ring in which the bead simply snaps into a gap in the ring. This design is cheaper to manufacture and allows the wearer to choose a vast variety of bead materials. But since my primary focus was always on piercing as a means of sexual enhancement, I always felt the fixed style was a better choice. One never had to worry about losing the bead in the carpet if the activity got a little rough.

I can’t claim that the bead ring design was my own. Back when I first pierced my nipples, I had purchased a pair of earrings of that design in a department store. What made them a unique Gauntlet design was the fact that they were scaled in a variety of larger diameters and thicknesses suitable for body wear.

Left: Tattoo Samy from Frankfurt. Middle: Some of Samy’s tattoos and piercings. Right: A closeup.

The first barbells I recall came from Germany. Doug had made contact with Tattoo Samy, a tattooist and piercer from Frankfurt. Over the years Samy came to the States a number of times and frequently showed up in LA to visit Doug. On one of his first visits he showed us the barbell studs that he used in some piercings. They were internally threaded, a feature that made so much sense that I immediately set out to recreate them for my own customers.

This was a particularly difficult challenge. The biggest problem was how to do the threading. My gold supplier offered 1/16” gold tubing, the equivalent of 14 gauge. This would work as the post, but how could I tap it? I’d also need the right thickness of wire and a suitable die for the male thread. Fortunately, after consulting some technical person, a company that I had purchased jewelry making equipment from was able to provide the tools that I needed.

Next I had to find suitable balls for the ends. Initially I used those ear studs that are just a gold ball attached to a post. I cut off the ear post and soldered the ball to the barbell post. This was completely unsatisfactory. First there was an unsightly flange left where the post was attached to the ball. Second, the ball had a tendency to explode when it was heated with a torch. That wasn’t much fun. Lastly, the material was so thin that after it was heated it became so soft it could easily be dented with the thumbnail. This wasn’t something I could sell. What to do?

Fortunately fate intervened. On the elevator at the jewelry mart one day I was discussing the problem with a friend. There was another man on the elevator with us who overheard the conversation and gave me the name of a findings company where I’d be able to purchase “no-hole” balls that would meet my needs. The lead proved invaluable, and for many years Gauntlet purchased balls from them for a number of our jewelry designs.

Piercing techniques provided their own unique challenge. Thus far I’d followed Doug’s lead, and aside from the occasional fumble, things were progressing fairly well.

Left: Getting tattooed by Cliff Raven. Right: My first Cliff Raven tattoo in progress. The photo was taken in the jewelry making area I’d set up in my living room.

As role models for issues of sterility and hygiene we turned primarily to some of the more responsible tattooists of the time, especially Cliff Raven who had recently moved from Chicago and opened a shop in West Hollywood. Autoclaving instruments after each use was a given. But the use of latex gloves didn’t occur until the AIDS epidemic hit nearly 10 years hence. Our rationale at the time was that even dentists weren’t using them and doctors only used them for surgery or for probing in a patient’s private orifices.

For some time we continued to use the ear-piercing gun to do nipples. This limited us to using only 16 gauge, pretty thin by today’s standards, but certainly thicker than the earrings everyone was used to. On occasion I encountered nipples that were on the tough side, but with a little extra muscle I always managed to get the piercing point to go through.

Then came the day that forever changed this technique. Doug called me up and told me that some guy who’d answered his classified ad wanted his nipples pierced. We arranged a day and time to go to the guy’s apartment where I would do the piercings. Everything was going smoothly until the actual piercing. The point of the ear piercer scarcely penetrated the skin; it wouldn’t go through. I could feel myself sweating partly from embarrassment, partly because I knew the guy was very uncomfortable. With every bit of strength I could muster, I made one final attempt to get the point to do its work. However, instead of going through, it bent. At this point I realized that the ear piercer was not the best tool for piercing nipples since there was no way to tell how tough they were going to be.

By now I was soaking wet. Though uncomfortable, the client was bearing up incredibly well and was determined to persevere until he had the piercings. Doing my best to save face and keep the client calm, I quietly reassured him everything would be fine, set the ear piercer aside, and had Doug get me a cork and one of the large hypodermic needles from the piercing kit. The nipple was still in the forceps. I placed the cork on one side and, placing the needle in position on the other, thrust it through the nipple into the cork. Though the going was still a bit rough, the nipple yielded.

I now encountered other problems. The forceps couldn’t be completely removed. I was able to open them and free them on the point end of the needle, but the syringe coupling was too large to pass through the remaining opening. I’d just have to work around them. It was also going to be tricky inserting the jewelry because the point of the needle was beveled. Fortunately we were inserting nipple retainers that had a straight post, so they managed to follow through without too much difficulty.

At the time I simply attributed all the fumbling and difficulties to my own lack of experience. This was partly true, but the tools themselves were actually a much more significant factor. This was about to be demonstrated most dramatically as I undertook my first Prince Albert piercing.


The Doug Malloy method of doing a Prince Albert.

Doug’s technique for doing this piercing was incredibly difficult. A small dab of topical anesthetic was placed on the end of a cotton swab (one with a wooden stick) and the swab inserted about an inch into the urethra. After waiting about ten minutes for the anesthetic to penetrate, it was time to do the piercing. The piercer would grip the cotton swab, position its tip just beneath the place where the piercing would go, and, with a hypodermic needle of suitable thickness, pierce into the tip of the swab. In order not to puncture the inside of the urethra, the needle and swab needed to be kept securely together until the needle was outside of it.

Any piercer who hasn’t done this has no idea just how hard it is. Unless their grip is just right, the tissue can move around and the needle miss its mark. In time I mastered this technique and eventually figured out a better method, but at the time it was like trying to hit a moving target behind a curtain.

Somehow I managed to actually do the piercing. It was now time to insert the jewelry, a 14-gauge bead ring. I had to attempt to get a circular object to follow a straight one with a beveled point. This wasn’t working well. Once again I was sweating profusely and beginning to panic. Things were getting bloody. More by shear force than anything else, I managed to get the ring in. Although the piercee was an incredibly good sport about it all, I felt terribly embarrassed. I knew that this method was too crude. Guys who had been around the S/M scene might easily take it in stride, but I couldn’t expect that of others.


Members of the T&P group having fun. Doug enjoyed these photo opps.

It was then that I had one of my “Eureka!” moments. If I simply cut the syringe coupling off the needle, I would then be able to follow it through with the jewelry. In that instant one of the revolutions in piercing technique took place. From then on at least one hurdle in the piercing process had been conquered.

Next: Who Was Doug Malloy? — part 1

Jim Ward is is one of the cofounders of body piercing as a public phenomena in his role both as owner of the original piercing studio Gauntlet and the original body modification magazine PFIQ, both long before BME staff had even entered highschool. He currently works as a designer in Calfornia where he lives with his partner. Copyright © 2004 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to publish full, edited, or shortened versions must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published January 23rd, 2004 by BMEzine.com LLC in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

AMPUTEE ART – The BME Cultural Corner

Posted on December 17, 2003 by BME

Amputee Art

Our masters (the spirits) keep a zealous watch over us, and woe betide us afterwards if we do not satisfy them! We cannot quit it; we cannot cease to practise shamanic rites.

