Ashley Crawford: Post-Gender

“Body modification is a personal choice. Primarily, my genitals are the site of erotic pleasure rather than a symbol of my identity or politics. My primary interest in changing my genitals is to enable me to do new and interesting sexual things.”

Those of you who are regular ModBlog readers and BME members may remember that about a month ago I posted — I think for the first time — photos of a cervical piercing. I interviewed Ash Crawford, the piercer who’d done this DIY procedure on themselves, about the piercing, thinking that would be the focus of our conversation, but the interview soon moved into a fascinating conversation about post-gender existence.

A twenty-six year old body modification artist and sex worker that’s spent most of their life in various parts of England, Ash began as a tattoo artist six years ago, later moving into piercing and scarification, and has recently opened their first studio. As a tattoo artist Ash specializes in extensive cover-up work and enjoys combining large scale blackwork with scarification, as an alternative to white-over-black tattooing. A life long interest in body modification first expressed itself doing DIY genital piercings a young teen, and then visible piercings and tattoos after leaving school at age seventeen, aiming for full below-the-neck coverage.

As an adult, Ash became increasingly interested in body modification that blurs the line between male and female — for six years modifying secondary sexual characteristics through steroid use (testosterone) and more recently a bilateral mastectomy. Ash has been making her primary sexual characteristics increasingly ambiguous — not “more male”, but something that seeks a perfect balance between both, with each as prevalent as the other, in order to deny the limiting factors that come with traditional gender roles. As a post-gender human, Ash sees this transition as healthy and liberating, and believes that this view of gender will become increasingly common.

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BME: Let’s get right to it — how would you describe the cervical piercing procedure?

Difficult. It took a lot longer than most piercings. I was doing it all by touch. It took ten minutes or so just to dilate my cervix enough to get the clamp positioned correctly. I used a canula needle, which helped a lot because with these it is possible to shield the point of the needle with the canula until it is positioned correctly and also to insert jewelery in the opposite direction to the way the needle went in. Originally I pierced with a straight barbell and one end sat inside the womb most of the time. I found that when I leaned forwards the ball would “pop” out of the womb, which was distracting and slightly uncomfortable, so I changed the jewelery to a curved barbell which enabled both balls to sit outside the womb at all times and this seemed to solve the problem.

After the procedure there was some cramping and light bleeding from the womb, similar to menstruation, for a couple of days. Due to steroid use it’s been a long time since I menstruated, and I rather enjoyed the novelty of the experience!

While the clamp caused some discomfort and mild pain, the piercing itself was completely painless. I don’t say this lightly. I don’t have a high pain threshold at all. I struggle with the pain aspect of getting my body mods done, and I previously believed that all piercings hurt to some extent.

However, the sensation I felt during the needle insertion was like a deep pressure. It reminded me of getting fucked really hard with something big… Definitely pleasure rather than pain.

BME: How has your cervical piercing healed?

It healed incredibly quickly, and with no action on my part other than abstaining from vaginal intercourse for a couple of weeks. The nice thing about internal piercings is that you just leave them alone and they heal themselves — you don’t even have to worry about the cleanliness of anything that comes in contact with them because nothing will, provided you abstain from penetrative sex for a while.

Sadly I had to lose the piercing when I asked someone to change the jewelery over to a segment ring for me after approximately six weeks. Mainly I wanted someone to do a visual assessment and confirm that the size ring I’d chosen was correct because too large a ring would be holding the cervix open to an uncomfortable degree, and also, to be honest I’ve never put a segment in a segment ring “blind” and I wasn’t confident that I could. This other piercer had trouble and ended up creating a new exit hole with the jewelery which was at approximately 90 degrees to the original. I ended up with a very shallow surface piercing (which I removed) and a lot of swelling which prohibited me fitting jewelery in the original hole.

I am definitely going to re-do this piercing. I was sad to see a couple of comments on ModBlog along the lines of “there is no reason for doing that except to show off”, because I can honestly say that it was one of the most enjoyable piercings I have ever had. I am not ashamed to admit that [im]proving my piercing skills was one of the benefits I gained from this procedure, but it was not the primary motivation. A few comments were also made speculating on any past or future pregnancies of mine. For the record, I have borne one child, who is now seven. I have no plans for more children in the foreseeable future, but if this changes I see no reason why retiring the piercing before attempting to get pregnant would not solve the obvious problems it presents in relation to pregnancy and birth.

BME: What were the motivations behind the cervical piercing?

Having already gained a lot of pleasure from my g-spot piercings (the first of which I did for myself around six years ago) and been delighted with the fast healing involved, I decided a couple of years ago that I wanted to get my cervix done too. I had been intermittently asking around for a piercer who was experienced with this type of piercing, as originally I thought I would be unable to do it myself. A couple more years’ piercing experience and no luck finding someone who had done the procedure before lead me to decide that I had as good a chance of getting it right as anyone.

I wanted to feel more connected with that part of my body and to be more aware of it during sex and orgasm, and the piercing fulfilled these goals totally. With the piercing in place, I became physically aware of the action of the cervix during orgasm, which I had only had a theoretical knowledge of previously. I did feel a slight “pinching” type of discomfort during and immediately after orgasm, most noticeably in the first week, and to some extent for the entire duration of wearing the jewelery.

It was not severe enough to cause me any worry or distress, and would always pass completely a minute or so after orgasm.

BME: Wow, you have a g-spot piercing as well?

I was probably being incorrect in calling it that. It’s more over the g-spot than through it.

There seems to be more tissue on top of mine than most people’s I have felt. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a hymen piercing, but the point of it is to facilitate foolproof location of the g-spot. An average sized fingertip fits snugly between the two balls, and voilà, you’ve got the right place! I’ve had a few, one of which I stretched up to about 8mm until it split. The inside of the split feels fantastic!

BME: I guess it’s sort of like a subincision in that it’s exposing more nerves to direct contact… I assume these atypical piercings have given you much broader insights into your own sexual identity both on a philosophical level and on a physical level?

I’m not so sure about that…

The fact that I thought about these piercings, that I thought they would feel good, and that they did feel good, would seem to reflect a higher level of body-awareness than I have had in the past. In turn, they have changed my body and given me new sensations to be aware of, so in that sense they have increased my awareness even further. They have been positive and perhaps improved my relationship with my body a little, but I wouldn’t claim any deep insights as a result of them.

BME: Your cervical and g-spot piercings were done DIY and by touch — is DIY an important part of the process, or is this something that you could offer others on a commercial level?

With certain clients I would consider doing internal piercings, but there are a number of issues.

The main thing to consider is the anatomy of the individual. My “g-spot” piercing works because I have a larger than average bump there. On some people it would be physically impossible to do the same piercing because there is not real protrusion there to pierce. With a cervix piercing, a client would need to be able to achieve good dilation of both the vagina and cervix and also be able to use their pelvic floor muscles to push and hold the cervix lower down in order to make it more accessible. They would need to demonstrate an understanding of the potential dangers of trying to sustain a pregnancy with this jewelery in place and commit in writing to remove the jewelery before attempting a pregnancy or at the first sign of any unplanned pregnancy. They would also need to understand that placing oneself at risk of STIs with this in place would mean an increased risk of pelvic inflammatory disease, where an infection travels into the womb.

The second issue is my relative lack of experience with these particular piercings. You wouldn’t consider someone to be fully trained and experienced in, say, navel piercing just because they did it on themselves one time! It’s a tough one, because of course you always need to start somewhere. I feel fairly confident that I could get it right a second time, with the right client. Is there any room for being “fairly confident”, as opposed to 100% confident, and still being ethically able to offer something like this to clients? I really don’t know. I guess it would depend on the client and where they were coming from.

One further concern with the cervix piercing is the invasive nature of the procedure. Of course I am used to dealing with genitals as a piercer, but with no other piercing would it be necessary to put my hand inside a client’s vagina. This piercing is a difficult one to do; it’s not quick. When I was doing myself I was in there for maybe ten minutes. A person doesn’t expect to go see a piercer and get digitally penetrated for ten minutes! I’m sure I could decrease the time taken significantly as I gained experience and refined my technique, but still… Of course, this level of contact would be appropriate since the procedure requires it, but I would still have some concerns about how it might make the client feel. It’s important never to touch a client more than they feel comfortable with.

BME: You’ve had more traditional genital piercings as well I assume? How would you compare them?

My first genital piercings were in the hood and labia, and these were for decorative purposes rather than enhancing pleasure, which was satisfying to me at the time. In the last few years I have had somewhat higher expectations of my piercings and have retired the ones that don’t work for me in terms of sensation. I have recently retired my vertical glans piercing after almost two years because that one had always felt slightly uncomfortable, and I figured after all this time that was as good as it was going to heal. I had a horizontal glans piercing before, and that was just terrible — I only kept that a couple of months. I kind of knew that one wasn’t going to work for me, but when I turned up for a vertical glans piercing the piercer was convinced that it would be better horizontal, so I went with that. I guess it works for some people, but for me it got in the way of how I like to be touched so I couldn’t have an orgasm while it was in. I get some sexual pleasure from my fourchette piercing. Both the internal piercings have been less painful and faster healing than any of the others, as well as feeling good, so those are my favourites.

BME: What are the considerations in piercing a testosterone enhanced clitoris? How does the anatomy change from a piercing point of view as it develops?

I’d consider a testosterone enhanced clitoris to be a small penis for the purposes of piercing. Piercing a clitoris is normally a very fiddly procedure, but after a few years on T it’s wildly different. If you are talking about an otherwise unmodified organ then there are some differences that prevent a full range of male piercings being done, but you can still do a lot of them. After a metoidioplasty with urethral relocation the organ is generally indistinguishable from an average penis apart from its size. However, I would be hesitant to do any piercings to a surgically extended extended urethra, as these have a nasty habit of healing shut. I would be concerned that the healing stimulated by the piercing might encourage this to happen, although if the surgery had been performed many years ago I would be less worried than if it was newly healed. If a client came to me with that sort of anatomy I would advise them to seek advice from their surgeon. Piercings like the apadravya and ampallang can be performed with less worry on a metoidioplasty like mine with no urethral relocation. Alternatively, a type of PA or a reverse PA could be done which might give the appearance of exiting at the urethra, especially if stretched, but would actually be exiting the glans from a normal piercing type hole. This could be useful if the client wanted their penis to pass for normal as much as possible in the context of sex or general nudity, but was not worried about using urinals.

BME: Are there piercings and modifications that are uniquely suited to people who are living in a post-gender body?

People with a post-gender identity or outlook aren’t necessarily perceived to be transgender and may not have any sort of transgender body mods. Even among transgender people there are such a range of bodies and minds, I don’t think it would be possible to say X piercing will suit people with X identity. However, a couple of piercings come to mind as particularly suitable for FtM-spectrum people wanting to make the most of their testosterone-enhanced cock/clit: the triangle, one or more of which can act as the first step toward a metoidioplasty, and the glans piercing which is much more suited to a larger organ than an average sized clitoris. This piercing can provide additional stimulation to a partner during intercourse — very useful considering the size difference between this sort of organ and an average penis — and possibly to the wearer as well, although I wasn’t so impressed with it myself in that respect.

BME: Has the steroid use changed your perception and sensation sexually? That is, does your mind interpret female anatomy in a male way now? Or is that just a gendered misconception about sensation?

It has changed my anatomy, which has in turn changed my sex life. I am a lot more focused on my clitoris now that it is so much larger. It seems like my most important sexual organ now. Sex used to be mostly about penetration for me, but now being penetrated seems like an optional extra, even though I still love it. It’s something I do less frequently, when I want to have a longer sex session and get turned on, but not necessarily come.

I had never had a proper orgasm before I used steroids, and then about a year after I started taking them I learned how to have one. This has had a really major impact on my quality of life in general, not just because I feel so much more relaxed and happy when I have regular orgasms but also because it quickly toned up my pelvic floor muscles and thereby cured the stress incontinence I’d suffered from since my child was born. I don’t know that I would never have learned to orgasm without taking steroids, but I definitely think the anatomy I have now is more easily satisfied than the one I had before. That benefit, which was unexpected, has actually been the greatest one of all.

BME: You mentioned earlier that you self pierced your genitals as a kid. I did the same, as did a lot of people who are now into body modification seriously as adults… Was it just sort of a gut instinct to do so, or was there a context for it?

I’d say it was an instinct. I don’t remember knowing about anyone else having genital piercings so I can’t explain where the idea came from.

Nobody knew, not until I was a bit older anyway. I don’t know how I would have explained it if someone had found out. I suppose I’d have said it was decorative, because in my mind that’s what piercings were always for, and I hadn’t ever heard of another reason. I was mainly aware of ear piercings, which I had always resisted having. It was expected of me as a female to have a piercing in each lobe. One example of this is that on several occasions I received earrings for pierced ears as a birthday present. People just assumed I had it done. I resented what I saw as an attempt to make me modify my body to suit society rather than myself. So, a hood piercing was my very first body modification. It’s hard to know why I chose that area specifically — I think it was just because nobody would see and I wanted it to be my secret for a while. I don’t think it was anything to do with sex at that stage.

BME: Do you think the motivator is more nature than nurture?

People are extremely varied in their motivations. I wouldn’t attribute a reason to serious enthusiasts in general.

In this topic, as in general, I lean more towards nurture in nature/nurture debates. In my case there was no big, obvious thing that lead to my love of body modification, but I am more inclined to think my life experience gave me a number of subtle pushes in that direction than to believe I was born with an inbuilt desire to modify myself. That said, body modification is something humans seem to be turned on to quite easily, in general. There are few, if any, cultures whose people never practice any form of body modification. So maybe the potential to be attracted to body modification is inbuilt in all of us to some extent.

BME: How did you initially come to decide that you wanted to undertake an female-to-male gender transition?

The concept of “a” transition being “one” that I wanted to undertake doesn’t seem very accurate to me. People talk about “a sex change” like it’s one thing, but in fact the term usually describes a collection of different body modifications, and in my opinion each of them deserves to be considered individually.

Using steroids was the first thing I did that would clearly be classed as transgender body modification, although I had been collecting tattoos that some people interpreted as masculine for several years, so perhaps that counts too. There were two main reasons for wanting to take testosterone. I was getting into weight training at the time. I was impatient to feel stronger, and I knew that taking steroids would help me achieve that. That was the main reason. I had done my research and I knew that taking testosterone would make my body a lot more masculine. I was ambivalent at the start — some of the androgenic effects took me a long time to feel at peace with. But at the same time there was an attraction to the idea of looking less feminine because I knew that having such feminine body often made people treat me in a way I didn’t want to be treated. I think that many people have rather low expectations of what girls and women can achieve in certain areas of life, and that sort of attitude has always been very frustrating for me to confront.

BME: In regards to the “masculine” tattoos, do you mean because of their design, or do you mean tattoos being interpreted as masculine in general?

I think it’s just a prejudice that being heavily tattooed isn’t feminine. It was reaching a certain level of coverage that seems to do it rather than the designs themselves. Particularly getting my hands done — so many people interpreted that as a very masculine thing, which seems really bizarre to me. I never thought of my sleeve and hand tattoos as being a transgender or masculine thing when I got them done. I only started to think about them that way later when I was being assessed as a transsexual so I could get a steroid prescription. My extensive tattoos were taken as a clear signal that I was already doing my best to live as a man, as was my short hair and the fact that I only had one lobe piercing at the time. This was an incredibly strange experience, because I’d had that stuff for years and never thought of it as being gendered. The whole thing was so easy for me because my body modifications happened to fit the psychiatrist’s gender stereotype. It’s pathetic really, cause I know a lot of people way more transsexual than I am who are having the opposite problem. At some clinics, trans-women who wear trousers are being told they aren’t committed enough. Most women wear trousers these days for goodness sake!

