Ban it all!

“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

Over the past few months there’s been an upsurge in ludicrous “studies” — shallow covers for dubious statistics and ill-informed “medical” statements from doctors less concerned with truth and more concerned with using the letters after their name to put forward their personal prejudices — which decry various forms of body modification as dangerous and a threat to public welfare. As a result, legislators are being called upon to ban or restrict these activities in a misguided attempt to “protect” the public from itself.

First, let me just say this: FUCK OFF AND KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF MY BODY.

Second, let me apologize for the profanity and follow up by saying this: You’re a bunch of hypocrites and bigots that are using shoddy science in an attempt to force your sociopolitical views on others and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

A recent study released by the European Union, and now being cited by media and lawmakers all over the world, makes perverse claims such as tattoo ink being made of car paint, states that up to fifty percent of piercings become seriously infected, and links a multitude of serious diseases and even several deaths to body modification.

As far as their claim of “tattoo ink being car paint”, it is true that many of the same dyes are used in tattoo ink as are used in car paint… but those same FDA approved dyes are used in food products, medical products, and so on — guess what — some cars have components made of stainless steel and titanium. Does that mean we should ban body piercing because “piercing jewelry is made of car parts?” The human body contains a significant amount of fecal matter at most times; because of that, I’d like to urge that Philippe Busquin, the EU commissioner responsible for this deceptive report, be flushed down the toilet for being a big walking turd.

The statement that “up to fifty percent of body piercings lead to acute infections which require medical treatment” is frankly preposterous and is, to put it politely, a lie. Millions of piercings are done every year. Millions. If Busquin’s claim was true, body piercing would be one of the largest medical emergencies humanity has ever faced. The truth of the matter is that body piercings rarely become acutely infected and medical treatment being required is extremely uncommon.

As far as linking diseases, primarily due to largely false stereotypical claims of unhygienic environments in tattoo and piercing studios, this is yet another fraudulent claim. The number of documented cases are rare, tend to be limited to unlicensed studios, and are becoming less and less common. I think it’s important to note that it was tattoo and piercing studios that, due to their strict adherence to contamination control, eventually forced dentists and estheticians to clean up their own acts. The Red Cross had major problems with their blood supplies due to irresponsible contamination control and as a result infected far more people with deadly diseases than the body modification industry ever has.

The claims of deaths are also deceitful — yes, there are a small number of deaths that are linked to body piercing, but what’s left out is that the piercing is rarely responsible for the death; it simply complicates existing medical sitations such as mitral valve relapse (and in all cases that I am aware of, these conditions were hidden from the piercer). I can think of only one or two cases where the piercings could be directly linked and in these cases the victim had behaved in a deeply irrational and irresponsible fashion (a la Lesley Hovvells) — after all, you can kill yourself with a hammer if you hit yourself over the head enough times… but that’s not how a hammer ought to be used.

I think maybe we need to do some comparison now. They tell us that of millions of people who get body modifications, vast numbers experience serious problems or even death — although given that the actual documented number of these “millions” is a handful at best, I’d love to know where they’re getting their information. In any case, let’s look at a few things that we know cause deaths:

Automobiles
Car crashes kill and maim an enormous number of people yearly, to say nothing of the environmental damage they are responsible for. At least 90% of all personal transportation (which accounts for almost all road fatalities) could be replaced by mass transit infrastructures which would be safer and cleaner than personal vehicles — tens of thousands of lives would be saved yearly, if not more. If the risks of body piercing are significant enough to justify new regulations and restrictions, then surely we should ban private ownership of automobiles.

Junk Food
Perhaps the leading cause of premature death in the West, the culture of obesity and sloth that our megacorporations have embraced is rarely questioned, even though it not only strains our healthcare systems, but the planet itself. In 2001 the Surgeon General announced that every year 300,000 people in the US die from obesity-related causes — and 60% or more of Americans are currently obese. The American Cancer Society cites similar statistics, saying that over half of cancer is obesity related…

If we can propose banning or restricting body modification for a few infections and some dubiously linked deaths, how can we stand by and allow (and encourage) young people to overindulge in a lethal drug that’s killing a million people every three years — to put this into perspective, obesity kills six times as many Americans every year as died in the entire Vietnam war. Ban junk food if you want to save lives.