– Shaman quoted by Wenceslas Sieroshevksi, 1896

Welcome to the BME Cultural Corner.

My name is Blake of The Nomad Precision Body Adornment and Tribal Art Museum. This new section of BME/News will focus exclusively on the historical and cultural aspects of bodymod in a traditional context. Personal narratives, stories, articles, rare photos, and new scientific discoveries relating to the endless human need to alter the body will be found here.

In introduction, I am a piercer of fifteen years, museum curator, and self-educated anthropologist. I have also authored a new book (A Brief History of the Evolution of Body Adornment in Western Culture) which is available here on BME. My interests are purely traditional culture — one might call me a conservative democrat, as far as bodymod goes.

The subject of this first article of the Cultural Corner will be amputation — a subject, I admit, I never thought I would be writing about in a historic context. Only lately associated with the bodymod community, and profiled in a recent one-hour Discovery Channel special as well as Shannon’s book Modcon, deliberate amputation is generally misunderstood. It can be said that amputation is not ornamentation (unless you wear a severed digit in your earlobe), more exactly, it is augmentation.

Randomly ask any amputee today about the nature of their “disfigurement” (ignoring all of the social idiums on couth), and expect one of several primary answers — assuming you haven’t pissed them off or trodden on some painful part of their life better left alone.

Our first hypothetical example: A legless man in a wheelchair — mid 50’s — perhaps he lost them on a mine in Vietnam, his “mobility and vitality” stolen from him in his youth by the “enemy”… non-consentually.

Next, an older man (yes, women can be amputees too) missing a forearm and a hand… his whole life haunted by the feeling that with both hands he is incomplete as a person until that appendage is sacrificed. Consumed with a deep, unnameable need to remove part of the anatomy considered essential — perhaps an “accident” with a Skilsaw — and now he is content… an indescribable inner part of himself somehow satiated.

For our third example we turn back the hands of time (no pun intended)… about 30,000 years! The place is a dark cave in Paleolithic Europe. With the entire clan in attendance — spellbound — an elder shaman severs a digit from his hand. Does he hate himself? No. Does he have issues? No. The primitive mind and developing psyche of humanity is consumed wih offerings of magic, sacrifice, the spirit-world, and the animal kingdom, upon which he depends for survival.

What is transpiring in the cave is one of earliest known forms of “religious rite” or spiritual practice and enactment of ritual. In fact, discoveries at Oblazowa, a Paleolithic site in Poland have sparked a huge controversy in the world of prehistoric art. Known to science, yet rare, are hand-stencils on the walls of Paleolithic European caves with missing digits. This “Amputee Art” was previously regarded as examples of illness, accidents or a strange system of communication — until now.

New evidence has unearthed (in the same caves that housed the amputee art): a thumb phalanx, and other human finger bones found in association with shell pendants, stone beads, the perforated teeth of an Arctic fox, a Mammoth tusk boomerang (the oldest boomerang ever found), and other ritual objects. They date to more than 30,000 years ago.

Pawel Valde-Nowak, the scientist who excavated the site believes that this proves that “fingers were amputated in a ceremonial context” and that amputee art gives “depictions of hands (with missing digits) a very particular symbolic meaning”.

Even with our imaginary time-travel, early language, grammar, and syntax prevent the modern mind (if we could ask) from communication with the shaman in the cave. “Why?” we might inquire, yet the ritual context of this ancient amputation lets the scientific mind extrapolate, respect, and appreciate the ceremonial, even religious rite associated with the ancient amputation.

Amputations. Left to right: Performance artist Roger Kaufman who has changed the length of nearly all his fingers and toes (photo: Efrain Gonzalez), healed amputation with original finger tip (photo and model: Jerome Abramovitch), and an “amputation party” in Russia (both photos: BME archives).

With scientific evidence substantiating this new theory, further conjecture will be limited only by lack of further archaeological evidence… in the art world, the controversy will likely continue for decades to come. Now science has established ritual amputation to the earliest days of modern man and dated the practice to Paleolithic times, paralleling the emergence of humanity’s oldest forms of ritualized ornamentation and adornment; piercing and tattooing.

Amputation, drugs, religion, meditation or ritualized body adornment are means by which we may glimpse the divine, or, that which is greater than the sum of our “parts”. These vehicles of transcendental experience are doorways to an ancient state of mind. To borrow a quote from my book, “the ways by which we find release and transcendence as a species are varied, indeed.”

Blake

Blake Perlingieri is a body piercer of fifteen years, a museum curator, and a self-educated anthropologist. He is the author of A Brief History of the Evolution of Body Adornment in Western Culture and can be found online (and offline) at nomadmuseum.com.

Copyright © 2003 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published December 17th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

Who is Jim Ward? [Running The Gauntlet – By Jim Ward]

Posted on August 17, 2003 by BME

1: Who Is Jim Ward?

A recent MTV documentary called me “the granddaddy of thae modern piercing movement”, in case you were wondering who I am. Maybe that gives me sufficient credentials to write a bit every now and then about the history of modern piercing and how it has evolved into what it’s become today. After all I helped create a lot of that history.

Even if you never heard my name before, maybe you’ve heard of the business I started back in 1975 called Gauntlet. That business provided an outlet and a means for me to make the world aware of the wonders of piercing.

In the months to come I’d like to tell you something about your roots. The modern piercing movement didn’t just suddenly happen. It evolved, and part of that evolution started with me. Not that you’re interested in my whole life story, but a little background to put it all in perspective wouldn’t be out of place.

I was born in the bleakness that is Western Oklahoma six months before Pearl Harbor. Looking back on it much of my childhood was just as barren and desolate as the landscape.

I couldn’t wait to escape. In the back yard of one place we lived, there was a beat up old trailer with wooden slat sides and flat tires that had long ceased to be roadworthy. I remember often climbing up to the top and looking out at the distant two-lane highway and longing to follow that road anywhere just so long as it was away from the desolation of small-town life.

My parents were childhood sweethearts who eloped and secretly married shortly after they graduated from high school. The year I was born they both turned 21, perhaps a bit young to undertake the responsibilities of a family. Seldom was the rod — more often the belt — spared. They thought this would build character and assure that I wasn’t spoiled. Instead it resulted in a fearful, timid child indoctrinated with Presbyterian guilt. Years later in therapy I remembered being told, “We punish you because we love you.” Translation: punishment equals love. Not difficult to understand how S/M became rooted in my psyche!