For a lot of people there is a strong sense that the most important thing a woman can do with her body is to present and modify it to be as attractive as possible to straight men. People don’t frame it like that of course — they try to imply that these efforts simply amount to taking care of ourselves and making ourselves feel good, but a lot of what mainstream society expects women to want from their bodies is extremely narrow-minded and heterosexist, in my opinion. For example, I often hear people debating the acceptability of large tattoos on women. Some people say it is “disgusting” and other people say “no way, women with big tattoos can look really beautiful and feminine…” This can of course be true, but what strikes me about this sort of conversation is that neither side have been able to step outside the paradigm where it is taken for granted that all women want to look feminine so that people who eroticise femininity will find them attractive. To some extent taking steroids was very reactionary. I was so sick of being told via advertising, popular entertainment, and the attitudes of people around me that one of my main concerns in life as a young woman should be to look as pretty and feminine as possible so that guys would fancy me. But then, of course, not to actually fuck all these guys that fancy me, and certainly not to take money for it, because nobody likes a slut or a whore. Riiight… so what is the point of all this looking pretty again? Looking deliberately masculine was very appealing in the sense of doing a big visual “Fuck You!” to a society which shames women who are not young, thin, large-breasted, free from body hair, and all that bullshit.

Before using steroids I’d get cruised almost exclusively by straight men, and that meant that my sexual relationships were always based on the heterosexual butch/femme dynamic. Even with guys that I liked and who seemed to basically respect me as a fellow human, I struggled to create egalitarian relationships under the burden of such a restrictive social script. Having a more masculine body was a way to opt out of that dynamic and to attract more sexual partners who would be open to other ways of relating.

To some extent, I had internalized a lot of the messages I’d been given about female masculinity being unacceptable. Even though I felt oppressed by those messages and was reacting against them by deliberately making myself masculine, there were often moments when I felt disgusted by the changes. I suppose what made me stick with it was that my androgenised body really worked for me in terms of changing the way people viewed and responded to me in social, romantic, sexual, and professional contexts — basically, in every area of life. While there were some changes that were negative, in general the changes were positive.

My main memory of being feminine was how patronizing people can be. For example, when I had not used testosterone for long and was still quite feminine, clients would often treat it as a joke or at least some sort of a big deal that there was a female tattoo artist in the studio. I remember one guy asking, “how did you learn to be a tattooist — did your boyfriend teach you?” I came back with “how did you learn to be so patronizing — did your boyfriend teach you?”… which I still look back on and feel happy about, because you know how often the witty responses don’t usually come to mind until its too late!

In a sexual context too, everything changed for the better. Suddenly I was getting cruised mainly by bisexuals, and they didn’t have this dumb way of approaching sex like too many heterosexual men I’d met. That idea that the woman may be reluctant and the guy’s job is to persuade her to fuck anyway by introducing the idea gradually or just by being persistent… How disrespectful! Of course I’m not saying that all straight people are like this or that all queer people are great at respecting each other’s boundaries, but in my own life I’ve noticed an obvious trend there. These days, I get cruised by bisexuals of all genders, dykes, and the occasional gay man, and it’s very rare for me to encounter someone who doesn’t accept that yes means yes, no means no, maybe means we should talk about what we both want and see if it matches up, and most importantly that having casual sex means we are both sluts and that being a slut is no bad thing anyway. These aren’t difficult concepts to grasp — why can’t more straight boys understand them?

I have now learned to accept, and even perhaps to love, all the changes to my body. To some extent it just took time to adjust, but it has also helped to have had so much love, lust, and general positive energy directed toward my body and mind by all my friends and allies over the last few years.

I was offered a bilateral mastectomy on the NHS [National Health Service] about a year after I started using testosterone, which I accepted. This is not a modification I would have pursued for its own sake. The main motivating factor was the knowledge that if I went along with the standard transsexual script — that I wanted to look as male as possible — then I’d get my steroids free for the foreseeable future. The other thing is that there is a lot of breast cancer in my family, so I was always half expecting to loose my breasts eventually regardless of any transgender issue. It was a more a case of “do I have this done now or in middle age?” than “do I have this done at all?” Basically I feel pretty neutral about this modification. I didn’t hate my breasts but I don’t miss them either.

I guess the interest in becoming more genitally intersex just stemmed from the amount of clitoral growth I got from using testosterone over the years. When you’ve grown something that gets almost big and hard enough to fuck with, then I think most people who were comfortable with that would become fascinated by the possibility of making a few changes so that they could choose to take the insertive role in sexual intercourse more easily.

BME: “Post-gender” as a concept, versus a more delineated switch of gender role is very interesting to me… how common is that concept?

I’ve noticed that a major genderqueer/post-gender scene here in the UK seems to be very much based around the fringes of the sex-positive dyke and bisexual scenes and there seem to be a large number of people there on the FtM spectrum, probably because a lot of those people used to identify as butch dykes. However, there are some very vocal post-gender spokespersons on the MtF spectrum too. Kate Bornstein is a big name among those of us who like our gender theory good and radical. Also, genderqueer people on the MtF spectrum have been hanging around the gay male scene for years. Maybe those communities have developed a slightly different language and set of priorities around transgender issues, but interesting things are still going on there.

Post-gender is absolutely not a transitional point between genders. That phrase implies that there are two proper genders to travel between and post-gender is somewhere you stop off on the way. The gas station of genders, if you will. Not a proper sort of place in itself. I see post-gender as a useful viewpoint for looking at society in general rather than a sort of half-way place between genders at which individuals can choose to reside.

For me personally, the basis of a post-gender identity is being aware that nothing is essentially male or female other than the reproductive organs, and that even these can occasionally be other than male or female; for example, they can be intersex. Anything else that appears to be gendered just seems that way because of stereotype and social convention.

Most aspects of behavior and appearance can be a gender signal to some extent. For example, for an androgynous person, having long or short hair can make the difference between being read as male or female. Yet hair length is weakly gendered, and will only be noticed as a gender signal in the absence of stronger ones. If stronger signals are there, a man can have long hair or a woman short hair without being considered transgender. Long hair may be traditionally associated with women but it isn’t an essential part of being a woman. It’s optional.

OK, so let’s take a more challenging example: Breasts. Most people think these are fundamentally female.. but are they really? If so, how did the concepts of “man boobs” and “bitch tits” ever come to exist? Why does the body modification called “male chest reduction” exist? It’s not just FtMs having this done! Of course there is a major trend towards men having less fat on their chests than women, but what we have come to accept as normal and acceptable does not include all of the body types that exist naturally. This is why increasing numbers of women are having breast implants and increasing numbers of men are having liposuction on their chest.

BME: I’ve actually had this procedure done because I was teased most of my life about it and wanted to move to a more stereotypically male body that I felt more comfortable in.

I’m not knocking these types of modification, I’m just pointing out that the physical characteristic of having a substantial amount of fat on the chest occurs naturally in some men and does not occur naturally in every single woman. So, having breasts or not is a gender stereotype rather than an essential part of gender. A man could have a quite lot of fat on his chest, or a woman very little, and neither would be considered transgender if this was the only way they deviated from their gender stereotype. They might be considered unattractive and made to feel bad about their chests, but there wouldn’t be a real sense that they were something other than male or female.

Post-gender is about realizing that gender performance is elaborate and complex, but when you strip it down to its component parts, there’s nothing really there. Almost nothing about a person is truly gendered, although most things can be, in context. Post-gender means choosing not to “do” gender. People will still see gender in you because we are all raised to see gender in everyone (and you can choose to play with those perceptions) but as a post-gender person you have that awareness that gender is not a real thing. A haircut is just a haircut and a chest is just a chest. You bring that awareness to the way you think of yourself and interact with others.

BME: Do you think this awareness is possible for everyone? Or is it possible that having this awareness is a physical impossibility for a majority of people?

I don’t see why it would be a physical impossibility, but everyone has different views about the world and this is not currently a popular one. That’s OK. People are different and that’s what keeps life interesting. As long as people can refrain from being horrible to each other, it doesn’t matter if they have different opinions.

BME: What insights does it give you about the world to be able to have experienced life from multiple hormonal foundations?

While a change in hormone levels had all sorts of temporary effects, I got used to my new base-line hormone levels and now I experience a full range of moods and have the same personality I’ve always had. Well, as much as anyone has the same personalty after gaining several years’ life experience. I think when people say things like “men are more sexual and more aggressive than women, and this is because of their hormone levels” they are hugely overestimating the role of biology in the behavioral traits of men compared to women. I think these things have far more to do with socialization than biology.

I’m not saying that hormones have no effect on the mind-body. Clearly they have many effects. However, these are frequently blown out of proportion by people who want to justify their differing expectations of men and women in work, social, or sexual contexts. I have always believed these sorts of arguments to be spurious and prejudiced. My experiences of steroid use have given greater foundation to this belief.

BME: I’ve heard these arguments often most strongly from inside the transgender community as well — is there a philosophical rift between transgender and post-gender?

The transgender and transsexual communities are very diverse, and there is a lot of infighting over issues like this. I can understand why. There are a lot of transsexual people who only believe in two genders, and that they got the wrong sort of body to go with their inner gender. It’s threatening to hear someone say that inner gender doesn’t exist — it probably feels like I am undermining the importance of their transition. I’m not trying to do that. I respect their reality, even though it’s not mine. Someone tells me they experience God, I say cool, I don’t, but hey, maybe you’re right. Someone tells me they experience gender identity, I say pretty much the same. I’m not arrogant enough to believe that my reality is the only one or even the most valid one out there, but it works for me. When someone’s beliefs mean that they feel justified in doing something that harms me, then I guess that’s the time to start arguing about the truth. Other people’s transition or gender identity doesn’t do that. It’s only if they start telling me what to do with my gender and my body that it becomes an issue. Les Feinberg made a very wise statement on this subject: “My right to be me is tied with a thousand threads to your right to be you.” The same society that gives transsexuals a hard time when they don’t pass is responsible for giving me a hard time when I don’t look unambiguously male or female, and for the same reasons.

An interesting thing to consider is that what seems like a massive difference in identity may be simply a matter of semantics. For example, a few months ago I was chatting to someone who wanted to start taking testosterone because they felt like they might be a man in a woman’s body. I asked them to tell me more about that experience in detail. When we broke it down, we realized our motivations for wanting to take testosterone were virtually identical. The person experienced a huge dissatisfaction with the way they were treated because they had a female body and preferred the idea of being treated like men usually are. In addition, they wanted to have a stronger, stockier body because they thought it would feel more comfortable to be in. I can relate to all that; it was just the “man in a woman’s body” label I don’t understand and wouldn’t want attached to me. It’s helpful when people can put aside their differing labels for a while and concentrate on what they have in common.

BME: With testerone being the first major undertaking you took, to what extent did this shape the further ones? I remember being struck in the “You Don’t Know Dick” documentary by people who’d started taking testosterone commenting on how much it affected their view of the world — do you think the testosterone changed your course (or accelerated it) in any way?

Definitely. It started with taking testosterone and this lead to the other modifications.

I definitely wouldn’t have agreed to have the bilateral mastectomy if I hadn’t enjoyed taking testosterone so much. When I got diagnosed as transsexual and my name went down on the waiting list, I told myself I’d just take the steroids until I got a date for the operation and then say I’d changed my mind. I didn’t want it done. However, I had such a positive experience with the testosterone that when the time came I decided it was worth losing my breasts to keep getting the prescription. I didn’t realize at the time how easy it was to just buy testosterone at gyms, on the gay scene, and even online. Perhaps I’d have made a different choice if I knew, but I am actually really happy with the way it worked out. After the operation my chest felt weird — I could feel bone where there was flesh before and I hated it. I’m not bony anywhere else! I compensated for the loss of soft tissue by doing loads of pec work in the gym. After a couple of years I had pretty much the same measurements as before, only it was muscle rather than fat. It’s hard work to maintain (in fact I haven’t maintained it of late and need to get my lass back in the gym!) but I love the muscle more than I’d loved the breasts. Having something you’ve worked hard for it always more satisfying, isn’t it?

The testosterone lead to me becoming more intersex and I’ve started doing a metoidioplasty to enhance that effect. That’s not something I could have done, or would even have thought of, without having the testosterone first. My clit is trying its best to become a dick under the influence of the testosterone. If your dick was attached to you all along its length you can probably imagine how frustrating that might be sexually. It seemed obvious that if I cut the tissue away I’d have better sexual function. Only after I had done it did I read that doctors offer a similar modification to FtM transsexuals. Surprisingly, though, it actually seems smaller most of the time now I’ve done that. Before, it was stretched out full length and held in place, but now it shrivels down to nothing when its not erect.

BME: Finally, and I worry that this question is almost offensive in nature, but since you say you never experienced an orgasm until you started taking male steroids, do you think your life and view of gender would be different if orgasm had come to you easily “as a woman”?

I think the biggest difference would probably be that I wouldn’t appreciate it as much. How many able-bodied people in their late twenties think “wow, it’s just so wonderful to be able to do this” when they jerk off? Not so many, I bet! In all aspects of life, it’s easy to take the little pleasures for granted when they have always been there.

I don’t see it as being a major issue in my life. I like sex about as much as I did before, and I still enjoy lots of sex that doesn’t include orgasm. Orgasm is not the most interesting or rewarding thing about sex, in my opinion. I can’t see how being orgasmic at an earlier age would have affected my non-sexual life or my view of gender very much, if at all. Who knows, though… Sometimes in life the little things affect the big things in ways you could never have predicted.

BME: Thank you, Ash, for one of the most enlightening conversations I’ve had in a long time!

You can also visit Ash at the following websites:

• [phoenixology.livejournal.com], Ash’s personal blog with loads of great writing
• [custom-art-tattoos.co.uk], Ash’s studio site (source of the tattoos pictured here)
• [transsexualrentboy.com], Ash’s sex work site

Thanks again to Ash for a wonderful and eye-opening conversation.

Shannon Larratt
BME.com

Who owns my body?

“Nothing is legal with body hacking — so what!?! Why should we respect laws made by people who still believe that man should be like god made him? Why should we respect laws made by people who want to take the control of our destiny?”

– Lukas Zpira

In a recent ModBlog entry I featured someone who’d had a skin removal scar done, which then keloided out of control, constricting his chest and negatively affecting mobility. Instead of going to a doctor or attempting non-surgical options, he chose to have two very experienced body modification practitioners cut off the keloids and stitch him back together (as seen in our scar repair gallery). From a risk point of view the procedure was arguably no more dangerous (perhaps even less, because of the wound closure) than a larger scarification project, let alone implants, tongue splitting, transscrotal piercings, and other common heavy modifications. To ensure healing went went, the practitioners stayed with the client (who was a practitioner himself) for a week afterwards, monitoring the process, and making sure he had full aftercare and treatment. As I write this the procedure is a success and the client is very happy with the results.

However, the two artists found themselves faced with enormous criticism accusing them of having irresponsibly “crossed the line” into medical territory, thereby endangering the client needlessly and putting others in the industry at risk should there be a legal snap-back if anything went wrong — which to me seems about as valid as telling gay men they can’t hold hands in public because it’ll freak out the heterosexuals, causing them to vote against gay marriage. Even though the reaction was likely a bit knee-jerk because the photos were quite graphic, there is some truth to the suggestion that the procedure may have been legally “medical” in nature because scar treatment is something doctors do and consider their territory. So even though in terms of difficulty or risk the procedure was less than almost all surgeries, it could have still caused a legal problem.

Depending on the nation it was done in, a wide range of charges could have been (and still could be) laid, including variations on practising medicine without a license and assault charges. Had the procedure been erotic in nature (subincision or castration for example), additional charges could be laid against media and websites posting photos and discussion of the procedure, including obscenity charges and record-keeping charges (for example, an American site has the legal obligation to share full identification information on the people in all photos of this type with the US government — thus BME is hosted outside of the US).

This all raises an interesting political question — why can’t I ask anyone to perform a “medical” procedure on me? Sure, I might be better off if I went to a doctor. But is it right to force me to go to a doctor? Do I not have the right to make the “wrong” decision? If not, why is it not my choice? It’s not as if I’m asking for the right to drunk drive or some other “wrong” decision that’s going to hurt others — I am asking only for the right of self-determination.

All human rights emerge from the belief that ultimately an individual has the right to choose their own destiny, and as such, all human rights and freedoms are built on the statement that we own ourselves. However, this runs contrary to the legal answer to the question I posed, because I can’t ask just anyone to do the procedure — I can only ask those who are approved by the government, and they usually have the legal obligation to refuse me if the procedure is in any way atypical.