Conversation
How many people have died because of the argument they got into with their neighbor? Or on a larger level, how many people have died because their country’s leader got in a meaningless argument with the leader of some other country? If we feel that the freedom of expression embodied in body modification is dangerous enough to restrict it, then it should be obvious that the far more dangerous freedom of speech should definitely be banned as well. Since the law is blind, we must ban free discourse of all kinds in order to protect the citizenry.

Marriage
How many people kill their spouses every year? How many cuckolds kill their spouse’s lover? How many kill themselves from the stress of a relationship? How many of their children do? Going by the cold numbers — especially now that we know that more than 50% of marriages end in divorce — it’s clear that marriage is a threat to society and human life that far outweighs the risks of body modification. If we are to act objectively, marriage and dating should be banned.

Religion

How many millions of people have been murdered in the name of one god or another? How many billions more have been repressed or abused for the same reason? Objectively, if body modification needs to be banned for being a danger, we’d best eliminate religion altogether. God may not be as dead as Nietzsche claimed, but in our objective legal society we surely must legislate his death.

Yeah, that’s right. The above is stupid and flawed thinking that any intelligent person should be appalled to stand behind… so we have to ask ourselves why intelligent people are doing this exact thing to a dramatically more ridiculous level when it comes to body modification?

They are doing it for one simple reason: bigotry.

They are launching preemptive strikes in a culture war.

The arguments that they present to defend their cases are deceptive and flimsy and never hold up under the light of any logical examinations. It’s very sad that we can proudly trumpet what free societies we all live in, yet when anyone steps outside the narrow definition of normal (as defined by “the man”), we twist words to try and justify denying them those freedoms. Freedom is a universal and borderless concept — we can’t stop someone from expressing themselves just because we think it’s “gross” (that’s really what this boils down to).

Papers are reprinting these claims constantly — please, if you see such an article in your local paper, don’t be afraid to write in and punch holes in their lies… It’s only because too few people are afraid to stand up for themselves that this is allowed to continue.

Good luck,

Shannon Larratt

BME.com

The Benefits of Being Different

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are

In his latest colum Erik, The Lizardman, suggested that it was laughable to seek out body modifications solely because they are rare or unusual, and even more foolhardy to get rid of a body modification when it becomes popular for fear of being perceived as part of the crowd. While I believe his core premise is accurate on a business level*, I’m not entirely sure that I agree with his decrying of difference for the sake of difference.

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* It is the “trend followers” who ultimately pay the bills of the body modification industry and thus keep it alive. Therefore it is wrong to downplay their value, since without them, we’d face significant hardships.

On an animal level, body modification serves to further two goals: first, strengthening the herd through a shared “belonger” visual language (African tribal scars, the Jewish bris, stretched lobes in the piercing scene, and so on), and second, as self-differentiating mating behavior (usually within certain boundaries, although we’re seeing those grow all the time). Until quite recently, all atypical modifications have been an individual expression — that’s where my interest lies, it’s what this article will focus on, and it’s what I believe we should protect and encourage.

To attract a mate of a specific type, animals differentiate themselves. Since females “choose” their mate in most species, males have evolved garish ways of drawing attention to themselves — look at birds and one of the first things you’ll notice is that the males are brightly colored and perform bizarre and dangerous rituals to attract attention, while the females have muted colors and tend not to put themselves at such risk. The basic idea though, universal across almost all animals, is that the unique and exceptional individual gets the best mates.

Humans of course are more complex animals, so our appearance and behavior is more than just mating behavior; it’s a broader form of communication. But it still boils down to the notion that the unique individuals define and rule the herd and the plain ones simply are going with the flow and get second pick. I should note that the definition of “plain” changes from year to year — at times it was normal to be corsetted, and nowadays it’s not abnormal to have a small number of tasteful body piercings.