Fifth grade was my last school year in Oklahoma. My teacher was Miss Newman, a horse-faced old maid so uptight she considered “fanny” a dirty word. What I remember most vividly from that year was an incident involving one of my classmates. His name was James and he was an impish kid with a knack for getting into mischief. He and several others were in the boys’ restroom during recess one day. After finishing at the urinal he turned and demonstrated for the rest of us how his penis got bigger and harder when he stroked it. Whether or not he had any clue what that was all about I’ve no idea. I was simultaneously appalled and fascinated. Something told me this was naughty and sinful and that I should pray for him.

My family moved to Colorado just in time for me to hit puberty at age eleven. Growing up in a very religious household where the subject of sex was hardly ever discussed left me totally unprepared for what was happening in my body. My mind kept flashing back to that day in the boys’ room when James had played with himself. Inevitably I had to try it myself. It felt so good I didn’t want to stop. Suddenly and unexpectedly the most incredible sensation swept over me, and, with an uncontrollable spasm, white fluid shot from my penis. Don’t ask me why, but I called that white stuff cultured piss. In retrospect it seems amazing that the whole experience didn’t freak me out. Perhaps the guilt and shame and the fear of discovery were more powerful, so powerful, in fact, that I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone.

Once the intense, guilty pleasure of masturbation had been discovered, nothing, despite my greatest efforts, could stop me from doing it for very long. Prayer didn’t help. Memorizing and reciting bible verses didn’t help. Not quite understanding why, I began to develop crushes on some of my classmates, the young men who worked as church youth counselors, and on the newly appointed youth minister. Before his conversion, one of the counselors apparently had been something of a bad boy and had gotten into trouble. He had a tattoo on one forearm, and I found myself strangely attracted to him. I wanted desperately to be close to all these guys, to please them, to be noticed by them, to…? There was an undefined longing for something for which I had no name. It was agony.

Charles Atlas (click the picture to see some of his comic book ads).

Do comic books still contain those ads for Charles Atlas where the cartoon bully kicks sand in the face of the “97-pound weakling” only to get his comeuppance later when said weakling becomes a buff bodybuilder? The ads usually included a large photo of some muscle-bound hunk. In spite of the fact that I lacked any knowledge of the mechanics of sex, I frequently locked myself in the bathroom or the basement and jacked off looking at those photos and fantasizing myself naked and bound and forced in some vague way to please my tormentor.

In time the burden I was carrying became unbearable, and I finally sought counsel from the church youth minister. The moment was painfully awkward, and I don’t remember how I expressed what was troubling me and I don’t recall everything that was said. I do remember Rev. Bill telling me there were three kinds of sexual expression: between a man and woman, between two men (for some reason he didn’t think to include two women), and masturbation. His mention of male/female sex elicited no response. It’s possible mention of the male/male thing made me pale or blush. I don’t know, but it probably wasn’t difficult to see how uncomfortable I was when he got around to masturbation. His counsel was low-key, and frankly I don’t recall much about it. He did take the time at least to enlighten me on the basics of sexual intercourse.

Rev. Bill in church (c. 1958). The first man I ever had a sexual encounter with.

Soon after this talk with the youth minister I had one of my first sexual experiences with another person, Rev. Bill. One night we found ourselves sitting in the darkened church talking about something. Rev. Bill put his hand on my leg and slowly moved to unzip my fly, reach inside my pants, and begin to play with me. I was nervous and found it difficult to get erect, but I didn’t want him to stop. I reached over and began to fondle him. This mutual masturbation continued for a little while until he excused himself and said he had to go to the bathroom. A few minutes later he returned and it was clear that the encounter was over. We had one other such experience the following summer at church camp.

I lost contact with Rev. Bill. His proclivities eventually got him into trouble. He ended up marrying a woman some said was old enough to be his mother — I don’t recall if he ever had a child — and moved to a church in the Seattle area. Some years later I learned he had died of AIDS.

As my high school years were drawing to a close, I became increasingly hostile to the religion of my family. My best friend, with whom I had done some sexual experimentation, was an Episcopalian. I began going to church with him and eventually became a member.

The Episcopal Church was in a little tourist town called Manitou Springs. Across the street from it was a very nice little gift shop that didn’t sell the usual tacky souvenirs. Instead it was a place to find beautiful local crafts plus fine china, glassware and the like. John, the owner, was quick to spot a young gay man, and discovering my lack of experience, set about introducing me into the local gay community, such as it was in 1959. I worked for John that summer and was taken under the wing of a kindly older gentleman named Frank who introduced me to the various expressions of gay sex, at least the non-kinky variety. I was beginning to discover myself.

Frank in his Knights of Columbus regalia (c. 1959). He brought me out.

For several years after high school graduation I bounced back and forth from one school to another trying to find a vocation, but was so emotionally fucked up I couldn’t stick with anything. The mid-to-late 60s found me in New York working in various design-related jobs. Two things were noteworthy about this period, for they would have a significant bearing upon the establishing of Gauntlet. First, I took a number of classes in jewelry making. Second, I discovered the world of gay S/M and piercing.

From the onset of puberty my masturbatory fantasies always involved S/M. When I jacked off I would frequently experiment with various kinds of bondage. I also discovered that intense nipple work was a big turn on and began experimenting with all kinds of clamps.

The year was 1967, and I was living in Brooklyn Heights in an ancient brownstone apartment building at the foot of Joralemon Street known to the local gays as Vaseline Flats because of the sexual orientation of many residents. From my bathroom window I could look down on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the East River.

A few blocks away on Montague Street, two gay guys, Steve and Marc, had opened a small bookstore. A friendship developed. As we became better acquainted, they disclosed that they were members of the New York Motor Bike Club, a group of gay men into leather and S/M. Here was my opportunity to explore that side of my personality that I had kept secret for so long. I felt much like I did when I discovered I was gay and that I wasn’t alone. There were others who shared the same drives and longings.

In the mid-60s the gay S/M scene was nothing like it is today. Things were far from codified. No one had ever heard of safe words. It wasn’t even clear whether wearing ones keys on the left meant you were a top or a bottom and vice versa. On the East Coast it was said it meant you were a top, but if you were from the West Coast it meant you were a bottom. The bandana color code was still several years in the future. Just how much actual S/M was going on is hard for me to say. In my own experience what passed for S/M was mostly rough sex with a little role playing and bondage thrown in on occasion.

Here I am (c. 1967) at the New York Motorbike Clubhouse in my new outfit.

The “leather boutique” where you could outfit yourself and your toy collection was also some time away. One afternoon I took the subway to Delancy Street, one of New York’s Jewish neighborhoods. This was hardly the place I would have expected to find a motorcycle jacket, but someone from the motorbike club had given me the address of a tiny clothing store where I could find one at an extremely low price. A very orthodox looking merchant waited on me and helped me find a jacket that fit.

My next stop was a Western wear store where I purchased a pair of Levi’s, a pair of Wellington boots, and a black cowboy hat. Having grown up in orthopedic shoes I expected the boots to be uncomfortable, but to my amazement they weren’t. With my purchases in hand I could hardly wait to get back to my apartment. I immediately took off all my clothes, put on the boots and jacket, and jacked off in front of a mirror, the feel and smell of the leather fueling my lust. It felt like a rite of passage. I was finally becoming myself.