“When there’s another person, if it’s a medical professional, you’re asking someone who is following the rules of the land to do something which, if it’s brand-new, has to be authorized by committee after committee after committee after committee and whatnot so he doesn’t get charged with manslaughter or assault and doesn’t lose his license.”

– Dr. Robert H. Stubbs, MD FRCSC FACS

So if I ask a doctor to do an atypical procedure, they are legally obligated to refuse (unless they’re willing to spend years justifying your case to their superiors). If I ask a friend to do it, they face a variety of criminal charges if they do it. If I do it myself, I risk medical imprisonment (psychiatric commitment, a process by which I can be permanently stripped of all my rights, and medicated against my consent to the point where I can’t defend myself). And if I do somehow get it done, and decide to talk about it publicly, I (or the hosting website that publishes my story and pictures) can be criminally charged for doing so. I think it should be very clear that there are broad limits as to our ownership of our own bodies, with the government determining what we are permitted to do and have done, and by whom.

In this sense, heavy body modification is an active form of political resistance against a system which seeks to make us prisoners under the guise of “protecting” us. Perhaps you agree that most of the time the government is right. Perhaps you are even correct most of the time. But that puts you in a position to help guide people, not to force them to submit to your opinion when it comes to their decisions about themselves. Forcing people under threat of prosecution and imprisonment to make decisions that “they’re better off” making is a slippery slope. Instead of arguing as to where to draw the line in terms of how much freedom the government should “give” people, what we should be arguing about is whether the government even has the right to draw a line telling us how much of ourselves we control and how much they control.

Actually, I’m not even willing to even have the debate — it’s black and white as far as I’m concerned. You can’t be “mostly free”. Mostly free equates to slavery. I’d rather make mistakes as free individual than be successful as a slave (that said, my intention is to be successful as a free individual!). Tell me that’s nonsensical all you want, or that maybe big brother knows better, but I’ve made lots of good decisions, and lots of bad decisions, and I value them all as a part of my life experience. I own myself, and I don’t need to be protected from myself. When I need help from the government, I’m comfortable asking for it. I’m not comfortable having it forced on me.

There are already many laws in place to protect us from the actions of others. A person who claims to be a doctor or otherwise misleads customers about their background can be charged. A person who abuses minors or engages in predatory behaviour (sexually, financially, or otherwise) can be charged. Negligence charges and many others can be used in the case of problematic or abusive practitioners. As far as I’m concerned the only laws in the realm of “practising medicine without a license” should have to do with people pretending to be doctors in name. The specifics of the procedure are irrelevant.

But when it comes down to it, the statement is quite simple:

I own myself. I can leave myself as I am, or I can improve myself as I see fit, or I can even choose to destroy myself. It’s my decision, and my decision alone. Any law that tells me that I don’t own myself, and can’t dictate what is done to by body and by whom, is fundamentally wrong and by definition a tool of those who would enslave others. Worse yet, it belies a flawed foundation upon which true human rights cannot be built.

Until society concedes total individual self ownership, freedom and rights are but a smokescreen.

Shannon Larratt
BME.com

High-tech implants: The future of body modification?

"If God made anything better, he kept it for himself."

– William Gibson, Neuromancer

Cyberpunk sci-fi fetishists and scientists of questionable skill have long held that “the future of body modification” is implantable technology. Some of you may have recently seen Professor Kevin Warwick appearing alongside myself on TLC’s Skin Sculptors documentary. On that show, Professor Warwick, often falsely held up as the “first human to host a microchip” (after having a PetNet-type passive chip implanted), showcased a series of barely functioning technological parlour tricks such as clapping his hands to try and make lights turn on and off. While many scientists hold that Warwick’s experiments are meritless, amateur, and misleading, Warwick predicts that they will have enormous medical and social applications and will revolutionise the way we interface with technology.

Ultimately we are discussing the addition of gadgets such as implantable watches, identification systems, and input/output devices. I will ignore the more common “correction” of handicaps using similar technologies (cochlear implants, prosthetic devices, and so on), since I don’t believe they could reasonably be classed as voluntary body modification and seek to bring normal rather than augmented functioning.

I think most of us have entertained notions of implanting a timepiece or PDA device under our skin — just think how convenient it would be, not to mention cool! Or what if we had an ID chip so our computer would only respond to our touch, or our house would automatically turn the lights on for us as we entered. Those are just the tip of the iceberg — we can come up with “neat” gadgets indefinitely … but that’s the core problem — do we want something that’s going to be “neat” for fifteen minutes, or do we want something that will permanently enrich our lives?

We are tool using creatures; we are not walking tools. As we grow as a species, we enhance our tool set, but our core being remains relatively unchanged. As we create new tools, we discard our old ones as they no longer meet our expanding needs. We do not have that luxury with our bodies, which we discard only once, as we leave this world.

How many of you reading this are still using the computer they were using twenty years ago? The fact is, bleeding edge technology (which is what implantable technology would be) becomes obsolete very quickly and ceases to be desirable — short of removing and replacing it every three years, a human being who has chosen to augment themselves with implantable technology will quickly become an obsolete human — yesterday’s model — a fate no self-respecting futurist ever wants to face.

Let’s assume briefly that we have reached a point where technology is relatively static in terms of the device that we seek to implant. Now we have to ask the larger question: why bother? After all, these gadgets could just as easily be wearable, with projects such as Isa Gordon and Jesse Jarrell’s Psymbiote being excellent examples. What is the advantage to the device being implanted? Once implanted, we can’t upgrade it, we can’t swap it out, and we’ve done physical damage to the area, weakening our core physical form. In addition, implantation requires a power source that is containably non-toxic and can be recharged without direct contact. It would be utterly unreasonable and ill-informed to presume that an implantable power source can compete with one that is external (as has been consistently illustrated in the world of artificial organs).

As far as simpler passive identification devices, again we must ask ourselves what the advantage is. After all, it is just as easy to place the RFID chips into clothing or jewelry … But that ignores the larger issue that identification devices serve not to augment us, but to augment the technology surrounding us (that is, having an implanted ID chip makes it easier for computers to detect us, but offers no enhanced sense to us in return). In addition, as computer technology becomes more powerful, their ability to recognise us will grow. Building fingerprint identification systems into keyboards is already being done, and speech and visual identification systems become more accurate every day. The only advantage to implantable identification technology is that it is difficult to remove. So I propose that any future person with an implanted ID is either walking around with yesterday’s tech, or is a criminal that has had this unpleasant fate forced upon them.

These things are very fun to think about, and make glorious storytelling elements a la Neuromancer, but the fact is that the future of human/technology interconnection is wearable. Yes, one day in the distant future we may (and probably will) reach a point where we have a “port” — perhaps a plug on our spine that acts as a communications hub between the technological word and our wetware innards. However, that’s a long way away, and ultimately we’re just talking about a communications medium rather than a body modification. Taking it to greater extremes, these transhumanist ideals eventually lead us to the end of the human being as we replace ourselves with machines that may or may not carry on with human souls … and that’s an entirely different debate.

We will definitely have some tough questions to face regarding technology over the next fifty years as the “intelligence” of machines first meets, and then surpasses our own. It is my belief that in order to survive that difficult time in our evolution, we need to really cherish being human.

Part of what makes body modification attractive to people is first that it recognises and glorifies the human biology, and then allows us to seize control over our physical form and mold it to our desires where we can revel in a personal utopia of our own creation. A fancy piece of technology, above or below the skin, does not glorify the body. A subincision does. A stretched piercing does. A fit body from years of exercise does. Let’s face it: as megalomanically superior as it may make you feel, driving a Ferrari does not make you feel like you can run fast.

Now, genetic engineering on the other hand…

Carpe corpus!

Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com

Should Todd Bertrang Go To Jail?

"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or to impede their efforts to obtain it."

– John Stuart Mill

As many of you know, body modification artist Todd Bertrang was arrested under charges of practising medicine without a license via “Operation Safe Medicine” in December for performing female genital cutting and other unusual procedures. Even though the procedures were all consensual, and Todd Bertrang has one of the highest customer satisfaction levels in this community, the state medical board investigators referred to the people getting the procedures as “victims” and called the procedures “illegal and disfiguring”*.

Let’s be honest for a minute about the world of underground extreme body modification: it’s a dangerous and unregulated industry which contains many shady characters, as well as many gems who are genuinely improving the lives of thousands of people. I’m not writing this column to tell you that I think Todd Bertrang is one of those gems, nor am I writing this to tell you the opposite. Todd is very up front about who he is and what he does, so there’s no deception going on, and readers can make up their mind for themselves.

But there’s a larger issue at stake: Do we as free individuals have the right to dictate what happens to our bodies? Do we as free individuals have the right to choose who will alter our bodies, or may we only do so with the approval of state-licensed “experts”?

People seek out Todd Bertrang over other practitioners (including doctors) because he is one of the few people experienced in and willing to perform radical female cutting including clitorodectomies (removal of part or all of the clitoris – and before you freak out, yes, sex is still a lot of fun afterwards) – these are not procedures generally offered by the “official” medical community in America. So not only are they telling Todd that he can’t do the procedure, but they are also telling us, as “free” individuals, that we may not have the procedure done by anyone!

Todd Bertrang’s first court date is January 21st in downtown Los Angeles at 8:30AM. Anyone wishing to go and show their support should go to the courthouses at 210 W. Temple Street Div #30 at that time.

To quote Shawn Porter’s comments on the subject,

Regardless of your feelings about Todd personally (I'm quite fond of the old pervert) his arrest brings with it a wakeup call that people ARE paying attention to what we're doing "underground" these days. Mark my words: this will not be the last arrest of a modification artist (Ask Alva and Steve T.).... so if you want to show up and lend Todd some support, I'm sure he'll welcome you.

And he’s right – they know perfectly well Todd isn’t practising medicine, and if they win this they will systematically eliminate any private practitioner not willing to pay their dues. Was Todd offering body modification services? Definitely. Advanced sexual services and counselling? Definitely. But he was not offering medical treatment in any AMA-traditional definition of the word.

I know a lot of people have issues with Todd. He comes from a different background than many of the younger generation of cutters and piercers, and I think they have difficulty understanding why he sees the world the way he does. On that note, I’d like to let Todd speak for himself. Several years ago I interviewed him for BMEradio. A transcript of that interview follows this column.

Todd can be reached via his website at www.toddbertrang.com or on IAM as (obviously) “Todd Bertrang“.

Thank you, and good luck,

Shannon Larratt

BMEzine.com

* You have to love how it’s “disfigurement” when we do it, but if the person doing it has paid their fees to the government to get a doctor’s certificate, it then becomes “cosmetic surgery”.

Shannon Larratt: Welcome back everyone, I’m Shannon Larratt and you’re listening to the 16th broadcast of BMEradio. Today’s show may be a little bit more discoordinated than usual cause we’re doing this interview across time zones, so it’s real late here and I’ve got coffee in one hand and a beer in the other hand. So, probably not a healthy thing. Anyway, the person we’re speaking with today is probably generated more online hate mail than any other body modification artist but at the same time almost everyone that’s had work done by him swears by him and never goes to a mainstream piercer again. His techniques involve almost exclusively large gauges and the majority of his procedures use a scalpel far more than a needle. His aftercare is radically different than what you’d be told by either your piercer or your doctor and to top it all off, his opinions are exclusionary and if you don’t do it his way you’re probably not doing it right. Todd Bertrang, thanks for talking to us today.

Todd Bertrang: That was quite an intro Shannon.

SL: It was.

TB: I was trying not to giggle on the other end. [laugh]

SL: [laugh]

TB: Oh boy, I hadn’t quite the idea I had that kind of reputation there [laugh].

SL: Well if you have anything it’s a reputation. Todd, the first thing I want to ask you about is piercing technique. Why go big?

TB: Well, the right size is not necessarily big. It’s the right size for the right body part. When you’re dealing in below the neck areas you’re generally dealing in an area that moves more such as the navel, in an area that swells and expands and contracts considerably with heat, cold, and sexual arousals such as your nipples and your genital region. When you’re dealing in a thin gauge such as a 14 gauge (ga), you put it in your earlobe or your eyebrow well hey, that’s just fine. But these areas do not do that. When you have a thin gauge in these areas it tends to be like a dull knife in the skin and continually cuts the skin area building up massive scar tissue which becomes hardened and then continually cuts over time and causes loss of sensation, migration, rejection, all kinds of serious problems such as a permanent pathway for all types of infectious diseases to get into the body. It’s really bad for you to start with the wrong thing in the wrong area. The difference here of opinion is if you have a thin gauge and you heal in a inappropriate manner, most people consider that if they have a ring in their thing it would be a good piercing. And that is not my opinion. A ring in your thing means that you have a ring in your thing and that’s it. It doesn’t make it good, it doesn’t make it bad.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: But it can be done generally better than putting, shall we say a 14 ga in your nipple for example, much better, with much better results. Doesn’t mean that the 14 ga is wrong it means that you, why go buy a Model T when you can go buy a Ferrari? You know? Why do that?

SL: Well, I think that some people would say that they like the look of the 14 ga.

TB: Sure. But some people do it just for looks.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: I agree most of these people who do it for looks have absolutely no concept of how good it can feel with the proper gauge and healing techniques. That is saying, “Well, gee I really want to make love to my boyfriend but um, is this supposed to feel good?”

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: “What’s an orgasm?” [laugh] And there’s people out there like that. I mean really really bad. I went to the Ink Slingers Ball here recently last year and these girls wanted to show me what kind of genital piercings could be done and this girl was thirty some years old, had kids, and had no concept what a hood was or what inner labia was. And Ellen Thompson [AVN magazine] was with me and she saw, “Wait a minute here. You’re like thirty something years old and you’ve got children and you don’t even know what labia is? You’ve never heard this word?” She was just aghast at this girl. And she had no concept.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Okay? And you’re dealing in the same thing if someone has education, takes the time to educate someone about heir body and what can be done and why and what the differences are, they won’t get a 14 ga in their nipple. The problem is, it’s going to take two or three hours to sit there and educate the person what and why and what’s going on and you’re dealing in a profit ratio of thirty plus percent for a 14 ga ring in your nipple as opposed to maybe doubling or tripling your money on a 6 ga ring, if you invest thousands of dollars to have them done properly, which most manufacturers don’t make 6 ga correctly.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: When Silver Anchor was in business literally I’d spend three to ten thousand dollars an order. Okay, and I don’t have the volume that most of these people do. That’s a lot of money. Okay, and I invest that to have my stuff done right and I would still only get my price down to six, 6 ga to twelve dollars a ring, whereas you can buy a 14 ga for a buck.

SL: Yeah. [affirmative noise] I think part of the other thing is, and this is even more the case in Europe that there’s this sort of denial that even genital piercing is a sexual thing.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: I think there are a lot of piercers who don’t want to admit, you know they want you to believe that it’s a, that it’s just decoration.

TB: Last I heard I heard in England it’s illegal to get pierced for a sexual reason. You can pierce anything, until you say it’s illegal or something.

SL: It certainly was. It may not be now but it certainly was at one point.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: And that point where you know those were the rules, that’s when piercing sort of defined itself.

TB: Right.

SL: Anyway, I was going to ask you more about this later, but since we’ve moved into it now.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: I want to talk a bit about the overlap between piercing and sexuality. That’s actually how you learned how to pierce.