Even a cursory overview of “successful people” (ie. business leaders, self-made millionaires, authors, celebrities, etc.) makes it clear that they’re not normal people. They tend to be tall. They tend to be beautiful. They tend to be eccentric. Of course there are exceptions, and it is true that the majority are excelling in socially acceptable ways, but the fact remains that the world and its destiny belongs to unique and exceptional individuals. That said, the brightly colored bird is more likely to be killed by a predator, and the same goes for humans. If your goal is survival rather than success, maybe you’d be better off flying under the radar and stick with the crowd.

The future is defined by change. When things stay the same they stagnate — and the sad truth is that most people prefer to avoid change out of fear. The person who embraces mods that are already “normal” is not taking humanity forward. They’re certainly helping by not holding it back, and, as Erik stated, they are helping build a foundation for further change, but they are not involved in defining the future. Maybe not everyone wants to do that (and some would argue that not everyone is qualified to do that), but anyone with decent self-esteem should want to be involved in this process. After all, if you believe you are a good person with valid ideas, should you not be taking part in deciding humanity’s future? We’ve seen that when the future becomes defined by the herd that it tends to fail until a small group of individuals stands up, tears it down, and rebuilds it with forward vision.

One of the points that Erik made — and a very valid one — was that no matter what, we are all individuals, and are all different. No matter what. Sure, that’s true, but on an objective level it’s not really so true after all. It’s kind of like the person who watches contests on TV and swears up and down that they’re smarter and could win the million dollars… that’s all good, and maybe it’s even true, but what does it matter if you’re not going out there and winning? We’re social animals — few of us, short of sociopathic serial killers, operate solely as individuals. As such, while it’s definitely good to perceive of yourself as an individual, you’d better be able to prove it if you want anyone to take the claim seriously.

Being different with the same form of expression is not really being different objectively; only subjectively. For example, if a person who’s lead a vanilla life gets a navel piercing, it can be a profound and positive statement on a personal level — one that I’d encourage (and I hope this isn’t coming across as negating that value) — but it is only a private statement. However, when you pursue modifications that are unique or relatively unique, you make a larger statement, and if you have some basic comprehension of esthetics, you can get “heavy mods” that are still attractive (read: successful) on a mainstream level and can even help you succeed in that mainstream — not because the mod “makes you better”, but because it’s an effective way to advertise and promote yourself. As I’ve mentioned before, it makes you memorable (unusual modifications do — a navel piercing did ten years ago, but that is no longer the case).

The term is thrown around a lot, but I believe that we’re sitting at the cusp of a major paradigm shift that will define human culture over the next millenia. We’re currently deciding whether we want to move toward a society that embraces the unique individual, or a conformist culture that insists on uniformity. Powerful forces and trends are fighting for each option, and as society stratifies the coming culture war becomes more apparent.

We have to ask ourselves which kind of culture we’d rather live in: are you defined as a member of a group (black, American, Russian, white, Christian, whatever) or are you defined as an individual, with your group allegiances being secondary? That is, are you defined by your similarities with your compatriots, or your differences? Logically, I fail to see how an individual can be defined by anything but the differences.

One of my favorite movies, Harold and Maude, contains a scene where they are walking through a flower greenhouse near a giant field of white daisies. Maude, an eccentric and full of life old woman says to her much younger boyfriend Harold, “I like to watch things grow. They grow, and bloom, and fade, and die, and change into something else! Ah, life!” She then tells Harold how she would like to be a sunflower, on account of them being “so tall and simple”, and then asks him what sort of flower he’d like to be.

Harold (an oddball who longs to be “normal”) gestures at the wide field of daisies, which from a distance look uniform in nature, and says to her, “I don’t know… one of these maybe. They’re all alike.”

Maude replies, “Oh, but they’re not! Look, see, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some grow to the right, some have even lost some petals… all kinds of observable differences! You see Harold; I feel that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people that are this, yet allow themselves to be treated as that,” pointing from the single flower to the giant field of daisies which then transitions into a field of thousands of white gravestones.