About this time I read a magazine article about a man who had made an extensive sea voyage. To mark the occasion he had had his ear pierced. Reading this article triggered something in my psyche. I simply had to have an ear pierced. It didn’t matter that it was 1967, and most men didn’t wear earrings. This was just something I had to do.

A fellow NYMBC member, Ron did me the honor of piercing my ear.

The New York Motorbike Clubhouse was a storefront near the foot of Christopher Street, a short distance from the docks and the leather bars. With Steve and Marc’s sponsorship, I joined NYMBC and made friends with a number of the members. One of them was a man named Ron. Ron had been a merchant seaman and had the tattoos to go with the profession. Even his earlobes were tattooed with stars, in the middle of which were piercings. His tattoos and pierced ears turned me on, and led us to share some sexual exploits. We ended up as good buddies. It was natural that when I made the decision to have an ear pierced, I asked Ron to do it. One weekend we got together and Ron pierced my ear with a large sewing needle. With a bit of maneuvering he was finally able to insert a small gold ear stud through the piercing. It was done.

At the time I was working in a decorator showroom that sold tacky pictures and statuary to interior designers. Naturally I was concerned that my pierced ear would not be acceptable to my employer. Still I had to leave something in the piercing for at least six weeks until it was sufficiently healed to be able to leave it out through the work day. Every morning before I left for work I would carefully clean the piercing and put a Band-Aid over it. If anyone asked I could always say I cut myself shaving. No one ever asked. At the end of six weeks I would take the stud out before going to work and insert it again when I got home. The piercing healed and is with me today.

For several years nipple play was something that I found highly erotic. I’ve no idea how it even came about, but at some point I began fantasizing about piercing my nipples and wearing gold rings in them. It was a fantasy that never ceased to turn me on, but I was afraid to actually admit it to anyone. One Saturday afternoon I even attempted to pierce my own nipples.

An ex-lover of mine was a watchmaker. He had a small tool box filled with various materials that he used in his trade. Among them was a small roll of thin gold wire. I snipped a few inches of it and from it fashioned a couple of small gold rings about 3/8″ in diameter. Although I filed the ends so there would be no burrs or rough edges, they still had no closure and were way too thin for the job. At the time I had no way of knowing this was important.

That fateful Saturday afternoon I took the gold rings, the cork from a bottle of wine, and a push pin and soaked them in a small dish of alcohol. After cleaning my nipples with some of the alcohol, I pressed the cork against one side, the point of the push pin on the other, and taking a deep breath forced the pin through and into the cork. It hurt, but not that badly. By this time I was sweating and feeling a bit light-headed. After lying down for a few minutes, I recovered enough to proceed. It would be necessary to remove the pin to insert the ring. When I did, the wound began to bleed a little, but fortunately not enough to be a problem. The difficult part was trying to maneuver the round ring through the straight hole. This took several harrowing minutes, but I finally succeeded. All that remained was to do the other nipple. Somehow I managed. It was a testimony to my determination that I finished. But soon afterward I freaked out a bit at what I had done and removed the rings. By the following morning, were it not for the pleasurable tenderness, I would not have known what had happened the previous day.

Fernando, a legend in the NY leather scene, was the first man I ever saw with pierced nipples.

But the fantasy of pierced nipples would not go away. Finally after a few weeks I gathered up my determination and my trusty makeshift tools and repeated the ordeal. This time I left the rings in place, though I was very closeted about having them and carefully removed them before going to bed with anyone. After sex I would get dressed, go to the bathroom, and reinsert the rings.

At this point in my life I had never seen or heard of anyone with pierced nipples even in the pages of National Geographic. That was soon to change. One weekend night I went to the Village to hang out at the NYMBC. Standing shirtless by the bar was a hunk of a man. Even in the subdued light there was no missing the glint of gold on his muscular chest. His nipples were pierced. I learned that his name was Fernando and that he was something of a local legend. Though I was never fortunate enough to enjoy the intimate pleasure of his company, he at least let me know that once again I was not alone.

Next: From New York to Hollywood

Jim Ward is is one of the cofounders of body piercing as a public phenomena in his role both as owner of the original piercing studio Gauntlet and the original body modification magazine PFIQ, both long before BME staff had even entered highschool. He currently works as a designer in Calfornia where he lives with his partner.

Copyright © 2003 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to publish full, edited, or shortened versions must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published August 17th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada

The Myth of the Modern Primitive: Emulation and Idolization

Posted on July 27, 2003 by BME

Counterpoint by Blake of Nomad

"A ritual can be described as the enactment of a myth. By participating in a good, sound ritual, you are actually experiencing a mythological life, and it's out of this that one can learn to live spiritually."

– Joseph Campbell

The myth of the Modern Primitive — a term coined by Fakir Musafar some twenty years ago when the body modification movement was in its infancy — is now applied broadly to anyone whose personal modification can be traced to an existing (or once existing) ancient or primitive culture; a tribal tattoo or a stretched earlobe for example.

Emulation or idolization, as Shannon suggests, can imply a mindless “because-it’s-cool” mentality — one based merely on aesthetic admiration. While anyone who can see must respect a Polynesian tattooed full body suit or the lobes of an elder Dayak, I suggest that the inclination toward tribal body modification transcends cultural barriers.

To refer to primitive cultures in general as “brutal and repressive” (does our own regime not brutally repress other societies around the world?) is to ignore the fact that these cultures, despite their “unsophisticated sociological moral structures” (a Western judgment according to Eurocentric ideals) prevailed for, in many cases, thousands of years. The reign of our Western society, a mere two centuries, is a drop in the bucket of time when compared with, for example, Egyptian dynasties that lasted over 3,000 years, did not destroy their environment, and left a legacy of architecture, high culture, art, jewelry, and demonstrated mastery over geometry. Recent archaeological evidence suggests that the labor force that constructed the great pyramids was well cared for — after all, a hungry worker gets little done. A vast network of modest domiciles, marketplaces, shops, even brothels and wine cellars tell us that although people died, the Pharaoh’s workforce was well organized, well rested, and drank, ate, and got laid.

The success of any civilization historically has depended on a social hierarchy, political or military infrastructure, and a spiritual, ritualistic, or religious dogma enacted by those “closest to the Gods”. Traditionally, tattoos and piercings were incorporates of that spiritual and social fabric. In Egyptian culture (the example I am using here), contrary to what Shannon suggests, it was primarily the upper-class who were tattooed and pierced.

The propaganda, mind control, and military threat utilized by the Nazi party affected societal control in a way much different than Aztec priests offering human sacrifice. Although prisoners of war were sacrificed, there was also an entire order of people who were offered consensually. In fact, these people were revered and considered it a high honor to have their blood and themselves offered to the Gods. Today, our own government utilizes many of Hitler’s principals of power (military threat, economic sanctions, propaganda, etc.) but “human sacrifice” no longer has the context of ritual and the spirit world. War is brutally and arbitrarily effected with technology and sophisticated weaponry (war is a timeless human motif; ancient or contemporary)… we need not even look our enemy in the eye.