TB: Yes, it, when I saw my first piercing, which, if anybody’s read my interview from Gauntlet years ago it was a tremendous emotional, mental, sexual response. And this was, I mean I was 18 years old, and 18 years old and anything new and wild and wow, I mean your hormones are in full swing but at the time you just didn’t see this and this girl was very beautiful and she had her nose pierced of all things and it didn’t even, hadn’t even occurred to me that you could pierce anything besides your ear which was common, if you were a girl, at the time but I mean you didn’t see anything else. It was right here in LA, and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, this is just incredible.’ I must have followed her around the store with my mouth hanging open it was just, it struck me that, that tremendous. And when I finally went out and got pierced which took me, there was several things, it took me so long, one, the relationship I was in six years ago was just, couldn’t deal with it, but society at the time, if you were male and you had a piercing you were considered gay and there’s historical reason for this. Jim Ward, the owner of The Gauntlet was gay, a leather gay, and he was very very heterophobic and literally kept piercings in the closet for many years because of that. Because he didn’t want the straight people to get pierced. He didn’t like them at all. And when he did his first clit piercing, the girl literally had to sit there and show him what a clitoris was, he had no concept at all of what a clitoris was. And the, an interesting aside to Gauntlet, and I want to bring this up right now, my techniques which would make me so controversial are anything but gauntlet techniques. And everybody that is following literally what Gauntlet has developed. Jim Ward was a good businessman. He was the biggest and the best, he was backed by a millionaire, Doug Malloy, which is why he succeeded when everybody else at the time failed, because there were other small people around, but they didn’t have the money, they didn’t have the backing…

SL: Well I think I want to interject that too…

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: And I think that a lot of people forget that, that you know Gauntlet was the first business and you know there’s this mythology that at the time there were you know seven people in North America involved in piercing but that’s a load of crap right. There were…

TB: Gauntlet was the only store exclusively devoted to piercing, so I mean there’s the odd ear gun mall or tattooist doing the ear gun piercing in the store.

SL: What I’m saying is back then even though there weren’t you know piercing studios on every corner like there are now, there were still tens of thousands of people practicing piercing in their homes.

TB: Yeah there was people piercing in their homes.

SL: And I think that it was, it didn’t have you know the tribal sort of overtures that a lot of that it has now or any of that it was all in the sexual arena.

TB: It was entirely, piercing, even Gauntlet came from a sexual arena.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: It was all leather gay. It was all wild intense sex.

SL: [affirmative noise] But it wasn’t…

TB: Piercing came from an entirely sexual arena it hasn’t gone to what’s not sexual until recently when people consider you know all the young teeny-boppers who are afraid to admit that, “Gee I get my tongue pierced because I might give my boyfriend head tonight.”

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: You know, they’re too afraid to admit that, “Gee I wanna get fucked.”

SL: And it’s not just…

TB: I mean, they’re young kids, they’re immature young kids that do it, because they saw their buddy do it.

SL: And it’s not just, it’s not even just weird sex too, I mean I think piercing adds to even just vanilla sex.

TB: [affirmative noise] Oh yeah, it has nothing to do with any type of specific sex but it did come from a very heavy SM environment. Which was Gauntlet’s roots.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: And Gauntlet was created to cater to the leather gay SM environment this was the entire purpose of Gauntlet in its conception.

SL: Yeah, anyway I want to talk a bit more about this, but we’re going to take a quick music break, this is, my doctor just told me I’m not allowed to eat any more chocolate so…

TB: [laugh]

SL: This is some live Shonen Knife who does like chocolate.

     (song plays)

SL: Todd we were talking on the break about how even, even just facial piercing is a kind of sexual behavior.

TB: It is. Totally.

SL: How’s that?

TB: Whenever you change your body whatsoever, or lack of change, having dreadlocks for example, I don’t wash my hair and I twist it around and round and round and it’s dirty and smelly, whatever you do, whatever you do, I don’t care what it is, you wear a suit, you wear nothing, you paint your body, you cut your hair, you shave your head, anything you do to it to change it’s look will cause your self and your personality to be perceived differently by those around you.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Which is causing a sexual attraction with those around you within a certain parameter based upon your perception of your self of those who you want to attract.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Piercing does this even more so than anything else you can do because it’s a statement, it’s a poke in the eye, “Look at me, look at my shiny thing in my body!” And draws attention to that. And how anybody can say that piercing is a non-sexual thing is literally wearing blinders about what sexuality is all about and what people do. Why does a girl wear a miniskirt, why does she wear makeup, why does she wear perfume, why does she spend thousands of dollars on nice clothes? Because she thinks she’s ugly? Cause she doesn’t want somebody to come up and ask her out? Cause she doesn’t want to feel good about herself? Or because she’s doing it because she feels good about her sexuality and wants to be sexual? You have two choices here.

SL: No, I…

TB: A or B.

SL: Anyway we, you were, we were talking about how you actually learned how to pierce and a lot of it was, it was a period in your life where you were I guess promiscuous and you know you experimented with piercing with your girlfriends and…

Sanctuary by Todd Bertrang Looking at the door She did not know what was in store Trembling with fear She felt that HE was near Locked in bracelets Her neck in a collar She knew she could be sold for a dollar Timidly knocking Kneeling down, she felt the floor against her stockings Butterflies in her stomach With her labia so incredibly swollen She knew it was time for her virginity to be stolen A fresh brand on her thigh Combined, her slavery, her innermost thoughts, Newly healed piercings All those things made her so incredibly high Abruptly she started When she heard the name she had been given called The doorway parted She tried so hard not to be appalled By the looks of the furs At the base of the bed In the dungeon of her Master Knowing what he was after A pan was prepared That later she may be fed From his hand if she was found pleasing Now she knew, there would be no teasing But she must fulfill every wish, every desire Commanded of her Brought forth gently by her hair Made to kneel The collar on her neck chained to the floor The foot of the bed Next to her the pan Where, perhaps, later she may be fed Swiftly put upon her back Legs spread Her engorged labia weighted down By her newly healed piercings Creating even more wetness Then she had dared dream She felt her body steam As he spread her lips She moaned As his tongue and the stud he wore Gently massaged her swollen vulva Moaning then screaming in ecstasy She knew herself owned And what she truly was A slave Thank you Master she said

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: And through that, through that you learned what piercings worked sexually, how they worked…

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: And all of that…

TB: Through that I learned size, gauge, placement, diameter, I came up with a lot of the theories that I use today. I took a lot of time to develop those theories because of lack of tools, because of lack of proper jewellery and so forth. I literally had to front the money for a company to start so that I could get the jewellery in 8 ga made in half-inch diameter. It didn’t exist at the time unless you wanted to spend a hundred dollars a ring.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Like, which obviously I couldn’t afford that, it was too much.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: [cough] Back, the, it’s a, for a younger person in their twenties or their teens it’s really a myth of the sexual revolution and free love of the hippie days and all this sort of thing but the reality is until roughly 1990 if you were in the heterosexual crowd in a big city and you went out to a club and you wanted to go home and sleep with someone you literally went home and you met someone and you fucked them. It was that simple. It was that easy. You met someone on the street corner, they stuck their thumb out and within an hour you were in bed. And this was normal. This is what everybody did. No condom, no protection, no worry about AIDS, no worry about disease, and they did it for years, I never got anything. And at the time I was going out to clubs in Hollywood and if I wanted a girl to have a piercing, well guess who got to pierce her? They didn’t have them.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: You didn’t see people a lot in Hollywood with pierced anything. I mean, I was in the thick of the club scene in Hollywood and I had little 14 ga nipple rings and I had crowds around me because I had my nipples pierced. You didn’t see it. They were like, “Oh my god look at that guy.” And today this is common but it wasn’t then. But today, the other side of the coin is you don’t go out and just meet someone and hop in bed in an hour, that’s uncommon, it’s really rare.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Things have changed, society has changed. But that’s literally what I’d do, I’d go out and I’d go to clubs and I’d meet a girl and I’d bring her home and shave her pussy and pierce her nipples and if I liked her and she hung out and we went out again I’d pierce her pussy and if I liked her and hung out again and I’d pierce a few other things.

SL: [laugh]

TB: But, the I kept in touch with the vast majority of these girls and so it taught me a lot. It taught me a lot, a lot. Because when you, when you’re dealing in, let’s say I was in a massive volume store and I was doing twenty-thirty thousand piercings a year, well first off I wouldn’t have a chance to talk to these people, I’d just poke a hole and send them on their way and here’s your little paragraph of instructions.

SL: And more importantly you wouldn’t have a chance to fuck them afterwards.

TB: Well, regardless of whether you fuck them or not you don’t have the opportunity to actually sit down, and in a intimate environment see what’s really happening with their body and what’s working.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Regardless of whether you actually stuck something inside them you got to see…

SL: Well obviously that’s what I mean, you got to see how it works.

TB: Exactly. Exactly. I got to see what is working and why. What is working on my body getting them off, why is it working, what’s working on their body and all their different shapes and sizes and why?

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: In this very very intense sexual arena.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: And that gives me an insight that I don’t know that anybody else has. At all.

SL: You know, I think you’re probably right. The few promiscuous piercers I can think of are gay.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: And that’s a whole different set of issues I’m sure.

TB: Yes, it’s a whole different set of issues, and while I’m not gay, I’ve still had plenty of anal sex which works very similar so I have, I have insights into all types of sexuality from the straight to the bisexual to the gay set because of the amount of women I’ve been with and the amount of different types of sex I’ve had so…

SL: [affirmative noise] Well let me ask, is it, I mean now that you’re doing this as a business a bit is it sometimes difficult, do the lines blur between client and girlfriend? Or…is it…

TB: When you have enough sexual experience.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: You can tell if someone wants to be approached or not, okay, when you’re a young male and you’re 18 or 20 years old you don’t know whether this girl wants you to ask her out. What you do is ask them all out or you don’t get laid okay?

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: I get a lot of flack for this because I go into BME chat and I try to explain to people, it’s like this is like going to a bar, I’m off here, I’m not working, and I might flirt with every girl in there but I’m flirting, this isn’t real, this is cyber here, one. This is what we’re doing, we’re in here to chat, flirt, have a good time. It’s not like they’re in front of me and their clothes are off.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: One and two, in a real live situation, you can look at someone if you have enough sexual experience and you can tell right away whether they want to fuck you or not and you have the option to pick up on that and decide whether you want them or not. But if you approach someone with the sexual experience I have you already whether they want you to.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: So I don’t…

SL: Yeah.

TB: Of ‘Gee should I ask this girl out and what’s she gonna say?’

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Ever.

SL: I mean, I think you know that one of the things that people accuse you of is sort of you know being on the prowl for young girls to, you know to modify in the chat rooms and things like that. How would you respond to people saying that?

TB: Well, it’s exactly what I was saying, it’s not, I’m off, they’re not walking into my house, they’re not walking into my studio okay?

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: I’m off, this is my off time. I’m out having fun. What, just because I’m a piercer, if I go to a club, okay regardless of the fact whether I’m a piercer or not, if I’m going out to a club to meet girls and get laid what am I gonna do? I’m going to flirt with them, I’m hopefully going to talk about my piercings, whether they want some, because if they don’t want any, why do I want to take them home?

SL: Yeah.

TB: Okay, if they’re not into piercing, I don’t even want to know their name.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: I just crossed them out. If they can’t talk about my piercings and I can’t ask them about theirs, they’re done, off to the next one. That’s in a club social environment where you’re going to go out and trying to get laid.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: But these people that are accusing me of that, they’ve never met me, they haven’t walked into my studio, they haven’t been pierced by me, okay? You don’t do that in a commercial environment.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Okay. And like I said, if, when the average person is accusing me of this, is in their mid twenties or younger, they didn’t live through the sexual revolution, they haven’t had hundreds and hundreds of sexual partners, which from their standpoint that’s just like, “Oh my god you’re kidding me you’re lying.” It didn’t happen. Where I’m standing from it’s like, that’s all I had, most of my friends had thousands. [laugh]

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: It was just a different lifestyle. Hell, I’m 37, I’m at the bottom rung of these. Most of my friends are 45-50 years old and they did it for a whole decade prior to me getting old enough to do it and they had thousands of partners. It was nothing.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: It was just really common, but if you have enough sexual experience you could look at someone and you could read their body language and you know, literally, you know if you could walk up to them stick your tongue down their throat and your hands down their pants and have them like it. Right then and there.

SL: But like you said, this is a different generation, these are, you know like you said 16-25 year old kids that just don’t have that experience and don’t know how to deal with this sort of thing.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: So, you know who knows maybe it’s not, I mean, if it, may be appropriate in one environment but not necessarily in this one. Either way, this is, I didn’t want to really get into this in the interview.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: It doesn’t really, who cares right?

TB: [laugh]

SL: Anyway, what I do want to talk to you a bit about after this song is a bit about your aftercare cause you use, I don’t know what the best word for it is, certainly a more organic aftercare than most sort of chemical ridden people are…

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: Recommending…anyway we’re going to continue on that Japanese pop trend, this is Robo Shop Mania — Smile and Shine.

     (song plays)

SL: Alright Todd tell me, someone gets a say someone gets a PA [Prince Albert] from you what’s the aftercare you recommend?

TB: Depends on the gauge, what people don’t realize, they hear about this large gauge stuff and this and that the thicker you go the more intense it is. Cause you are causing more tissue damage so you really have to get your aftercare together. You can’t just go, “Oh do salt soaks.” “Oh use saline.” You know, you really have to know what you’re doing. And the more tissue damage you cause the more intensity it is and you really have to have the next level of intense aftercare just right to make it heal or you’re going to have a problem, a really big problem. So depending upon the person’s maturity level, what type of sexual response they want to achieve, what type of aftercare that I think they’re willing to do, and I sit there and explain the differences between an 8 and a 6 and a 4 and a 2 ga and what they’re really going to have to do to heal it and so forth, and literally, a 2 ga PA I can heal those on someone who’s healthy who doesn’t drink who actually eats red meat and doesn’t do drugs in 2 weeks. Done. But it’s a very intense 2 weeks. And somebody has got to be willing to deal with the intensity. They can’t just get this and go back to work and pretend nothing has happened.

SL: So what do they do?

TB: They’ve had very intense minor surgery. That they did.

SL: So what do they do?

TB: Say if we’re doing a 2 ga this is a scalpel procedure. It’s going to bleed.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: And I use three herbs for healing, which are antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, one’s a very good anti-bruising agent and I also use another herb that will slow and finally stop the blood loss. It’s not an instant, you put it on you have to soak it, soak it and finally it will stop the blood loss, so they’re going to be sticking their dick in a cup of these herbs for a good hour or two if it finally stops the blood. Depending upon how healthy they are, how much stress they’re under, how much sleep they’ve got, all this contributes when you’re dealing with a large gauge piercing, what you’re going to be able to experience or not they can expect to be sitting in the bathroom with this cup, with their dick in this cup for at least an hour and up to 3 or 4 hours, and then it will seep for about 24 hours which I’d rather sit with my dick in a cup than having a big baggie of blood the next day. It’s much better. It’ll seep for the next day or two and if their dick gets really large upon erection which some really swell, is then they’re going to have that nice big baggie of blood around their dick the next day if they get an evening erection.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: In the middle of the night. But…

SL: So what…

TB: Well they have, they have showers, they have a special herb that they put on…

SL: Todd, let me interrupt here.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: The special herbs, can you say what they are or is this Todd’s magic formula that you don’t want to give out?

TB: Well, the main herbs are on the site, they’re lavender, red clover and arnica, arnica is the anti-bruising agent they’re all anti-inflammatory antibiotics.

SL: All fairly well known ones, yeah people can look them up on any number of sites, if they want to learn more about them.

TB: Right. The other herb is an Aztec herb called Quatrolatte and this herb if overused is extremely dangerous, but it’s extremely potent which is why I don’t have it on my site because you can overuse it very easily you can over dry yourself.

SL: What happens?

TB: Right.

SL: It dries out the tissue if you use too much.

TB: It can dry out the tissue and cause a major problem.

SL: Same as alcohol or…

TB: Well…

SL: I mean, same drying effect.

TB: It has a drying effect. It doesn’t have the crystallization effect alcohol will for lack of a better term. It, to give you an idea, let’s say someone has a bleeding ulcer, well contemporary medical science says, “Well we have to cut this out. And re-sew your stomach lining it’s the only way we can heal it.” Well, literally Quatrolatte will dry it up and cure it and heal it.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Quatrolatte is strong enough to where, let’s say you have a 3rd degree burn and just doing soaks with just this herb and peeling off the dead tissue as it dries daily, I’d say a third degree burn on your hand all you’re going to have by the time you’re done healing it is a slight discoloration.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: It’s that potent, but you have to know how to use the herb. You can really injure someone if you don’t know what you’re doing. And most people, they don’t know. So that’s why I didn’t put it up on the site.