In conclusion, be yourself and don’t be afraid to tell people that as loudly as you want. Be proud of your differences; fight not just to protect them, but to amplify them! I named BME not just as an acronym for Body Modification Ezine, but as a symbolic statement of “BE ME“. IAM is of course the same. I aggressively encourage you to be yourself and back up that action with evidence of your uniqueness.

See the future. Be the future!

Shannon Larratt

BME.com

PS. Let me be very clear though: if you want your navel pierced, that’s awesome and I think that on a personal level you can get a lot out of it and it’s absolutely worth doing and I encourage it as well. This column is not meant to spit on the mainstream; I’m simply trying to illustrate that the other side of the coin (“difference for difference’s sake”) has value as well. I also am not so blind as to believe that atypical body modification is the only way to achieve the goals I’ve discussed here — it’s simply the path I’ve chosen for myself (and I think it’s a good one; or at least the right one for me).

Regulation: Attacks from Within?

“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley,
An’ Lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain / For promis’d joy.”

– Robert Burns

Over the past six months I’ve been contacted by an increasing number of piercers and amateur activists complaining of perceived problems in the piercing industry, and seeking my help in pushing through regulations of various kinds to combat them. Most of these piercers are talented and experienced and often some of the best in the industry. While being very clear that I’m not attacking them, but simply their methods, what I’d like to show in this column is that while their actions are well-meaning, they are ultimately misguided and perhaps even destructive to the body modification community.

The first thing that should be addressed is that the piercing industry is only a very small part of the (atypical) body modification community. The piercing industry represents the commercial application of a very small subset of this community’s interests and because of it being a mass-market commercial application, there are certain incompatibilities, since one is built around the individual, and the other around larger issues such as public safety, contract law, and business ethics… all concepts which often run contrary to the extremist individual freedoms embraced by those drawn to atypical body modification, as well as the ever broadening freedoms being demanded by modern societies.

The big first question from my point of view is “why now?”

Why wasn’t the piercing community aggressively pushing for regulation five or ten years ago? At its simplest, the golden age of piercing is over. Five years ago shops regularly had “thousand dollar days” and there was more than enough business to go around. In 2003, competition is heavy, the market is saturated, and profit margins are lower and lower. Aging piercers are realizing that they’ve been putting long hours into what may be a dead-end job, and are asking themselves what the future holds — and how they can secure that future.

It’s expensive to run a good shop. Customers are rarely willing to pay more for high quality jewelry, and far too few are even willing to discriminate by the safety practices of the studio. As such, with pricing being equal, the better a studio is, the less money its owners and staff take home with them. It’s very easy for unscrupulous studios to legally undercut prices by reducing quality and seize a significant market share in exchange for cutting corners and providing substandard service — but let’s face it — that’s true in every industry, and it’s what makes capitalism work!

In response, a number of well-meaning good piercers are trying to push through regulation that would force every studio to conform to their tightly bordered and high-end standards. Much of the time this is accomplished by pointing out the many problems that arise from not maintaining those standards — slightly elevated (but still very manageable) rates of infection and complication, more young people with piercings (as if that’s a bad thing), and so on. This is further sought by publishing “scare articles”, citing their qualifications as required knowlege (nursing skills, CPR courses, and so on; all excellent knowledge to have as a piercer, but whether it’s required is very much up for debate), and generally using an approach of attacking others (often validly) to make themselves look better.

In light of recent attention by the mainstream media on procedures such as tongue splitting, others will make extremely negative statements about heavy mods and the artists that embrace them in an attempt to make themselves appear more responsible. I suppose they feel that painting others in the most dangerous, frightening, and irresponsible manner will make them appear more responsible to the mainstream in juxtaposition.

Problem is, that doesn’t work.

First of all, we need to realize that the majority of politicians (and media) are not involved in the body modification community and often don’t like piercing and see it with a preexisting set of prejudices. As such, they won’t see any juxtaposition of “high quality” versus problem studios — they will simply see the problems and, like all bigots, stereotype our entire community by the acts of the worst of the bunch.