I believe today’s “Modern Primitive” rarely supposes these “rituals (profound) and modifications (beautiful)” to be true expressions to aspire to of the romanticized “noble savage”. Rather, the primary reasoning for modern people to modify their bodies in a primitive fashion has more to do with aesthetics than rituals; an innate genetic predisposition of all humans. Modern people have the same human inclination as the primitive tribesman.

Author’s Note

A reminder that Anglo-Europeans also have a tribal heritage. Although we have been disassociated from it for over a thousand years, it is still our history as well.

I am a self-educated anthropologist, and piercer primarily of Italian descent. The oldest human mummy known to science and archaeology is a bronze-age man found on the Italian side of the Swiss Alps. He had over seventy black “tribal” tattoos, corresponding to chinese meridian points (acupuncture) and a healthy pair of 5/8″ stretched earlobes!

DNA profiling found that he had living relatives in Italy today. That’s my people! Not the mindless caveman you’d think for 6,000 years ago! More on that in my book (scroll down to the bottom for more information).

It is our societal context, lack of ritualistic format, and our disassociation from our own tribal past that is the difference. With self-education and practice we can rediscover these things.

It is more than curious to me that cultures separated by time and geography practiced nearly identical forms of body modification. In fact, the stretched earlobe is the single most prevalent and occurring form of body modification in human history (I will spare the reader by not listing those cultures here). This suggests a deeper intuition that transcends race and culture. The act of “taking control”, as Shannon suggests, is in fact a human necessity.

I don’t think it is possible to presuppose or describe simply people’s motivation to self-decorate and modify. In a society nearly devoid of ritual, the 18th birthday navel piercing and mini-tribal tattoo is a modern Western-derived rite of passage. It is not one handed down by our elders, but a newly reinvented one (because tribal drives are still buried inside the genetic memory of the suburban American girl), and one with valuable social and even spiritual potential.

Spirituality is very much about transcendence (of fear of pain, of social stigmas, and so on) and in any capacity is a deeply personal experience (even if we cannot articulate its meaning)… if it happens at all.

It is an ironic juxtaposition indeed that the “underground subculture of the Modern Primitive” is a “system (self)sustaining” within mainstream society. This society whose premise of conformity and normality omit modifying the body altogether as social necessity — one of conformity and “sustaining the group” above all else — is the mainstream of unmodified individuals! The evolution of the individual, I agree, must again take precedence over that of sustaining the society because as a society, we are fractured and subdivided (the tribal connection to our collective human past has the potential to bond all of us together). Individual freethinkers must again step into the limelight of humanity to save us from ourselves.

With any mass-produced cultural product (religion, pop music, body jewelry, or a government-engineered ignorant society) the potential for transformative experience is reduced to a simple mathematical equation — percent and ratio. There will always be a few fortunate individuals within the group who will delve deeper and due to early conditioning, personal experiences, acquired knowledge, and individual constitution gain far more than the “mindless masses” from their transformations. The “thick fog of fashion” pervades every aspect of adornment, regardless of time in history or civilization. Our own ignorance (culturally and collectively) is ultimately all that will damage body modifications’s ability to enlighten. Again it comes down to the individual.

Fuck the group. Know yourself and then relate to those who are like-minded and God forbid a few of you hang out and become a group… at least in “my group” everyone designed their own tattoos….

In a global society another strange juxtaposition of culture has occurred. Many tribal people now emulate and idolize tattoos of the West. On a trip through the rain forests of Central America with my wife two years ago, in the middle of nowhere, at a small stand by the side of the road, we got out to stretch our legs. Several heavily tattooed midgets of mixed Spanish-Mayan descent came out of the woodwork to check me out. They were covered with images of Elvis, skulls and crossbones, daggers, pinup girls and WWII airplanes. And there I was with my “tribal” body suit (all of my designs derived from dreams and vision quests marking significant times of my life). We checked each other out, shook hands and smiled a lot… a certain unspoken understanding had transpired. In an age of cross-cultural-trans-global-sociological influence, who was emulating and idolizing who? It no longer matters.

I AM GOD

Be God, create beyond yourself reject the placebos of everyone else wash and melt from your unconscious, slumbering mind and depart from the life-eating lull of the grind. Smash and remake rebuild and design unlearn from the core then extend to outside your chosen, ethereal, and leaving you blind id-image-synaptic as seen through your eyes.

…..BLAKE

PS. Shannon’s thoughts on corporations and craftsmen I am in agreement with, as well as his advice on the ways one might obtain a meaningful tattoo (avoiding fllash). If you want the same tattoo every Joe has — you know, that one on the wall — why bother? However, if that Tasmanian Devil has deep personal meaning for you, then you did choose the right tattoo.

blake-and-fakir Blake’s book, A Brief History of the Evolution of Body Adornment in Western Culture: Ancient Origins and Today is available from his website, nomadmuseum.com, and will be added to the media section of BMEshop shortly for online ordering. Fakir Musafar writes that this 150-page oversize book is a “must have” for all serious modifiers.

The grandson of dental surgeon, noted socialite, and traveller Dr. Naomi Coval, Blake Andrew Perlingieri was inspired by his grandmother’s travels to remote tribal areas in the early to middle parts of the 20th century.

Professionally, Blake began his carreer in 1990 at San Francisco’s premier piercing studio, Body Manipulations. At this time the only other studio was Gauntlet, L.A.. In 1993, Blake and his former partner, Kristian White, opened Nomad, the first tribal studio in the industry. Blake and Nomad have been featured numerous times in Fakir’s Body Play and all of the early publications and TV media of the day. In 1995, Nomad opened Australia’s first piercing studio in Melbourne. From 1996 to 1998 Blake brought his tribal gospel to the east coast and operated Venus with Maria.

In 1998, Blake returned west to open as sole proprietor Nomad Precision Body Adornment and Tribal Art Museum. Combining his famous jewelry collection with his recently inherited grandmother’s tribal art, Blake seeks to educate the children of the future, raise awareness about endangered tribes, and provide a cultural and educational context to body adornment for modern people.

The photo on the right was taken by Fakir Musafar.

Copyright © 2003 BMEZINE.COM. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published July 27, 2003 by BMEZINE.COM in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

Emulating and Idolizing Indigenous Cultures is Stupid and Dangerous [The Publisher’s Ring]

Posted on July 18, 2003 by Shannon Larratt

Emulating and Idolizing Indigenous Cultures
is Stupid and Dangerous
aka
Your only idol should be YOU

There ain’t no rules around here! We’re trying to accomplish something.

– Thomas Edison

Something I’ve often heard said about India is that if people have done it, they’ve probably done it in India at some point in history. Every form of body modification, every ritual, every religion, and every philosophical theory has been explored in the incredibly broad intellectual and spiritual landscape that is India, and all my experiences with India have lead me to believe that on the whole it’s a land that encourages one to be oneself rather than feeling a need to conform to some role set forth by others¹.