SL: Where did you figure out how to use it?

TB: My girl Ophie who I’ve been with for 8 years her uncle was renowned Mexican herbalist who people fly in from all over the world and specifically mention I gave you of the hand burning, her aunt used that on her cousin and that was the result when she was a little girl.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: From just that herb.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: And when I met her I had a little bit of a subincision, and the next time I did a cutting, and she mentioned that herb and we brought it out and we tried it and I tend to experiment around on my own body before I use it on other people so I get the whole feeling of what exactly I’m doing. And that’s exactly how I learned to use the herb is on my penis.

SL: It’s definitely the best way to learn doing stuff on yourself.

TB: Right, yeah. I’m absolutely in amazement when people go, “Oh I’m a piercer” and they’ve got two or three piercings. Like, well no, you’re someone who pretends to be a piercer who pokes holes in people and takes money. That they have no comprehension of what they’re doing.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: That’s my opinion of those people.

SL: Well I know a lot of my understanding of the way piercing works is just by having had tons of piercings and you know, knowing how they’ve all healed differently and having treated them differently and you know seeing the different results.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: Anyway, the next thing I want to ask you Todd is this is probably something you’ve gotten an awful lot of online flack about and you know when I’ve mentioned to people, you know I’m interviewing Todd Bertrang is there anything you want to ask him everyone said, ask him about his autoclave. Um, so tell me Todd what’s up with your autoclave?

TB: Well, I actually happen to have one. [laugh]

SL: But you don’t always use it?

TB: No. Piercers have this thing thinking that they have medical training. They don’t. Usually. Anybody that truly has medical training knows that there are chemical sterilization processes. Anybody who has medical training has heard of what they call an endoscope, what an endoscope is, is a camera that they can use to put down your arteries to see whether they’re clogged or not an endoscope is not autoclavable. There is nothing more infectious, or capable of being infected easier with more damaging results than your arteries or your heart. Period end of story. But if they can put an endoscopes in Wavocide and use it just fine but, ‘Oh my god we can’t put a piercing needle in it.’ They have no concept of what they’re doing at all.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: They scare me that they’re so ignorant of true medical terminology, medical science to say this is a must. Okay. The reason why they said it was a must is because the APP said it’s a must and the APP said it’s a must because an autoclave at the time cost forty-five hundred bucks. And Gauntlet didn’t want all these little piercing stores popping up doing piercings and they thought they could control it like that.

SL: Cause you buy a jug of Wavocide for forty bucks.

TB: Bingo. And be sterile.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Okay? Wavocide is perfectly sterile when used properly.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: This stuff is wonderful, when it doesn’t work anymore it turns colour you can see it’s not going to work.

SL: Yeah, no it’s true I’ve used Wavocide as well, I agree with you. You know and I think that brings up the point that is interesting that a lot of piercers they don’t really, they never really concentrate on understanding what they’re doing they, piercing for them is sort of a rules based system you know. And that’s why…

TB: [affirmative noise] Yeah, well you know the same with doctors, they go to medical school…

SL: Yeah.

TB: They get their PhD and all they know about is what they read. And piercers do the same thing, which is absolutely pathetic. There’s no concept for any room of improvement and any experimentation any true understanding of the process of what they’re actually doing to someone. And here they’re altering someone’s life.

SL: Well I think it would be alright if you’re a carpenter or something that’s a very established field you know where we’ve done ten thousand years of research but…

TB: Right.

SL: You know piercing in the west is a new field you know. I think people who are piercing need to be on their toes and need to really know what they’re doing and need to, need to always be learning and I think a lot of them aren’t.

TB: I’d say that 99.999% of them are not, or learn to a degree and they’re done.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: And the other side to the coin is there’s two ways to make money in this business. Okay? Put up with the fact you’re not, or you get to a point where all you do is production piercing. You’re in and out, you’re gone and it’s good enough to create a hole and a ring and see ya.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Because if you can’t do it that way you’re not going to make any money. There are people who make a hundred grand a year or better in this pierce, in this business but that’s the only way they’re doing it. They’re in and out the smallest as possible, okay, we can’t give them the next size up if we can get them the smallest one because then we don’t get that next size stretch.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Okay? And if their happy with your work they’re going to come back to you and get your jewellery, you get 70% back of everything you do and it takes this $30 piercing and by the time they come back and they stretch and every time they come back and they get something else or their buddy does and over the course of a year it turns this $30 piercing into two-thousand bucks.

SL: Sure, you’re selling them subscriptions instead of a single magazine.

TB: Exactly. And that’s what makes money. But unfortunately, as far as what the piercee is considered what it could be it’s absolutely detrimental to the piercee.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: I mean it’s fine if they want a 14 ga eyebrow but if they want a really good sexual piercing or if they want something really good otherwise, I mean a lot of the people don’t want a 14 ga labret they want an 8 ga labret. But they go in and, “Oh no no we have to start like this and stretch it up” because it makes them money. That’s all it’s about.

SL: Let me ask you Todd, what’s the difference, say someone gets a 12 ga PA…

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: And over the period of a year stretches it up to 2 ga, how is that, how is the end result different from a…

TB: It’s quite a bit different.

SL: Alright.

TB: Depending on how they healed it. Having had a 12 ga PA and stretched it out myself, assuming they even get good placement which most people who start at 12 ga won’t place them properly. Let’s assume they get good placement what happens is, because it’s thinner, you’re creating a much denser area of scar tissue. It’s much harder to stretch. The denser area of scar tissue is much less sensitive. So they just desensitized their dick. Why had they, did you use, get desensitized, a piercing for sensation and do it in such a way that it desensitizes the area that you put it in. That’s pretty stupid.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Okay, that’s what it does. You, you will lose anywhere from 30-100% of your sensation from starting from small in that given area.

SL: Well I don’t think that’s true for everyone though.

TB: For 80% of the people.

SL: Well I don’t know if I’d agree with that number but…

TB: That’s going, based upon statistical average based upon my 12 years of experience from what I’ve seen. Who’ve I pierced and who I’ve come in contact with.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: To give you an example, I, now I didn’t have sex with these two people, I took them at their word. I’ve talked to two girls who swear up and down that prior to getting their nipples pierced at 14 ga they became breast orgasmic. Prior to getting their nipples pierced they weren’t.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Okay? At 6 or 4 ga, you’re dealing in 80% or better are going to be able to have breast orgasms from those piercings done and healed properly at that time. But you’re not going to get that when you pierce at a 14 ga and stretch it out.

SL: [affirmative noise] Well I will tell you I’ve got a few e-mails in the last month of girls writing me you know asking whether it was normal for you know their nipple piercings to eliminate feeling in their nipples. These are regular 14 ga nipples.

TB: It’s very very common.

SL: So I…

TB: Especially over time, especially over a couple of years.

SL: You know we can…

TB: Because the scar tissue continually builds up because it’s continually expanding and contracting and cutting that and I would say somewhere between 30-50% lose partial to complete sensation in a piercing done thinner than 8 ga in the nipples.

SL: Yeah, I think we could…

TB: Conservatively.

SL: Yeah I think we could argue about those percentages but I’ll say even if it’s one in fifty there’s, it’s a, even that one in fifty is a solid argument for why not do it bigger.

TB: In my opinion even if it’s one in a thousand, it’s too much.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Too many.

SL: [affirmative noise] Because…yeah, you know you’re right, even you know obviously a whole different set of play is available in an 8 ga or larger piercing than in a, you know…

TB: Yeah, I mean why…

SL: Even if you’re into light, you know just light play, it’s really easy to accidentally give that piercing a solid tug you know and you can do damage.

TB: Yeah, real easily. Look at it this way. If the girl doesn’t like to have, or the guy like to have a dull knife stuck inside them and get off that way, then why are they putting a dull knife in their nipple why are they putting a dull knife inside of their penis or labia. Because that’s what it is.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: It’s the same thickness.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Don’t you want something that feels good like a finger? You gotta go thicker then.

SL: That’s a good point. That’s a good point. Do you want a dull knife or do you want a finger.

TB: [affirmative noise] Yeah, what feels good to your body?

SL: [affirmative noise] Anyway I want to take another break…

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: When we come back Todd I want to talk about some of the heavier procedures that you’re, that you advocate being female circumcision, sub, and a number of other things. Anyway, this is Creature of Habit by Swearing at Motorist.

     (song plays)

SL: Alright we’re back. Todd, one of the, let’s start with female circumcision, let me ask you first, what is that?

TB: Female circumcision is one of several things. The circumcise literally means to remove around, but it doesn’t say around what. That’s the actual meaning of the word. In the female it could be remove around the vulva, anything in the vulva area you can remove partial or complete the hood, the inner labia, the outer labia if you wanted to, generally it means anything to do with the hood or the inner labia in most contexts. Some people will include the removal of the clitoris itself in that context, but that’s incorrect, that’s a clitorodectomy.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: The anti-female circumcision groups try to persuade the gullible that female circumcision is truly labial occlusion which is actually really rare but what labial occlusion is they remove the inner labia, the hood, the external clitoris and almost all of the outer labia and sew up the remainder leaving a very small menstrual and urinary opening.

SL: Essentially it’s a total genital amputation.

TB: Essentially yeah, external genital amputation. And they try to call it female circumcision and that’s not true at all. Female circumcision in it’s true sense like I said is partial or complete removal of the hood and or the inner labia or any portion thereof.

SL: And I think that you know people especially in this scene don’t realize how incredibly common it is. Last week, Mc, not last week about a month ago, McLean’s which is Canada’s equivalent to Time magazine had a cover article on female circumcision as done by plastic surgeons here on women in the west and spoke very positively about it.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: I think Cosmo has done the same as have any number of other magazines I mean this isn’t, you know this isn’t a far out thing, I mean a lot of people, even a lot of real legitimate doctors have stood behind this.

TB: There are very legitimate reasons to have it done. First off you’re, why does a girl get a boob job or a breast reduction? Enhancement or reduction, because they’re not comfortable with how their body’s are shaped, they want to be shaped like this. They like it. Why shouldn’t someone have power over how their genitals look or respond. We’re under the illusion that because it’s down there on a woman’s body it automatically feels good. Well this is simply not true. Inner labia or hood can actually feel better than the clitoris but they can also feel very bad to touch. Or they could actually feel nothing at all. So if something is feeling bad to touch down there or doesn’t feel a thing why do you want it on your body, you don’t. And you’re better off to remove it or if you don’t like the way it looks, it grosses you out, everyone has a different shape of what they want to look like, and we as adults should have the right to choose that and in the United States there are some places that do offer it as labiaplasty, most of them are not very good even plastic surgeons they absolutely suck, they’re horrible. They’re very expensive and most of them won’t touch you for fear of medical malpractice lawsuits. They are afraid they’ll lose their medical license. It’s a very very touchy subject here in the US, it’s really really scary because some, then I’ve known girls who’ve actually taken matters into their own hands and cut it off with scissors and stuff like this and have tremendous problems from it. But done right it can be a very very enhancing procedure, and can actually cause tremendous increase in sexual sensation.

SL: [affirmative noise] Now the footage that I’ve seen it’s a very bloody procedure when you’re talking about the deeper removals that are fairly complete.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: Is it a dangerous procedure?

TB: Anytime you’re dealing with a loss of blood you’re dealing with a potential shock. And when you’re dealing with potential shock you’re dealing with potential death. What most people don’t understand I, while we’re speaking of this it boggles my mind I do not know of, personally, any place I’ve ever been that does piercings, that does tattoos that has a refrigerator with some orange juice and some cookies and some bananas on hand for when people have a blood sugar reaction. They didn’t even ask them if they’ve eaten. They don’t. It goes right over their head. And then people pass out on the floor and think, “Oh gee it was so painful.” It had nothing to do with the pain, they didn’t eat and they didn’t take care of their self and they think it’s like when they get their haircut and have a blood sugar reaction and pass out. It has nothing to do with pain, it has to do with blood sugar reaction and if you I mean you could go into epileptic shock and seizure and death from this and people just don’t, don’t take care of business, and it’s really really sad. But shock is very very easy to prevent it’s a matter of having enough blood sugar in your systems when the brain reacts to this injury it reaches for its food which is blood sugar. So it can assimilate the new reactions that it’s having, “Oh my god somebody’s’ cutting my pussy. Oh my god somebody’s cutting my dick. Oh my god this is happening to me.” And you don’t go into shock. It’s quite simple.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: You have enough blankets on hand, if you’re doing something major you really want to have an IV drip on hand, depending on what you’re doing but anybody that does any type of body mod that doesn’t have something as simple as orange juice and bananas on hand shouldn’t be in the business.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: And that’s almost everybody out there.

SL: [affirmative noise] Like we mentioned before, most piercers work in a pretty clinical and impersonal environment if I remember the, some of the photos of the procedures that we’re talking about here, you know there’s a couple naked girls, there’s a bed, there’s some ropes, um what sort of situation are these procedures done in?

TB: They’re done in a home studio. Right in a bed.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: What’s the difference in a hospital bed or the bed in your house? It’s a bed…

SL: Yeah.

TB: A bed’s a bed’s a bed.

SL: What I’m asking too is it, is it a scene? Is it, what, you know what relationship is there? I mean is it?

TB: Most people come here because they don’t want to be in a clinical environment where they’re seeking, they have enough intelligence to realize, see there’s more to piercing than what the average piercing store is offering and they travel from all over the world for this different type of feature.

SL: Yeah, it’s true.

TB: They spend thousands of dollars to get here for a hundred dollar piercing.

SL: [affirmative noise] No, it’s true as much as…

TB: Which has a lot to do with what everybody else is doing, if I’m getting all these people from all over the world spending thousands of dollars to come here to get a hundred dollar piercing…

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: I mean that’s pretty pathetic on everybody else’s end. Cause they’re so primitive. But good for me bad for them I guess. But…

SL: Yeah, no its…

TB: Piercings as mentioned to me are sexual. Do I want to have sex in a doctor’s office? Well probably not unless you’re really into the medical aspect and that turns you on. You’re probably not going to get turned on by this real clinical thing. Most people want to have their piercings, in my experience, be a very intimate memorable and sexual experience to them. It has nothing to do with whether they’re having sex with me, I’m just the mode of how they achieve this inner sexual experience.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: Okay? I’m just the, the doctor of the moment that allows it to happen for them. And they’d much rather be in that type of environment. I’ve been requested to do many types of SM scenes with piercings and that sort of thing with ropes and flogging and all that and it’s really not that uncommon. As we mentioned earlier, this is where piercings came from. The leather gay SM movement. It’s where it came from, what it’s all about.

SL: Let me ask you, do you think it’s healthier to do a piercing in that type of environment. Healthier on a psychological level?

TB: Absolutely, tremendously, it’s tremendously freeing. It means you appreciate what you’re doing.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: It means that you are doing it for yourself for your innermost gain, not because my buddy got it and I thought it was cool.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: It’s, it’s important to you.

SL: Right.

TB: It’s real.

SL: Right. Alright, I’ll ask you next about subincision. Subincision I guess is sort of a, certainly a male…

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: Anlagen to circumcision, or splitting of the hood.

TB: In some aspects yeah.

SL: Now, first you did that on yourself and we’ve all read the various experiences on BME and in the PFIQ article.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: Now, when I’ve seen the footage that you, of yours that you’ve done, it doesn’t look like they’re marked it’s just a quick cut it and they seem to turn out perfectly, is, what’s the procedure like? Is it simple? Is it you know, or is there more to it that I’m not seeing?

TB: Well, it’s simple for me but it’s, if you have an 8 year old who’s a musical prodigy, she or he will sit down and go, “Well it’s really easy why can’t you do it?” It’s simple for me but that doesn’t mean it’s simple for someone else.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: As you mentioned on the answer page of BME, there’s a line that go down the body, that separates everything, all you’ve got to do is follow the line. It’s either on center or off center, but it gives you a line.

SL: So you don’t have to draw a line cause it’s already there.

TB: Bingo.

SL: [laugh] Good enough.

TB: [laugh]

SL: Yeah, I guess that’s true. I want to ask you, you’ve had a couple funny procedures come to you. One of them is this strip circumcision.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: Tell me about, what was that and why did the guy want it done?