Second of all, we need to acknowledge that there is no central professional organization of piercers for regulators to work with in drafting balanced legislation. While groups such as the APP have made excellent progress over the last decade, they still represent only a very tiny percentage of piercers. Almost all attempts to form such organizations have eventually degraded to infighting and apathy.

Because of those two factors, much of the political action on piercing is either pushed through by a individual piercers who don’t represent the industry on the whole, or, worse yet, by politicians working with doctors who don’t have any comprehension of or sympathy for atypical body modification. When this occurs we tend to see things much like gay sex laws — heterosexual sex is typically legal at 16, with homosexual sex not becoming legal until 18, and we see piercing being restricted to 18 even though cosmetic surgery is permitted at 16. In addition, we tend to end up with tightly defined rules which restrict jewelry use, procedures, and even aftercare to only one possibility. Since piercing is still very much evolving and improving, locking its growth like this is a potentially harmful act, and tends to restrict valid and sometimes even superior methods — as illustrated by some areas’ bans on dermal punches, scalpels, and other needle alternatives.

We also need to recognize that what an industry perceives as being right for it is not always right for the surrounding community (or from the industry’s point of view, the customer). The actions of groups like the RIAA are good examples of that of course, where we are watching a power shift from the music listener and the musician to the corporate distribution channels.

So what should we do? How can we ensure a high quality piercing industry that encourages the growth of the body modification community, gives consumers a range of options, while still ensuring basic safety?

Now, I’m not about to propose that this should be an absolutely unregulated industry; simply that we need to balance individual freedoms and public safety. Clearly we need to ensure minimum standards as far as sterility goes and making certain that regulation controlling contamination are adhered to — no studio has a right to willfully and negligently endanger its clients. I’m happy to say that a growing majority of jurisdictions have already enacted such laws covering piercing studios, nail salons, dentists offices, and so on. I am fully in support of such laws. They restrict no one’s freedoms and simply increase the safety level.

My focus with BME will continue to be education over regulation. This is why I dedicate resources to developing FAQ documents, BME/Risks, and work to get qualified authors writing columns. An educated consumer base will make the decisions that it sees fit for itself — and we do have the right to purchase low quality product should we choose to. After all, assuming base standards are in place, the worst that can occur from a lower-end studio under normal circumstances is a small scar. Given that we allow — and even encourage — the consumption of junk food and candy by even young children, thereby damning them to live in the most obese and unhealthy culture in human history (in effect allowing corporations to market a product that shaves 15 years or more off a person’s life), it seems somewhat hypocritical to suggest that we should restrict piercing to only the most conservative, limited, and safe options?

As far as age standards go — and we do need to strike a balance between the rights of parents, the rights of youths, protecting against predatory piercers, while making sure not to fall prey to ageism — we must create them in context with other age restrictions. It’s too easy to allow politicans to force into place high age restrictions as a shallow cover for an attempt to ban and keep piercings out of schools and so on. We allow youths to sign for surgery and drive at 16. We allow youths to sign for abortions without parental consent at as young as 14. We allow marriage and sex at 16 in most areas, and we even allow firearms to be owned by teens… If we are then to restrict piercing to 18, we need to justify how piercing is more dangerous than these acts and why comprehending them is out of the range of a young person’s ability. From my point of view piercing is a safe and excellent way for young people to practice independence and responsibility, and I worry that when we spend so much effort telling young people that they are immature that they will be utterly unprepared for the world when they reach adulthood.

I mentioned earlier that I believe informed consumers can make a good decision. Because of that, one type of regulation that I would like to see in place is disclosure laws. We require food manufacturers to place ingredients and nutritional information on the packaging in order to allow consumers to make an informed decision. We require auto manufacturers to disclose pollution and mileage data. Why should piercing studios not be required to state what material their jewelry is manufactured from? Without this information, the average consumer can’t tell if they are being sold a $1 mass-manufactured barbell made of cheap low-grade steel, or whether it’s a $20 piece of “implant grade” jewelery — while the vast majority of people can heal a piercing just fine with the cheap stuff, it will take a bit longer, the complication rate will be a fraction higher, and some people will have reactions. Certainly someone should have a right to choose that path, but I do not believe that a studio has the right to surreptitiously impose that path on unwitting customers.