One of my favorite verses from the Bhagavad Gita reads,

It is better to do your own duty
badly than to perfectly do
another’s; when you do your duty
you are naturally free from sin.

– chapter 18, verse 47

In introduction I’d also like to point out what brilliant graphic designers the Nazi party were, and how good they were at ritualizing their politics and social goals — the film Architecture of Doom even goes so far as to suggest that Nazism was first and formost an aesthetic movement (“the cult of the beautiful”). But just because they were good at these tasks doesn’t mean that their underlying philosophies were valid on other subjects.

Likewise, there were many brilliant scientists working for the Nazi regime; much of our modern medicine and a vast majority of our space technology is derivative of their work. However, that doesn’t mean that Nazism is valid either — it means that the science was valid. I think we’re prone to make this mistake quite commonly — because someone is good at one thing, we assume that their views on other subjects must be good as well.

I’d like to now move to discussing one of the most persistent and misleading myths of modern body modification culture; that of the Modern Primitive — a cult of idolization and emulation of various amalgams of indigenous cultures around the world. Self-identified modern primitives tend to embrace the aesthetic and often modernized ritual based on those of these tribal peoples, while holding them up as something to be admired, ignoring the fact that the vast majority were on many levels absolutely brutal and repressive cultures that would have been truly miserable to live under given our modern desires for self-determination and freedom.

That is, they make the mistake of saying “this modification is beautiful” and “this ritual is profound”, and then assuming associated philosophies and lifestyles are also beautiful and profound. As true as the first two statements may be, this line of thinking is no more valid than becoming a neo-Nazi because you appreciate the talented work of Albert Speer or Werner Von Braun — or enjoy Wagner.

The “noble savage” is of course, with few exceptions, a myth. You’re more likely to find this romantic vision in Northern Scotland than you are in the jungles of southeast Asia or the African plains; the “savage” life tended to be just that: savage. Life was rarely idyllic. One’s place in life, from slave to ruler, was dictated from birth and body modification and ritual were tools used to hold that fragile system together, and fearful spiritual codes did their best to explain and justify this world. Is the “noble savage” of modern primitivism something to aspire to, with its beautiful self-expression, empowering rituals, and peaceful Gaia-loving spirituality? Sure, but so is being a Jedi Knight and neither exists in real life.

In modern times many of us use body modification as a tool to become one with God; that is, to exercise control over our physical and metaphysical destinies… Modifying your body as an act of individualism echoes eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge — it’s an act of taking control. It’s an act of liberation.

Unfortunately, as I just mentioned, as beautiful as they were the modifications of most indigenous cultures were very much the opposite — they used body modification as cultural prisons, to ensure conformity and to protect social structure. Their stretched piercings were done at specific times of their life to mark their transition from one social role to another, and their scars were markers of group identification rather than individual. The modifications served a specific and pre-determined purpose — they were (as we accuse corporate-government actions these days), “system sustaining”. That is, their culture of body modification existed not to empower the individual, but to empower and sustain the group.

Certainly there was a great deal of validity in this — for them. As our societies become larger though, more resilient, and more autonomous, it’s essential that we shift our efforts from simply sustaining the society to sustaining and evolving the individual. We’ve finally reached a point in our cultural evolution where we’ve built a solid enough foundation to do so².

On the other hand, we’ve also reached a point where we’ve given truly enormous levels of power to corporations who profit by mass-producing a cultural product (pop music being an obvious example thereof) which, while profitable, offers little toward the individual or spiritual growth of the people consuming it. Body modification has experienced explosive mainstream popularity over the past fifteen years and we face the risk that it will become commodified as well, which would deeply damage its ability to enlighten by wrapping it in the thick fog of fashion.

In indigenous cultures body modification was not apt to enlighten in and of itself — it was simply the uniform that one was expected to wear. It meant one belonged to a group. What we should be fighting to encourage is a cultural environment where a navel piercing or stretched ears or tattoo isn’t about being part of a group — it’s about being and defining yourself (regardless of who does or does not have that modification as well).

An email I received recently:
  >At your websit i saw this
  >beautifull Kanji tattoo!! I
  >hope one of you know the
  >menaing, because i really
  >like it, and want to know it!

How can we do that?

I’d like to offer a few general tips to illustrate how we can move in this direction, beginning with never get flash and along the same lines, never get a tattoo you don’t understand. Certainly there’s space for a little empty decoration, but I hope you’ll consider the value in having genuine meaning on your body. After all, you are permanently etching this logo into yourself — Maori chiefs, who were one of the rare people in history who’s tattoos had deeply individualist meanings, would often use a drawing of their tattoo instead of their name when signing legal documents.

What is your name? Something handed to you by your parents? Some meaningless phonemes applied to you without your consent? Some shallow name shared by hundreds of thousands of people on the planet? A useful “tag” certainly, but not who you are… Your tattoos on the other hand have the potential to truly represent you — to mark you with identity in a way that you see fit, as you see yourself and as you’d like the world to see you.

By supporting small businesses, you make it harder for faceless corporations to seize the market and pervert the community to their needs.

I would hope it would be obvious what message is being sent when you decide that some anonymous done-a-thousand-times piece of flash off the wall, or a pretty symbol of dubious meaning from some language you’ve never spoken a word of can represent you better than something you actually worked on yourself. You can’t draw you say? Big deal! That’s why tattoo artists exist. They’re not just guys that are good at tracing — the majority are valid artists in every sense of the word… Artists that specialize in working with you to take your feelings and beliefs and making them a permanent part of you. Just make sure they’re yours³.

I’d also like to propose that you support local companies and support craftsmen over factories. I’ve spoken about this at greater length in previous columns, but we need to understand how to use the system to our benefit. Large companies are quickly dominating the jewelry market (ten years ago almost all jewelry was being made by small local craftsmen and a handful of small companies, whereas now we’re seeing international corporations using sweatshop labor to mass-produce low-quality “individualism”) — if we (the market) don’t aggressively resist this, small vendors will be all but extinct within the decade. As soon as that happens, you’ll see this community starting to be defined by corporations, not individuals.

“Killed a dude.”

Keep your sense of humor strong!

I think it’s also a good idea to take yourself seriously, but not too seriously. What I mean by that is never forget the idiom “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Should you take your modifications seriously and use them to further personal growth? Absolutely! But you should also be willing to play with your body, and sometimes just be stupid for stupid’s sake. As you progress as an individual you’ll certainly face terrifying challenges, and without a sense of humor it will be hard to appreciate your failures as much as your victories.