TB: Well, he was very erotisized, it took me forever to get this guy to tell me this, but he was very erotisized about the concept of having a scar on his penis from his first sexual experience, cause the girl was licking his newly circumcised penis as a teenager and orgasming from it. And that was, he was almost 70 years old and evidently this had stuck in his mind as the best or one of the best sexual experiences he’d had and he wanted to recreate this by having the scar on his penis. And that was his whole concept, literally scarification of the penis.

SL: And…

TB: It was quite interesting I thought.

SL: [affirmative noise] And he was an older guy.

TB: He was almost 70 years old, he was like 67 years old when he came here.

SL: [affirmative noise] And you’ve had, well I don’t even know how much I want to talk about her cause it will just result in this slew of e-mails to both me and you but some of your, you know this I think that 70 year old guy was you know real solid and sane, but not all your clients have been quite so easy to deal with.

TB: No. I’ve had a few people be rather on the very definite end of insane, to where you wonder how they were even let out of the funny farm. And that particular person you’re alluding to actually hasn’t been the only one. That one just got very deep under my skin shall we say. But there’s, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a very significant amount of people which the medical professionals have only seen the very worse end of this that are into modification of the body that aren’t quite all there in their head. Which is really scary, to me, or really sad. And yeah, I certainly got a loo loo for one of those.

SL: [affirmative noise] Now you had, you were fairly deeply involved with at least this one.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: Do you think that sort of your eagerness to do these procedures, and maybe, maybe because of your own sexual excitement attached to them sort of sometimes makes you miss some of the other person’s problems and maybe blinds you to a reason why maybe you shouldn’t be working on them?

TB: That hits very close to the truth. Let me give an analogy in your own life. Let’s go back to where you got your first computer and were first getting into mods and now today you’ve got zillions of subscriptions you’re it as far as on the Internet if anybody wants to do anything with piercings your it. You are it Shannon.

SL: [affirmative noise] Yeah.

TB: And have been it for a long time. But let’s just say back then when you had this inkling of an idea, okay someone spelled out, “Gee if you do this for me I can do that for you and make you do that tomorrow.”

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: You’d want that to happen.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: And you’d believe their story. If it sounded reasonable. And that’s exactly what happened with this girl.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: She gave me a story that I wanted to believe in, that sounded reasonable to me and because I’m open to other types of cultural things and other types of sexuality I gave her the benefit of the, of the doubt.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: And it didn’t occur to me that someone would invent literally their entire life story, their friends, their family everything in detail.

SL: Yeah, I’m hoping that at least a few of the people who are listening to this know who we are talking about or else this is just a big in joke, so we won’t get, I don’t think we’ll go into it anymore.

TB: Right.

SL: Anyway I’m going to play one more song, and when we come back I want to talk to Todd about some of his new plans which are for some of you, will hopefully be very exciting and maybe you can do some fun stuff with Todd. Anyway this is Fred Lane, this just got re-released on CD, this is absolute insanity, this is The Man with The Fold Back Ears.

     (song plays)

SL: Alright that was some crazy stuff we just listened to. Anyway, you know there are porn stars with nipple piercings there are porn stars with a hood piercing, but there’s not really, there’s not really much of a pierced porn market. There’s O-Pearl and that whole Creative Art Collective or something like that.

TB: In Germany, near Frankfurt.

SL: Somewhere in Europe you know but that’s a very specific type of fetishy pornography.

TB: [affirmative noise]

SL: Now Todd you’ve invested a lot of money in a new sort of both business and personal venture. You want to tell us a bit about that and maybe how some of the people listening if they’re so inclined can get involved in it?

TB: [affirmative noise] Well I have had the idea for quite a few years now to start doing pierced pornos. Which the pornography market first off they don’t want their girls pierced that much. They’ll put up with a couple of little things and it takes under normal techniques, years to obtain any type of amount of and gauge and thousands and thousands of dollars, because most people don’t have it, and in fact I was trying to do this earlier and it finally dawned on me that the only way I’m going to be able to do this is to literally do the modifications free and bring girls out and let them live in my estate that I just bought, I just bought a 3 acre estate with a very very large house and pool and whatnot and we’ll be remodeling it making it extremely large but so I’m going to be bringing girls from all over the world at my expense to stay for three months at my estate with free mods, but they have to have sex with me and other girls and other guys on film.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: And we’ll be videoing this and hopefully marketing this which it will take some time to get out but I think that’s the only way to get really intense mods, I don’t know of anybody else who can literally sit and do 20-30-40 pussy rings or dick rings at one sitting and heal them in fuckable in three weeks besides myself.

SL: [affirmative noise]

TB: They don’t have the techniques, and people I tell them that and they can’t even believe I’m doing one 6 ga ring in three weeks and healing it. But that’s what I can do. And so if you’re cute and you’re female, or if you’re a guy let me know.

SL: They can contact you through www.toddbertrang.com there’ll be a link obviously with this as well so they can just click over onto it. And I guess what they should, what should e-mail you a picture of themselves.

TB: Yup e-mail me tell me their interests, it’s going to be extreme, I don’t want one or two piercings, you want a hood piercing that’s not enough.

SL: This is a lifestyle change you better be into it and…

TB: Yeah you better be into it you’re going to walk away with 20-50 piercings or a circumcision some radical stuff.

SL: [affirmative noise] And if you’re into it it’d be a lot of fun.

TB: And if you’re female, you’ll be living on my estate for three months and you better be ready to prove to me that you’re not a nut like the one I got [laugh].

SL: [laugh]

TB: Before, I don’t need that again.

SL: Alright well Todd, I want to thank you for talking to us today, I want to thank you for sort of bravely standing forward and saying what you know piercing is really about to you and I think to an awful lot of other people and I hope the movie project goes well and I wish you the best of luck on Todd and thanks for talking to us.

TB: Thanks I hope to be back again one day.

SL: Excellent

     (song plays)

.

Blair: Revisiting BMEradio

I finally got around to dusting off some of the old BMEradio files — I hope there are at least a few people reading this who remember when it first aired, but since many do not, I figured it was about time to put it into the permanent BME archives.

First of all, you can download this interview as an MP3 file if you’d prefer by clicking here. Please realize that’s a 25 meg file, and bandwidth costs money — if you enjoy listening to it, consider donating pictures or stories to BME in return (or money). I’ll also mention that it’s totally cool by me if people insert that into file sharing applications or post it on their own web sites as well, as long as it is not altered.

Below — thanks to Vanilla — we have a transcript of the interview (now almost five years out of date I think, keep that in mind) we did with Blair (iam). I know that BME has many hearing impaired readers who have been waiting for this to be added for a very long time (I’ll add more as time permits). Below the interview is some info on where BMEradio is evolving this year:

Shannon Larratt: Alright welcome back everyone I’m Shannon Larratt you’re tuned into BME Radio we’re here in the brand new BME Radio studio with Blair from Tattorama in Toronto. Also here we’ve got Phil Barbosa one of BME’s resident photographers who’s got extensive work done by Blair and we’ll be talking to him a little later about that. While you’re listening to this you can zip on over to byblair.com to see a little bit of Blair’s work. Although if you’ve been reading BME for a while you’ve certainly seen his piercing, scarification work, implants, and subincisions lots of times before. Blair, as somebody who’s done all of these modifications as well as having dabbled in tattooing, what, what would you consider your title to be?

Blair: Um, you know what? I would just have to say probably just artist.

SL: Just artist?

B: Keep it simple. I think so yeah, because I think I’ve spread myself so much on so many different levels, I think at least I mean doing tattooing and doing scarification, doing branding, doing piercing and doing other different types of modifications. Um, you know I’ve done wood burning, and I’ve built waterfalls and things so to me I don’t see much of a difference in building a waterfall and working on a person it’s just a different art form.

SL: So you’re not even just a body artist, you’re an – artist.

B: Yeah, I think I feel more, more like that now, especially. Maybe a few years ago I might have maybe uh, been a bit more you know picky about what I called myself.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: Even then, back years ago when we first did stuff for the BME, I couldn’t really classify myself very much. [laugh]

SL: I think tattoo artists especially are real, real adamant you know that you know you pick an art form and you stick to it and you know you get real good at that, you don’t feel that you know you’re spreading yourself too thin, or?

B: You know what, I tell my customers that quite a bit especially when it comes to, um they say that’s all you do is, is you know piercing, you don’t do tattoo and I think honestly if you’re going to be really good at something you should be quite, quite picky about it you should you know focus on one thing. But I think, um you know I’ve mostly focused on body piercing like you know navels and tongues and eyebrows and different genital piercings and stuff but I mean after you’ve done those, those modifications for so long it’s kind of like a base. You know, and the other things start to become more, more like hobbies. And there’s nothing more creative and nothing more, how would you say, at least I think there’s nothing more special than having a hobby that you really care for and I think navel, like the navel piercing and all the eyebrows and all the other kind of stuff that I think 99.9% of the piercers do for a living, it starts to become a little bit like work. You know, you can’t, I mean I must admit I love my job it’s incredible but after a while you know, you must admit it’s a little bit like work. It’s a good work I must admit but it’s not as exciting as like building a new waterfall and having an incredible idea in your brain and actually turning it into something or spending like two or, two hours on drawing the most amazing brand and think like, “Man I’m going to pull this off and it’s gonna look sweet.” So, to me, it’s just art. [laughs]

SL: So is a lot of it taking, you know taking sort of an idea and realizing it? That’s the…

B: Absolutely. Especially with branding, you know. You know you spend a lot of time drawing a branding and especially I think to be a true artist for branding you have to really envision what it’s going to look like you know, three weeks from then you know. And I think that takes a lot of skill to understand how the skin works and what it does when you burn the skin and implant it in such a way, so I think um yeah, I don’t know well…

SL: Yeah, well we’ve got, actually we’ve got some exciting branding stuff coming up from Blair. We’re going to play one song for you then we’ll let you know what the big secret is.

[song]

SL: Alright, now here’s where things get pretty exciting for you. BME and Blair are co-sponsoring a “Best Brand in the World” design contest. The way it works is you come up with a brand that you’d like to have, I mean no limits, no limits at all, it can be as big, or as complicated as you want. The only deal is, you obviously you gotta be 18. But the only real deal is that you have to be willing to actually get it. BME and Blair will pick the best 10 entries and then the actual best one will be flown to Toronto to have the brand done and this is all for free. All you have to do is e-mail a sketch of your idea to BME and in one month we’ll announce the finalists and then a week later the winner. Blair, what made you want to do this contest?

B: [laughs] Um, I just love branding, you know. I love doing big pieces. I mean it’s like um, it’s very much like a canvas, you know you need to have something to work from. You know, if you don’t have something to work from then you don’t have any canvas.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: I think here in the city I mean there’s lots of people I can work on, there’s no question about it. I mean I have people coming from, flying from all different places and stuff, but I think there’s something special about somebody who really really wants it you know and willing to you know go out of their way a little bit to you know e-mail you, write a little thing about why they want to get branded, um I don’t know it’s very exciting to me. I can just imagine the person being so stoked you know to win this and to fly here and for me to see them in person and talk to them about it and actually see the end result, you know. I just think that’s really cool. Um, yeah, I just wanna do good work, you know, I wanna work on someone and I wanna have fun and I think um, somebody that’s really willing to uh you know go out of their way a little bit I think it would be really fun to work on them.

SL: [affirmative noise] Most people that come to you for branding have you know fairly small and simple ideas, or? What do people normally come for?

B: Um, I try not to really do a lot of work where there’s really a lot of simple ideas. If people, if someone desperately wants to get something quite simple, then, if I have time, then I’ll do it, but I think at this point in time I really try to um, [tsk] I guess you could say push my limits in terms of what people consider a traditional brand. Because I really think a lot of the people that brand out there are just doing really awful work it’s just really simple, it’s really crude, quite basic, and I think um, there’s so much potential out there for doing, you know amazing work, constant lines…

SL: Why do you think that is? Is it difficult to do this type of branding? I mean…

B: I think, even for myself, I’ve been branding for about, I don’t know how many years, maybe four or five years, or longer…

SL: I think longer than that, yeah.

B: Yeah, and I think, I mean, when I first started things were quite simple because you know you’re brand new at it, you know. But just like any other art form you have to progress, you know, you can’t just do the same thing for so long, and I think I’m getting to the point really where I’m almost kind of picking and choosing how I’m going to do a design, um, I shouldn’t say I’m picking and choosing for them but um, if they come to me with a rough idea and I can probably do a very simple rough idea.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: But I prefer to sit down for a while and actually draw it in such a way that it takes a lot more skill.

SL: So, a person comes to you, we’ll I guess we’ll talk about the one you’re doing coming up here. A guy comes to you, wants an Astro Boy tattoo…

B: Sure.

SL: Gives you an Astro Boy pencil case, says I want it to look like this.

B: Or branding. Sorry, yeah.

SL: What are the steps in taking that pencil case and turning it into a branding?

B: Well, basically what I’ll do, is I’ll look at the design, I’ll think about where the person wants to get it and I’ll think about how big they want it to be. Branding is a lot similar to tattoo where you just can’t do the smallest thing, you know, because if the lines are too close, if they’re too close together they are going to bleed together in terms of like tattoo ink. In terms of branding it’s pretty much the same thing. If the lines are too close they’re going to breed, bleed. So what you have to do is you have to design it in such a way that, that when the whole thing expands you know after the thing’s completely finished then it’s going to expand and in such a way that it’s going to look like you want the end result to be. So…

SL: So kind of like if you’re going to make a complicated design out of cookie dough?

B: Kind of yeah, you really have to think about it ahead of time. Like, when I’m drawing it, I’m looking at it in the future, even though I’m, the drawing looks sometimes nothing even close to what the person wants.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: Like the barbed wire I showed you today, it’s quite a simple design, but the end result is definitely going to look like bobbed wire, or barbed wire. [laughs] Bob wire. Yeah.

SL: And, then the way that the person treats it, presumably during the healing process makes a great deal of difference as well?

B: Um, sometimes yeah. I think to some degree a lot of it has to do with genetics. You know, either you’re a person who has really good keloid skin, tends to scar quite easily or sometimes you don’t. And I think it doesn’t necessarily have to do with your skin colour. I mean, technically it does. Some people have more melatonin than other people, but I’ve seen white people with amazingly raised keloid skin and I’ve seen black people who raise quite flat. Or not raise at all sometimes. You know.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: But the one thing that I do guarantee is that um, the width of it and the design is going to look, it’s going to look amazing, whether it keloids and raises or not is something quite different. You know, it’s something that is out of my control and I put into your body’s control. Um, there are some things you can do, like you can pick at it and you can irritate it and you can do numerous things and I think that definitely will increase your chances of getting scar tissue, but doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to end up with a raised keloid scar but you will have guaranteed a permanent scar and it will be quite visible, it’s something you’ll always be able to see, even if it’s flat. So, I think it’s kind of an old misconception of um you know the guy did really shitty work or something like that because it ended up being quite flat.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: And I think, no matter who’s going to do the work, if it’s done quite well – on some people it’s always going to end up flat. And I think, um, people just have to, especially branders have to really um, learn to understand uh, you know what, what they can expect from their brand. You know, I think they have to just understand that they can do the full 100% but I think a certain percentage of it is not even up to the person who’s getting it, it’s up to the person’s, you know, genetics.

SL: [affirmative noises]

B: So, and I think once you understand that I think um, you know you just kind of realize that I did my best and that’s all there is to it. The rest is just up to nature.

SL: Right. Now, about, what was it, two years ago? You picked up a cautery-branding unit.

B: Yeah.

SL: And you did a little bit of it. But even for your detailed work you’re still largely doing strike branding. Um, you don’t find that the cautery gives you more freedom and that you can do just as much with strike branding?