Ultimately though there is only one way to guarantee a high quality industry: Consumers must, on their own, decide to support high quality studios. Poor quality studios don’t thrive in a vacuum — they thrive because of their large customer base. If you’re reading this, you probably have the knowledge required to judge which studios in your area are the good ones. Tell your friends. Write experiences about them. Tell the piercers why you go to their studio and not another, and tip them appropriately. People have a choice in life — all of our laws make it clear that we believe as a culture that people have a right to make bad decisions and purchase an ill-advised product should they choose to. Why should piercing be different? Are we really comfortable with ours being the one industry that’s tightly restricted and dictated by the whims of politicians?

To the piercers who are pushing for these laws, while I applaud what you are attempting to achieve (a high quality industry), I hope you consider that your actions may not achieve your goals, and could in fact have the opposite effect. There are better ways. Make sure that when you push for regulation and make public comment, you push for minimum standards and disclosure laws, and not for self-serving regulation that may come back to haunt us all, and that you respect the right of others to make their own informed decisions, even if you disagree.

Thank you,

Shannon Larratt

BME.com

Is getting a BME tattoo lame?

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”

– E.E. Cummings

One of the things that BME preaches rather endlessly is a doctrine of individuality, self-expression, and self-determination, and when people ask my advice on tattoos I always urge them to get custom work and never copy someone else’s tattoo. Because of that, I am regularly asked what I think of people who choose to tattoo the BME logo on them. Short answer: Personally, I think it’s awesome, and very much in line with my general ideology on tattoos.

The tattoo section of BME also has a gallery of music related tattoos, largely images of band logos. While I suppose it’s very valid for a fan who feels that a band is an important part of their life to commemorate that with a tattoo, I don’t see that getting a BME tattoo is quite the same thing. A band is special because of the creative expression of the people in the band that is then enjoyed by the “fans”. BME on the other hand is special because of the creative expression of an entire subculture which is then appreciated by that subculture (and the mainstream world).

To put it another way, getting a tattoo of a band logo is an act of appreciation for the work of another person — saying “your music is important in my life” — whereas getting a BME logo tattoo is an act of appreciation for the work that we all did together. The vast majority of people who’ve chosen to mark themselves with the “BME4LIFE” message are regular contributors to BME, and can validly say that they helped create BME. More so than saying “I love Grobschnitt” or “Eloy Rules!”, a BME tattoo says, “I love myself. I’m proud of who I am, and I care about my family.”

Short of choosing the life of a sociopath, even the most individualistic people have family and community, not just by birth, but in modern times they also have the one they chose for themselves.

Most cultural groups develop iconography to identify and league themselves in a form that has meaning to them. Scottish tartans — the striped and checked patterns which represent different Scottish clans — date back nearly two millennia, and have evolved over time both to reflect both new manufacturing technologies and cultural and political changes such as clan intermarriage. With just a scrap of fabric from a person’s tartan it can be possible to identify where they are from, who they are related to, and in some cases even what they do for a living. Because of a ban on the tartan in the 18th century in an attempt to kill off the culture, coupled with modern commercialization, the direct significance of patterns is certainly up for debate, but the underlying drive is not. The heraldry of European families also illustrates similar motivations.

African scarification in different regions is well defined and carries a very specific set of iconography as well. While it’s dying out quickly, by the marks on a person’s body you can tell where they’re from, who their family are, and what point in their life they’re at. Maori facial tattooing serves a very similar purpose, signifying both individualism, allegiance to a certain tribal group, and as a marking of social status — with the lowest people not being tattooed at all (as they effectively had no identity).

The notion that body modification is an important part of defining one’s identity is far from unique — I’d go so far as to say it’s nearly universal. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BC of the Thracians (who lived in what is now Turkey and Bulgaria), “to have punctures on their skin is with them a mark of nobility; to be without these is a testimony of mean descent.” Nearly every culture has at one point in their history used permanent markings to signify both individual identity and group identity.