When you’re defining yourself, avoid posturing. That is, don’t “act tough” and don’t try and get modifications specifically to affect your relationships and interactions with others. If you do that, you’re inversely falling into a conformist trap. While it’s true that your borders are in part defined by your relations with others, it’s important that the process of defining those borders is truly under your control, rather than simply in reaction to them. Or to put it another way, don’t avoid getting a [meaningful] navel piercing because you think it’s too common, and don’t get a [meaningless] uvula piercing⁴ just because you think it’s rare.

Along those lines, my final tip is trust yourself and who gives a damn what anyone else thinks! This is about you, isn’t it? Let’s assume for a moment that you’ve actually put some thought into what you’re doing (and if you’re not willing to do that, just stop reading now and switch to FOX News or something) and believe that you need to do a given mod in order to keep moving forward on a personal or spiritual level. If this is the case, anyone — be they parents, friends, partners, employers, whatever — that tries to stand in your way might as well be trying to kill you. In a world that understands that expression is a basic right — a core truth that makes an individual free — the act of restricting this right is one of the most grievous sins one can commit.

If it feels good, do it.

The saddest part is that most of us allow it to happen because we’re afraid… Afraid to hurt our parents’ feelings, afraid to lose our jobs, and afraid to get bad service at a restaurant. Well, guess what — the only reason that injustice exists is because so many of us allow it and prop it up. Ultimately slavery ends when people emancipate themselves; it doesn’t just happen on its own and no one can do it for you.

Actually, there is one last “rule” — probably the most important one: everything you just read here is a half-truth. Breaking the rules is essential to exploring the full landscape of life — you just have to understand the rules first to appreciate the value in breaking them⁵.

Really, the key I think is just to be yourself and define who you are solely by who you are. It’s not relevant who your friends are. It’s not relevant who lives in your community. It’s not relevant who you’re descended from. It’s not relevant that people with your color of skin were once slave owners of people with another color of skin or vice versa. All that’s relevant is who you are. Anything else is just a distraction.

And when you figure out who you are, and protect and ennoble that person, and fight for them and allow them to express themselves, you will be free and you will be well on your way to becoming a God.

Getting back to my original slander, I certainly encourage people to draw inspiration from all sources. But don’t think that we should aspire to actually be those sources — they had the exact same problems we’re trying to overcome (often worse), and on the whole, they never overcame theirs either. Even the most idyllic of these cultures existed in a condition of stasis with no ability to grow or evolve or move forward. All the inspiration you need is already inside of you — everything on the outside is simply helping show you how broad the palette is.

Enjoy life as yourself,

Shannon Larratt

BME.com

¹ Not that India doesn’t have any number of problems as well – cough! caste system! cough!

² Please note that I’m not proposing a total rejection of cultural bonds; as much as we’re individuals we’re also players in a larger game. My belief is that we simply need to make sure we keep the focus always centered on the individual — and there are powerful forces fighting to keep that from happening.

³ That said, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go out and get that Star Wars Rebel Alliance logo tattooed on your ass — all I’m saying is that if you do, I hope you’re doing it because it has meaning to you, not just because you think Star Wars is cool…

⁴ I’m not suggesting people get uvula piercings for shallow reasons. While Jon Cobb jokingly referred to his as a “stupid human trick”, he also speaks with profundity of how significant it was on a spiritual level to pierce that internal nexus.

⁵ As a general footnote, let me say that body modification and body play is a means, not an end. It’s a tool. You can use it to empower yourself, or you can watch as others — be they other individuals, or be they some faceless mob or soulless corporation — use it to empower themselves at your expense. Like all tools, it can be used for your benefit or your downfall… One of the general goals of BME is to encourage people to use body modification as a tool for themselves.

Body Play: State of Grace or Sickness? (Part I) – Fakir Rants & Raves

Posted on July 4, 2003 by BME

Body Play: State of Grace or Sickness?

Part I: A New Culture is Born

In body modification, the spirit and body

dance together in a rhythmic balance.

What is the prevailing view of the “body” in 2003 when ever increasing numbers of people are using their body to express and explore “life in a body”? What is really going on in the minds and psyches of those who pierce, tattoo, cut, brand, sculpt and other wise use their body as a plaything? Is this use of the body something beautiful and enriching? Or is this perversion? If we take a broad multicultural view of this behavior, which some in our culture like to call “mutilation”, a better understanding may very well snap into focus. And to truly understand body modification may also require an adjustment in our mindset — and might involve a calculated and deliberate attempt to rise above cultural biases by which we have been observing and describing such behavior for several thousand years.

Early Experiments by Fakir

Left: Pierced septum (1948), Right: Nineteen inch waist (1959)
In my personal experimentation and work with body modifiers over the past fifty years, I have been brought very close to the subject. So close in fact, I have sometimes been called “the father of the modern primitive movement”. I was bitten by the urge to modify my own body at a very early age and I found non-destructive ways to satisfy that urge. I practiced them in secret for thirty years. Unfortunately, I was also driven into deep isolation and shame, as are so many others, for lack of any social sanction. I was a bright boy, so I knew that if I let it be known what I felt and was doing to myself I would probably been institutionalized and the key thrown away!

For years I haunted libraries, searched archives, and listened intently to the tales of Native American elders were I grew up in South Dakota. I was looking for any trace of sanction for what I felt and practiced in secret. In other cultures I did find acceptance, reasons, and traditions honoring this urge to modify the body. In fact, the mental and emotional states associated with the act (ecstasy, trance, disconnection and disassociation) were frequently considered “States of Grace”, not perversion or sickness.

I ended my isolation when a wise and understanding mentor encouraged me to “go public” with what I had been doing in secret for so many years. He arranged a showing at the only place where I might find a receptive audience: the first International Tattoo Convention held in Reno, Nevada in 1977. There I “came out of the closet” and showed it all: body piercings, contortions, large blackwork tattoos (novel in 1977), disconnection from body sensation while on beds of blades and spikes. The highly tattooed and pierced audience ate it up. They understood and honored in me what had also moved them to mark and pierce their own bodies. From that moment on, I felt we started making our own new culture and social sanctions.

Left: Reno 1977; Fakir pulls a tattooed belly dancer across the Holiday Inn ballroom with his new deep chest piercings attached to a valet cart. Right: Reno 1977; Fakir lays on a bed of nails and Sailor Sid then breaks stone blocks on his back with a sledgehammer.
After this warm welcome, I openly searched for others who viewed “life in a body” very differently from the majority of our society. I found them by the hundreds and eventually thousands. We had all heard the sound of a “different drummer” and responded to the beat. But the beat was not the beat of the prevailing anti-body Western Judeo-Christian culture in which we were living.

Whether we were Native Americans returning to traditional ways, or urban aboriginals responding to some inner universal archetype, one thing was clear — we had all rejected the Western cultural biases about ownership and use of the body. To us, our bodies belonged to us! We had rejected the strong Judeo-Christian programming and emotional conditioning we had all been subjected to. Our bodies did not belong to some distant God sitting on a throne; or to that God’s priest or spokesperson; or to a father, mother or spouse; or to the state or its monarch, ruler or dictator; or to social institutions of the military, educational, correctional or medical establishment. And the kind of language used to describe our behavior (“self-mutilation”) was in itself a negative and prejudicial form of control and domination.