B: I think the way that I brand for sure, there’s not much difference. I think um, you know there’s something really nice about holding a paintbrush in your hand. I mean, I’m really, I wouldn’t consider myself a painter at all. I don’t paint much other than you know, the walls of my apartment occasionally, but I, to me, holding my tool is very similar to holding a paintbrush and having to re-dip in the paint again, instead I have to relight, you know reheat the iron up. Um, and I think the way I brand I do like multiple strikes whereas a lot of branders, they’re just, I guess they’re quite new at it, they just kind of hold their breath and go, “Oh my God, one quick shot, that’s it.” And you know, I think that’s just not realistic, so I think, as for the cautery unit it takes a lot of the um, it takes a certain feel away from it you know, it’s like um, it’s like having a paintbrush and painting as opposed to doing it on the computer with Photoshop. I don’t think one’s any better than the other but I think, um for me there’s a certain, I can’t explain it. There’s a nice feel to it, I always, for years I’ve always considered branding very much like painting.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: You know, I hold that thing in my hand and it’s just like these nice brush strokes you know, it’s kind of like that.

SL: Well I think overall you, you know, you’ve made similar decisions before like, you know you drove a motorcycle rather than a car.

B: Yeah, little skateboard [laugh] instead of a anything else [laugh]. Yeah.

SL: Um, we’re going to play another song and when we come back we’ll talk about some of Blair’s traveling in Borneo and Mexico and collecting of a variety of indigenous jewellery.

[song]

SL: Alright, Blair you just got back from your second trip to Mexico now that was more of a recreational trip than a body oriented trip. What were you doing down there?

B: [laugh] Well basically I wanted to tour a little bit through Mexico and um, and see some of the Mayan temples I also wanted to see Mexico city cause largest city in the world. I love chaos, you know I love big big cities, it’s amazing how they function you know, it’s incredible.

SL: Are there studios down there?

B: I saw a few studios down there.

SL: What were they like?

B: Their standards are a lot different.

SL: Yeah.

B: Definitely a lot lower. I mean I shouldn’t really say that but, the shops I saw, the standards were quite low. That’s all I’m going to say, it’s just a different way of thinking you know.

SL: But mostly you were surfin’.

B: Mostly I was surfing, yeah. That was the thing. Yeah, I met some amazing people down there and I surfed. You know I have to say one thing, I saw this tattoo shop down there that just scared me. I was visiting, I had a card on me and I thought, oh wow how’s it going you know, can I have one of your cards? He was tattooing this guy he pretty much just opened the counter door with his bloody gloves, grabbed the business card and dropped it in my hand and I just picked it up with my fingers and just dropped my card and thought oh my god these people, I felt so bad that so many people are being cross contaminated potentially. And not even knowing anything about it. That’s what I mean. Standards are a lot lower, that would be completely unacceptable in Canada. I’m sure it’s unacceptable anywhere.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: Anyways, surfing is good! [laughs]

SL: [laughs]

Phillip Barbosa: [laughs]

SL: You’re just as recreational but more oriented to this trip. You recently got back from Borneo.

B: Right, yeah. It was amazing.

SL: Now, you went over with Erica Skadsen of Organic and a number of other people.

B: Yeah, it was amazing, you know. I went to um, to Borneo and I stayed with the Iban tribe and the Kayan tribe.

SL: How, how do you get there?

B: I was lucky enough to meet Erica a few years ago, you know ordering jewellery from her. She’s such an amazing person. She invited me to go and I gladly went. I’ve always wanted to go you know into the jungle and you know Borneo, I remember liking Borneo since I was a kid and just the thought of going there was pretty exciting. I mean, in order to get to the jungle you know what it’s, I think I was quite lucky. I think when I went with Erica I learned a lot about how to travel in those kind of um, how would you say, I don’t know in that kind of situation you know like not speaking the language, learning how to catch boats, learning how to…

SL: Okay so what happens, you I mean I assume there’s a major airport somewhere in Borneo, or nearby?

B: Yup, uh, yeah there’s a major, one major, I’m sure there’s probably a few, I’m sure there’s one in maybe uh Brunei, and there’s probably one in um, Indonesia.

SL: So you land there then you catch a long boat up the river or what happens?

B: Well, what we did was we ended up um, we flew into there, it took like, I think all together we spent about for me I think it was thirty something hours maybe thirty-four hours traveling getting to where we were going and basically we flew into Kuching City and then from there I think it was a twelve hour bus ride and then from there it was like a five hour river boat ride and um, it was amazing.

SL: When you show up at tribal longhouses are you a tourist, I mean what do they think of you?

B: I think um, because my ears are stretched, and because I’m tattooed and because I think those people don’t really see that many white folks you know I think there are tourists and that, that go up there, but I think that some of the places that I went to I don’t think they saw you know tourists and it’s such a long long time so I think it probably happens maybe you know maybe a few times a year. There was one longhouse we stayed at and it was, it was in kind of more closer to a major town four hours away from the other longhouse that I went to and they had like a little guest book and I think lots of tourists went there for sure. But I think um…

SL: But not many of them would actually stay there?

B: Most of them I think wouldn’t stay there.

SL: I mean it’s not like a longhouse takes visa right?

B: No, nothing like, it’s a bit different than that. [laughs]

SL: [laughs] But when you stay there how do you eat, where do you sleep?

B: Well I’m vegan so it was really hard, I had to bring so many vitamins and anytime I found something like you know any kind of nuts or anything I made sure I grabbed them. You know, where we went to we were pretty welcomed because, I think Erica was corresponding with one of them for such a long time you know with letters and stuff and man, they don’t get half of their mail, so it’s a hit and miss whether they’re going to receive it or not. I’ve sent packages and stuff there and I know they haven’t received it. Um, but uh, they, we made kind of rough arrangements that we’d show up around this time and uh, we went there and we were just welcomed immediately and I think it really helped that we were tattooed and pierced and I think, I can’t explain it, I just kind of fit right in there. I mean the life there is completely different, I found that a lot easier to adjust to.

SL: Are they living like a picture book tribal life, or what’s it like?

B: Um well there’s no telephones…there’s no hot water.

SL: What do they spend an average day doing?

B: You know they make things like mats and they do, they make um I mean they farm in the paddy fields, they go into the jungle and they hunt for um, pig – babi, and they um. Man, they do a lot of hunting um, they you know they fish in the rivers and stuff. Sometimes they use this poison root you know, and um it helps the, it’s hard to explain, I think what it does is it deoxygenates the water so the fish get intoxicated and they start floating up and you have to get them with spears and you have to get them with nets. So they’re always busy mostly getting food.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: That’s the main thing. Without food you don’t really have very much. I think a lot of the men end up working in logging camps and possibly in oilrigs and stuff. And all the older men and all the children stay at home.

SL: Right.

B: Well, I stayed at like a I think all together, I stayed in f…six different villages. Some was for like five days some was like for two days some was for, I think the longest might have been for seven days in one place. And they were all in different parts. And some places were probably close to like, maybe sixteen hours away from anywhere.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: You know, if you needed a hospital you’d be pretty far to get to that, that’s for sure. Uh, and other places, were not that far off because the, a lot of the Iban and the Kayan and Punan and all the other tribes, they’re all living all around the whole island, you know so some are close to cities and some are extremely far away. So, yeah, it was good. I can’t explain it. It was so, there was so much.

[telephone ringing]

B: [laughs]

SL: Well, that’s annoying, uh we’ve got a phone ringing in the background that we’ll just ignore, we’ll let Phil pick it up and tell them to call back later.

B: Yeah, I mean there was so much to know and there was so much that I learned, and I wouldn’t really want to be giving people directions on how to get there because I think that would probably be the worst thing for these people. So, but it was a good adventure and it was really, uh, really quite a trek through the jungle. It was good, I mean the coolest thing I did, I think was, was fishing in the river using that root you know, I didn’t even eat the fish because I’m vegan but these people are giving you everything. They’re giving you sleep, they’re giving you food, you know they’re giving you everything so the least I could do was at least you know catch food for them. Very minimal.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: Um, it was good. A good experience.

SL: And then right after that you did about the exact opposite and headed over to Japan.

B: Yeah, that was a, that’s where I had culture shock. Because I’d been in the jungle for, by that point, I think close to I think maybe sixteen days, was the longest time I think I spent in there and to go from that I went to um, a friend of a friends place and they were quite rich. And with a maid and everything and I was in complete culture shock, I didn’t know what to do. I was like I was afraid to like mess up the bathroom [laugh]. I mean, from living, from living in the interior and going to the washroom anywhere you please or in like um little squats where you have to, you know you get the bucket of water to flush it down into the river. Going from that to like every faucet was finely polished and the maid would make absolutely anything you wanted, I felt so much closer to the maid than I did to the people I was staying with [laugh]. It was good.

SL: [laugh]

B: But it was a big culture shock.

SL: Alright, we’re gonna play a little more music. I’m going to figure out what that phone call was and when we get back we’ll talk about subincisions and implants and if you thought the scarification was scary now’s when you should hit stop on your Real Audio Player and if not you’re gonna find out some stuff you didn’t know.

[song]

SL: Alright, well that goes on for a long long time so we’re gonna, we’re gonna break back into talking. So Blair, one of the more hardcore and maybe even controversial pieces of work that you do is subincision. What exactly is that?

B: Well, basically subincision is when you, you basically cut the urethra open so that it’s exposed and then you…

SL: Hold on a sec, we’ve actually, we’ve got Phil here, and you’ve actually done one on Phil. I’ll direct this question to you, why in the world would someone want to do such a thing?

PB: Well for me it was always just something interest me the aesthetic of it, for one, it adds girth, like visually, it just, the whole esthetic idea of a subincision appealed to me and that’s why I did it and after seeing Jay interview Jay subincision, I think it was on BME that always interested me, like just from looking at it, it looked like the neatest thing and the idea of being able to adorn it differently by piercing it down the sides of the ridges, and the idea of having a whole other surface that’s sensitive all of a sudden. Where before you just had the base of the shaft of your penis and for most people it’s rather callous and numb and all of a sudden you cut it open and it’s brand new sensations in a totally different world, when it comes to your sexual sensations or anything.

SL: Now, you know, the, I don’t want to embarrass your girlfriend too much but uh, just a little [laugh] does it work? I mean, it’s healed now are you happy with the results?

PB: I’m happy, um, from what I understand she’s happy. She didn’t have any real problems with it. She was actually there for the procedure. Funny little story, she was there before she was, she came with me just as a friend, and sat through the whole procedure, documented the whole procedure and weeks later we started dating, we finally did actually um, have sex it was a different experience. I mean, it wasn’t totally different than anything else she’s ever experienced. I mean, I have multiple genital piercings so that was different enough but um, I think just the, things like oral sex were different and from what I gathered, I was told everything was different yet at the same time strangely more comfortable.

SL: [affirmative noise] I think one of the things that Jay has always said is you know from a philosophical point of view one of the things a subincision does, is, because you urinate out of the base now it makes the penis nothing but a sexual organ. Uh, you know it loses all functional purpose other than that. Um, Blair, how would you, sort of in comparison to your regular clients, how would you characterize, who comes to you for a subincision?

B: Um, wow, that’s a tough one. You know, I’m really picky about who I work on and I think, you know because it’s a subincision, it’s such an extreme procedure I think that, I mean the people that I’ve worked on really are people who’ve pretty much tried to do it themselves you know. I consider myself somewhat like a facilitator you know I’m not sure if I would do a subincision on absolutely anybody. You know people have to understand the implications when they get a procedure like this it’s permanent I mean I’m sure you could probably go to a plastic surgeon and get it refixed.

SL: You can but it’s a mess afterwards.

B: Yeah, I mean you pretty much have to think that like it’s a permanent procedure the people that I’ve worked on pretty much of other tried to do it themselves were still absolutely convinced that this is what they were wanted that they were willing to you know make it you know a permanent a permanent you know thing. So, um, I mean I’ve, I’ve, man, the people I’ve worked on are so different like you know from photographers to computer um…

SL: And a real age range too, I mean Phil you’re what, twenty-two, yeah and…

B: Yeah, I think two people I worked on were twenty two be other two were like fifty and fifty-five or something and I think it, you know, I’ve had I can’t even like really characterize them because they’re all completely different it’s just like tattooing and it’s just like piercing and it’s just like everything else I’ve done there’s just such a wide range of people you can’t really. I mean one person was into fetish, and one person was not at all into fetish you know I mean you can’t really.

SL: Did fetish work it’s way into the procedure or?

B: Oh, absolutely not.

SL: And, I mean in his head, even if you actually didn’t do anything.

B: Uh, ooo, I don’t know that’d have to be his head, I don’t know. [laughs]

SL: Maybe you don’t want to know the answer to that one. [laughs]

B: No, I mean I try to I consider myself much like a facilitator in I draw lines on what I can what I will work on I think even you know Shannon that I’m probably a bit more conservative than a lot of people what you call cutters or something but I have limits I really prefer to work on body modifications that were traditionally done by the lay person. You know, subincision was traditionally done by aboriginals in Australia, pearling was traditionally done in Japan and all over Asia I’m told also in parts of Africa, um I mean there’s so many different types of body modifications out there but I really prefer to stick to those you know. But I tend to change it in such a way that it becomes very, like I’m very picky about procedures you know because you have to be very picky about cross contamination and sterilization and all that kind of stuff so.

SL: I’m assuming a subincision especially because you’re really opening the body up and there’s a lot of blood and…

B: Yeah, absolutely but it’s the same thing as doing a cutting on somebody’s arm or on their leg you have to be very meticulous about, you know not cross contaminating, or not infecting them or infecting your shop for that matter you know. So you have to be very picky about that so I kind of take what I see as being traditional body modifications and taking the modern tools and the modern techniques that we have and using it you know to its advantage you know. But I think there’s a limit you know people have called me wanting the utmost extreme different types of body modifications and I know from what I believe you know from human anatomy that there are limits you know and as much as to see people on the BME with pretty extreme different body modifications as an artist I feel there are limits and I think I have safe limits.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: And I think if people you know if I don’t feel it’s very safe and I don’t feel that they are suited to such a procedure I gladly turn them down I’ve had no problems with that at all. And I think, um it is a kind of weird procedure you know because it’s something that technically a physician can’t do I mean. Well I shouldn’t say technically a physician can’t do but I mean a physician’s not licensed to do a subincision. So I think for me being a lay-person.

SL: I think doctors, yeah they’re very restricted in the type of procedure they do.

B: Exactly. So I think I have to be very picky on who I’m going to work on you know.

SL: [affirmative noise] Now, you know, I don’t know, which is trickier but you’re also, you’ve also done a lot of genital implant work.

B: [affirmative noise]

SL: Um, now you’re tools have sort of evolved over time, your procedure has changed. You want to talk about what you were doing first and then how it sort of changed into the way it is now? You know scalpel versus needle and…

B: Yeah, I think I mean when I used to do pearling I used to use, traditional needle and stretch and taper and now it’s worked ‘til like scalpel. And now it’s worked to, and you know different tools for a basically creating pocketing and um it’s still something that’s still new for me and I still have to learn to work with these crazy tools with my friend Phil over here. [laugh] But I think, um yeah it’s evolved, I mean everything has to evolve. I think when you find something you when find a new technique and I think because you’re working on a human being that you have to learn to make things better you have to learn to make things safer, you have to make things more efficient it’s not like you know carving wood, you kinda if you’re happy with it you stick with your old methods. I think…

SL: The first time, or the first couple times are inherently you know they’re experiments, I mean, you know you can do as much research but I mean, Phil, how do you, how do you feel about knowing that you know this procedure that’s being done on you, it’s the first time it’s been done and you know, who really knows how it’s going to turn out and…

PB: I don’t know, I getting worked on by Blair for so many years, I just know that, I mean he’s a solid practitioner I guess or artist if I can call him that, like just procedure wise, bedside manner everything, and he knows his stuff it’s not something I’m concerned about that it’s you know I’m going to walk away being all mutilated or anything like that. Like obviously if he has a doubt in his mind as far as the procedure goes or the way this is going to be done it’s just not gonna happen. I’m, over the years of getting worked on I’m more than happy to put my trust into Blair’s hands as are most of his other clients I mean I’ve met other people that Blair’s done work on and they won’t let anybody else touch them, like piercing anything.

SL: Well, I think Blair’s know that if he needs to make a judgment call on a procedure he’s usually makes the judgment call on the conservative side.

B: Quite conservative side. [laugh] Yeah absolutely.

SL: I mean, even though, even though I think people look at these procedures and really think they’re far out you know, weird stuff they’re actually still on the safer side of you know what people try.

B: Absolutely, I mean you can just imagine what it would have been like you know a hundred years ago doing a subincision in Australia. I mean can you imagine. I just I mean the, it must have been quite crude you know.

PB: All they had is a sharp rock.

B: Yeah.

SL: I think that’s important to point out too, that all these procedures have, you know they’ve been done basically by field medics. You know.

B: Absolutely.

SL: You know, with a real minimum of precautions that we have access to.

B: Yeah. I don’t doubt that they really, they knew which herbs to use for this and which herbs to use for that but I mean the standards were quite different you know and I also think they’re immune systems were probably quite, uh, they’d probably be a lot more immune to bacterial infections because they were living so close to the earth. Where we’re living in a quite sterile environment.

SL: And I think, I think they probably had less bacteria to deal with they don’t have, you know, the super bacteria that we’ve you know, evolved in the west through constant use of antibiotics.

B: Yes, absolutely.

PB: I think they do it the same way so many times over and over that they’ve just understood a very specific way of doing it. I’ve read that the Australian, the way they used to do it was basically with a sharp rock and some thorns to hold you together but from years of doing it over over an over you know, and passing it on to lay people obviously they understood that this is exactly how it’s done and it’s done the same way over and over and over and it’s just refined over the years.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: [affirmative noise] Yup, I mean I had one client who was, he was HIV positive and my biggest concern with him was that my procedure was going to be the one thing that’s going to send him you know, over the edge. So, I um I sent him to a physician so he could get his um, viral loads and his um, and just basically see if everything’s alright with him and then the physician actually called me up in person and said that everything was fine with him in terms of his health and he’s willing, he felt that he’d be okay to do this procedure.

SL: This was a, what was the procedure?

B: This was a subincision.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: Yeah. So, I mean, I had that concern…

SL: What was his motivation in doing it do you know?

B: You know, I think, I think he really had wanted it most of his life, and you know even before the BME site some of these people at least the two older people that I’d worked on had thought of this for close to twenty years. And I find that quite astounding and they never even knew of the aboriginals even doing this. In fact both of them, I gave them photocopies of this aboriginal of um, who had a subincision because they’d never saw it before, and and I think one guy had wanted it for so long and I guess he did find out he was HIV positive and he felt that at least before he goes he at least wants this.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: So, I was, you know, glad to oblige him for sure.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: Providing everything was safe. That was my biggest concern of course.

SL: Now Blair, you’re not actually subincised yourself but, I mean you’re covered head to toe in a variety of modifications and when we come back we’ll ask you a bit about those.

[song]

SL: Alright, Blair, I’m looking at you and I’m seeing you’ve got your face tattooed you’ve got you know huge stretched ears, you’ve got uh tattoos on your hands you’ve got brandings on your forearms and I’m sure all sorts of stuff that I can’t see under your clothes.

B: Cutting on my stomach. Yeah.

SL: What, what are you trying to achieve with the changes you’ve made to your own body?

B: I think when I first started to get tattooed it was kind of like a like venting almost you know. I had a lot of troubles when I was a kid and a lot of um…

SL: How old are you now? I mean we look at magazine articles…

B: Today I’m twenty-five.

SL: It’s a different age every time.

B: Today I am twenty-five. [laugh]

SL: So you’re ageless. Alright so you’re having trouble as a kid and sort of expressing that through tattooing.

B: It’s amazing, it’s and amazing I mean to physically put on your body permanently I think is incredible you know. I think it has a certain symbolic meaning that you can’t really do anywhere else. I mean you can’t, you can paint on a canvas, but it’s never quite the same as when you actually put it on your body. So that’s how I basically got started. And I think you know I got into piercing and I found that so incredible and it really taught me a lot about myself and a lot about you know healing in general you know. But I think now I’ve changed so much I’ve grown so much, and also from working in the industry for so long I think really I look at it like, one big canvas. And I don’t now, when I get a tattoo, I don’t really think about the whole meaning and the whole symbolic you know meaning behind all of that because I think I got my shit together, I know exactly who I am, I know exactly what I want, in life and I know that I don’t necessarily need to put it on my body you know basically I’d like to look at myself when I’m finished and see one big work of art you know, I want to see the bottom half of my tattoo, like from my waist down, I wanna see it like one simple tattoo and I wanna see the top half one simple tattoo. So basically I’ll have two tattoos in my body with exception of my chin and um, my hands are I guess a little bit different than the rest. They’re like, um, I guess, what are they? Little patterns.

SL: We’ll get Phil to snap some photos too.

B: Yeah. But that’s basically how I feel and a lot of the spiritual stuff that meant so much to me still do but they’re basically being covered over just for art.

SL: You’re back piece is a tree of life, is that, is there spiritual meaning there or is it more of an esthetic statement?

B: Well I would say it’s definitely a spiritual statement but it’s so esthetically pleasing, you know it’s like a Tibetan style tree with Tibetan mountains and water and I don’t know, it’s just beautiful to me. There’s nothing, I guess, what I really wanted on my back was like a little vision of paradise.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: Life’s a bit crazy you know, as much as I like the chaos, there’s nothing nicer than simplicity and nothing is as nice as nature.

SL: Is that why you’re starting this new business, building waterfalls?

B: Yeah, it’s just a hobby. You know, I really like, I mean waterfalls is such an amazing medium. You know you think of a frame that you’re going to build out of concrete or stone, or out of whatever you choose to make it out of, and then you basically build from then on up. You know, what you want the structure to be, where the water is going to come from and you can kind of bend it and manipulate it in such a way that aesthetically looks pleasing but I guess more importantly it’s got to sound right. You know, so you put that all together in one big package and it’s just it’s incredible. I’m not, I don’t really have a lot of time to do artwork all that much but when I do, I tend to get completely consumed in it so if I start a project like a waterfall I pretty much go straight to the shop, I pierce, I work on everybody, I leave, I go straight home and I just get obsessed with my project until two weeks later, three weeks later it’s completely finished and it’s like, “Whooah.” What an amazing job. And I look at it and I’m just glowing, you know. And then, I don’t know, that’s it. It’s cool. Maybe that’s what art should be about.

SL: [affirmative noise] Now, let me ask you, you’re brandings that are on your forearms and the scarification that is on your stomach. Was that a venting process or why did you get those or was that sort of just learning to brand and…practicing?

B: Um, I think it was a bit of both you know. I don’t really feel like I actually had to try to learn much of anything. I’m lucky I guess, because it all just completely fell into place. You know, there was a time in my life and I’m sure a lot of people can relate to this and you feel really aggressive towards yourself and you really feel almost in a negative way you would like to either cut yourself or burn yourself or damage yourself and I really felt that, that was such a shame such a cruel. I mean, it’s such a negative energy, why would you want to inflict that on your body and permanently wear that? And I think…

SL: You must have clients coming to you occasionally that…

B: No, not at all.

SL: No?

B: No, because I think if a person is going to, if a person is going to do something negative towards their body they’re going to do it themselves.

SL: Right.

B: They’re not going to go to a professional and we’re going to sit and talk about this and how you would like the design, they’re not going to sit and do all that stuff so, just so that I can damage them you know, it’s, and I think for me it’s such a shame that I was thinking in such a way that I needed, I still needed to vent in that way but I needed to turn it into art. And I think the energies is so completely different and it’s like creating something positive on your body and venting that energy as opposed to creating something negative on your body and you know having to wear that the rest of your life and having to think oh man, I mean I’ve done, I’ve branded people who I had to fix up what they’ve damaged or cover up what they’ve damaged. One person in particular had you know hack marks all over his arm and they were quite, quite large and it was so visible and they were done in such a way that you just knew, you could just look at a person, you could tell you know they had a tough life.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: But he wanted to cover this up and we designed a little um, a little branding, well I guess not that little, I guess it was a half sleeve.

SL: Almost like a Kandinsky design.

B: Yeah, it was very kind of abstract you know.

SL: Yeah.

B: But it was done in such a way that it turned his negative energy into something positive, it turned it into art. And I think he’s quite happy with it.

SL: So there you weren’t just an artist you were a bit of a healer in that as well.

B: Yeah, I think in some ways. I mean, I think in my work sometimes I’m a bit of a healer anyways because I’ve met customers who really need to learn how to meditate and I had time. And it was like, “Oh god if I’m fifteen minutes late it ain’t gonna kill me.”

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: And I basically sit with them and talk with them about meditation and teach them how to do meditation. It’s not necessarily a religious thing at all, it’s about learning how to get your own shit together in whatever way you find is suitable but it’s basically about getting your shit together and there’s something nice about working with people and um, you know getting to have small opportunities, little smidgens of you know helping people here and there. You know, I’m not sure how long we have but, a friend of mine told me something and he said, “There’s nothing more exceptional than a person who can work with people.” And he said that, “It’s one of the hardest jobs you can do regardless if you do, if you’re a physician, whether you work with acupuncture, whether you work with hair, or whether you do you know body modifications and stuff. It’s quite a stressful job and it’s quite a hard job you know working on that kind of level with people especially when it’s something very permanent. But it, there’s also something you can grow in such a way and you can grow on such a level that I think most people would find extremely hard to do if you are working in a factory somewhere.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: You know. And I think, I think it’s helped me a lot. I’m sure I’m always going to work with people. You know, whether, and I think also, I’m not sure if I’ll actually be a tattoo artist or if I’ll actually be, you know I don’t think I’ll be a tattoo artist. I’ve done hand poked tattoos on close friends but, I’m not sure I’ll actually be a piercer or what I’ll be doing in the future. But um, you know, life keeps on changing and I think maybe in the future I might do some healing work. Possibly. I don’t really want to stick myself to one specific career, because I don’t think that’s very healthy.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: I think just because you’re a piercer now doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll always be a piercer. And I think to make yourself so headstrong is just, it’s very, it’s just limiting yourself and I don’t really want to limit myself.

SL: Well like piercing on it’s own is inherently a pretty limited field. I mean you can only go so far with it.

B: You can only go so far, and you have to do something else. Absolutely.

SL: [affirmative noise] Or you, or you do, or what happens is, as has happened to a lot of the really great piercers who’ve been around a while you get to hate piercing.

B: You get to burn out. You hate piercing you burn out, and you just have to find ways to keep things moving, keep things changing. And you know change your perspective and stuff, and I just think it’s really important, that you know people shouldn’t just stick to doing, stick to doing what they’re doing I mean you always need the option of changing.

SL: You keep growing and learning, I mean you’ve been taking, what is it trumpet classes and dancin’.

B: Absolutely. [laugh] Photography, and surfing, what else have I done, my god, I don’t know. I’ve done so much. I took hang gliding once and I got my scuba diving license and I studied carnivorous plants and horticulture and I don’t know, karate [laugh]. That’s all my life.

SL: Now I don’t know if this an embarrassing question but I mean, the brands that you’ve got and the cuttings on your stomach, I mean they prove that you can, you can you know handle a great deal of, a great deal of discomfort.

B: Absolutely.

SL: But you’ve been getting tattooed under anesthetic. Um…why, why is that? Why, you know?

B: Yeah. Do you want to know why? Because I think, I think I’m not sure, but I think because of being vegan and I think also I’ve been tattooing my body and branding myself and piercing myself and pushing my limits so far for so long and on a physical level that I think it’s really hard on my system to get tattooed you know. Like for example, you know when you get tattooed, it hurts, your liver constricts because your body’s under stress and all your organs end up you know paying for it so you end up feeling you know quite irritable. And I think back when I was I think 20 years old, not that I’m that old [laugh] now back when I was 20 years old it was great, it was all a completely new experience to me. But I’ve been tattooing my legs almost solid black for such a long time doing this design that we’re working on that I, it’s just very difficult that I leave the place feeling like I got hit by a Mac truck you know and I’m just completely exhausted and to do all that and to be able to work on all my customers and to give them my attention or at least give them the attention that I think they would deserve it’s really hard to do that and get tattooed once a week. It’s just it’s impossible.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: And I think I’m not really concerned about being such a macho guy or such a man really I just wanna, I just wanna have nice work on my body. There’s definitely enough pain involved with healing it you know, and I’m really looking forward to doing another suspension hanging in the future. So, I think um, there comes a time and a place in life where you have to find a balance you know and I think my balance is, you know I’m planning on being completely tattooed, I know it’s probably going to take some time off of my life.

SL: What, I mean, what, I mean for the last, I’m not going to say for how many years but for the last number of years you know it’s been a constant constant process of body change for you.

B: Absolutely.

SL: Things always evolving, always evolving. What’s going to happen when that stops? I mean when your body is filled up, when you’ve got it where you want it, you know, and you’ve still got another sixty years to live?

B: Oh, it’s okay. [laugh] You know what, I swore I was not going to be tattooed after I’m thirty-five, because I really, I really want to get all my work done early. You know.

SL: Then you can get onto other things.

B: Then I can get onto other things, I can enjoy my life. I mean there is always going to be touchups. Like I said there’s always going to be suspension hangings. It’s such a spiritual, it’s such a spiritual and emotionally growing thing that I could never not do that. I mean, I don’t care how intense the pain is. It’s so worth it. You know, so that will always happen and um, I mean piercing is great, you can always take it out.

SL: What do you get, what do you get out of a suspension? What was that experience like?

B: Man, I learned a lot about myself and I learned a lot about people and I learned a lot about psychic energy and how and how it works and you know like, for example you know when you do a suspension hanging you are either going to take it as what I believe is being two different ways. You’re either going to accept it and become more physically in your body because you’re physically hanging and you can feel it there’s no doubt about it you can feel it. So you either become either more physically attached to your body or you can leave your body if you choose not to like it or if for some reason you find it difficult you can leave your body you know. For me I felt very, it was very easy to do a suspension I was so clear, my mind was so clear, and I pretty much knew what it was going to feel like, way in advance. It was almost like something I had done already, but after I did that I found I was so, so in my body that I could really feel everyone’s energy so clearly I could feel all the different issues and all their different problems and I could feel, I could feel the walls around me you know, it was quite, quite a difficult experience.

SL: [affirmative noise]

B: It was very difficult.

SL: Almost, almost like it opened you up.

B: It opened me up on such a huge level, and that’s such a good experience. I mean it was painful and it was difficult but I learned so much from it and I think um, I just can’t wait to do the next one. I can’t even imagine how it’s going to change me. You know it changed me so much doing the suspension, I was quite afraid of many things after you know I was afraid of other people’s energy you know being some people are so crude and so blah, so forceful you know I found it very difficult to separate myself between that. That’s also something I learned a lot in Borneo. I learned a lot about myself and I learned a lot about separating my energy from other people’s energy. That’s a whole other story, we’ll have to do that on another interview.

SL: Yeah, I think we, we got enough words still unsaid to fill another couple hours.

B: [laugh] Yeah.

SL: Maybe at some point what I’d like to do to is get a bunch of people who’ve done subincisions and you know do a round table show or…

B: Or people that have done suspensions and talk about that.

SL: That is actually what I meant to say. [laugh]

B: [laugh]

SL: I don’t know, if I’ll edit and correct myself or I’ll let the world know how foolish I am.

B: [laugh]

PB: [laugh]

SL: [laugh] Anyway, I think that we’ve hit our time limit. Blair, is there anything else that you want to let people know or…?

B: I don’t know. Just keep on growing. Keep on learning. I don’t know.

SL: [affirmative noise] So someone…

B: Maybe in ten years I won’t pierce anymore I’m going to be a waterfall builder, I’m going to be a world surfing traveler. Who knows?

SL: Nothing wrong with that.

B: [laugh]

[song]

Wow! You made it!

Anyway, I’m very happy to announce that thanks to help from some good friends, BME will be launching a video magazine this year. It’s first issue will be release fall/winter 2003 on DVD.

We’ve already begun filming, and our crew heads over to England in a month, and we are beginning plans for both a Scandinavian invasion and a two week filming tour of the mod scene in South America. It should be an amazing project!

Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com

PS. So was this a Shannon-can’t-type cop-out?

Next week? It’s a surprise!