At first, these newer views about the body and what it could be used for were only expressed or practiced in the budding subcultures of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s — in hippie, punk, radical sex, gay, sadomasochistic, tattooing and pierced body circles. My own connection with these subcultures began as far back as 1955 when I started to share body piercing and other body rites with other individuals and various cultural sub-groups. I needed a meaningful name to call our now socialized (versus isolated) practices. To me it had always been “play”, so I coined the term “Body Play”. To me, Body Play is the deliberate and ritualized modification of the body whether permanent or temporary. I felt it as a deep-rooted, universal urge that transcends time and cultural boundaries. As a behavior, Body Play is either accepted, condoned and made a part of the culture — or it is seen as a threat to established social order and institutions and forbidden or made unlawful.

UPDATE ON APP 2003 AND OTHER RECENT EVENTS

In early June, I had a heart-warming experience at the 2003 APP Conference in Las Vegas. I was honored to give the opening day program called “Anthropology”. This two-hour presentation covered the origins of body piercing both as enhancement and ritual. It concluded with a brief history of contemporary body piercing — its beginnings and pioneers. We were totally amazed at the number of APP attendees who wanted to hear me. About 250 waited in the hall and eventually another large room had to be opened to accommodate the crowd. I showed slides and videos and got a five-minute standing ovation when I finished the presentation. I covered a lot of information I’ve included in this “Rants & Raves” column. So if you missed APP, you can get much of what I presented right here and in my next two columns. Thank you APP and Bethra for inviting me to Las Vegas! To see a few snapshots of my visit to APP, click here.

Left: Bear had the biggest ear loops at APP. Fakir’s partner Carla easily puts her arms through the five-inch circles. Right: The “Old Guys” meet again at APP 2003 (Bear, Fakir and Blake).
On the same subject, another significant event at this year’s APP was the introduction of Blake Perlingieri’s handsome new book “A Brief History of the Evolution of Body Adornment in Western Culture: Ancient Origins and Today”. Don’t let the long title scare you. This book is a “must have” for all serious modifiers, tattoo and piercing shops: about 150 oversize pages (many in full color) on heavy glossy paper, hundreds of rare photos never before published. It includes sections on the earliest known modifiers in Western society, like Ethel Granger and the Great Omi from the 1920s and 1930s. And (blush, blush) a long section on me and my recollections of the history of contemporary body piercing. The book is published by Nomad and can be purchased directly from Nomad by check or money order. The book is available at bodyplay.com along with my own “Spirit + Flesh” with your PayPal account. You can also get Blake’s book at the Nomad Museum.

The last June event I want to mention in this column is the week-long shamanic and healing body rituals our Northern California group just experienced in the beautiful hills north of San Francisco. Over 30 enthusiastic devotees were pierced with hooks, some both in front and back, for a five-hour ecstatic energy dance in the bright afternoon sun. It meant so much to the participants to be able let go totally, to find the inner fire and peace we all long to reach, that I have decided to open up and facilitate this unique experience to more participants next year. Check my next columns in BME for more details on energy-pull and suspension events. If you or a group in your area are already doing this kind of ritual I would like to hear from you. Write me an email and tell me what you are doing. For a preview of what we are doing here in Northern California, click here for photos.

More of Fakir’s Early ExperimentsLeft: Wearing lead (1962), Right: O-Kee-Pa (1963)

Body Play is a process and kind of “magic” that courts unusual feelings and states of awareness, which in the end result in elevated consciousness. That is, we know something we didn’t know before our “Body Play”. In practice, Body Play is aimed at increasing “body awareness” and making clear the boundaries between “body” and “spirit”. It makes one acutely aware of one or more body parts. For example, if you pierce an ear (or whatever) you are more aware that it (or the whatever) exists. When you compress the torso with a tight corset, you are constantly aware you have a waist. When that body state feels normal, the bodymod is repeated until you are again aware of that body part (the ear piercing is made larger or the corset is made tighter). Finally, no matter how extreme you apply the “change of body state”, that change soon feels natural and you are empowered through the process of taking control and making the change. In body modification, the Spirit and Body dance together in a rhythmic balance.

In the 1970s, an eccentric millionaire in Los Angeles brought a number of “body players” together. His name was Doug Malloy and I first met him in 1972 after he had seen some photos of my early experiments dating back to 1944. We used to meet monthly in the back of Los Angeles restaurants for what we called “T&P (tattoo & piercing) Parties”. The numbers were small, never more than ten to fourteen persons, all we could gather in those days. We shared experiences, did “show-and-tell” and often arranged to meet again later in the day to help each other implement various piercings and bodymods. Over a course of several years, we developed and defined what would eventually become the lexicon of contemporary body piercings: types of piercings, techniques to make them and tools. At one meeting in 1975 I recall we tried to list everyone we knew in Western society who had pierced nipples. There were only seven, all males, except one woman who had been pierced in 1965. None of us in that group could conceive that we would, within a few years, have pierced hundreds of nipples, and that many of those we pierced would later also pierce hundreds more. By the late l980s the sight of pierced nipples — thousands of them — would be commonplace at all large subculture gatherings like Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco.

By the late 1980s, other forms of body modification and socialized body rituals were also emerging from the shadows of American subculture: tribal tattoos, cutting, branding, trance dancing, suspensions and body sculpting. In many ways, I felt responsible for encouraging some of it. In a quiet way in l983 I proposed production of a book on body modification and extreme body rites to ReSearch Publications of San Francisco. They began by taking twenty-seven hours of interviews with me. Along with this edited text, I provided about seventy photos of myself; self-portraits I had taken during my thirty years of secret experimentation. To round out the book, the publishers added other individuals who were also pioneers in modern body liberation. I suggested the title: “Modern Primitives” (a term I had coined in 1978 for an article in PFIQ magazine to describe myself and a handful of other “atavists” I knew). The net result was a book of unprecedented popularity and influence in the subcultures. Since its release in 1989, this book has gone through many reprints and sold tens of thousands of copies. After fourteen years in print, it is still being sold. As a result of this one book, thousands of people, mostly young, were prompted to question established notions of what they could do with their body — what was ritual not sickness, what was physical enhancement not mutilation. The Modern Primitives Movement was born!

Yours for safe inner journeying,

Fakir Musafar

fakir at bodyplay dot com

Fakir Musafar is the undisputed father of the Modern Primitives movement and through his work over the past 50 years with PFIQ, Gauntlet, Body Play, and more, he has been one of the key figures in bringing body modification out of the closet in an enlightened and aware fashion.For much more information on Fakir and the subjects discussed in this column, be sure to check out his website at www.bodyplay.com. While you’re there you should consider whipping out your PayPal account and getting yourself a signed copy of his amazing book, SPIRIT AND FLESH (now).

Copyright © 2003 BMEzine.com LLC Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published July 4th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.