It’s also not an expired idea in any way — gang tattoos, fraternity brands, and BME tattoos are all permanent body marks that involve both an act of individualism and an integration into a specific tribe by embracing and personalizing its shared symbols. When a person marks themselves with any of these they’re not simply making an esthetic statement, nor are they bowing down before an idol. They are glorifying themselves and what they stand for and what they work toward in life.

So to return to the question of why a person who encourages individualism and discourages copying others ideas as one’s own would support tattooing a “website’s logo”, I say that a BME tattoo, assuming that it is in the context I’ve described here (and I really believe it almost always is), does in fact achieve those goals. It’s not just a tattoo of a pretty picture; it’s a tattoo of an idea.

If BME has played the catalyst in bringing about someone’s emancipation from the shackles of conformity and somehow helped them “be themselves”, then I can’t imagine how signifying that with a shared symbol of the people who collectively fight for that is anything but wonderful, beautiful, and meaningful.

Shannon Larratt

BME.com

PS. If you want a BME tattoo yourself, first and foremost remember that it’s your tattoo and your symbol. Don’t be afraid to alter it and fine-tune it (or not) to reflect your own feelings and interests and thoughts. Don’t be afraid to integrate it into other pieces (one of my favorite BME tattoos is one where a BME head was put on the end of a staff in a larger tattoo) and always remember: you built this site… It’s not just a trademark of a website — it’s an icon of a subculture with a set of shared values and beliefs and activities.

Piercing guns are blasphemy! “The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson “One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” – Elbert Hubbard Those of you who have been reading BME for a long time probably remember our “No Piercing Guns” t-shirt published about five years ago, which we discontinued after lawsuits were threatened and launched against us and others with similar warnings. The gun manufacturers’ objection was with the list of reasons printed on the back, centered around the sterility issues as well as some of the design flaws that made the guns unsuitable for body piercing in general.

This shirt addressed the core problems with classic-style piercing guns (essentially a spring-loaded device that propelled a piercing stud through flesh and was then reused on every client with minimal contamination control; rarely any more than an alcohol wipe), starting with the sterility issue. Because the guns were designed to be reused and their plastic bodies precluded the ability to autoclave them, bloodborne pathogens could easily be transmitted between clients — there are numerous known and well-documented cases of hepatitis being spread by these guns.

The shirt also addressed the issue that the stud was relatively dull (far duller than a piercing needle) and was basically just rammed through the tissue with force. Now, on earlobes you can probably get away with this and not affect healing dramatically, but on other parts of the body significant damage could occur. Most notably in upper ear cartilage, these studs have been documented as being able to actually shatter the tissue, leading to collapse of the ear altogether and other serious problems. The “one-size-fits-all” nature of the studs (short; designed for a close fit around an earlobe) compounded this problem and by compressing the tissue could lead to increased swelling and irritation, which often would eventually lead to infection and/or rejection.

Finally, the design of the guns in general was not really conducive to accurate placement. While they could “hit their marks” on lobes most of the time, their design made it difficult to accurately place the jewelry in any other part of the body — although I should point out that most reputable piercing gun manufacturers do emphasize that their guns are only to be used on earlobes and even go so far as to cancel the contracts of businesses that abuse their guns.

While I’m mentioning “reputable” piercing gun manufacturers (it makes me sick to say that) I’ll also point out that a number have redesigned their guns to use disposable cartridges which go a long way to making them “single use”, thus dramatically reducing the chances of passing contamination from client to client. In a perfect world one might be able to make the argument that this design of gun is perfectly appropriate for use on earlobes.

However…

It’s not a perfect world.

One has to take the human factor into account — this doesn’t solve the problem. It simply shifts the blame.

A body piercer is expected to have at least a year of apprenticeship before they’re considered “trained”. Not because piercing — the act of piercing itself — is in and of itself difficult, but because there’s an enormous amount of peripheral knowledge that must be learned and practiced in order to keep the client safe. It’s not unusual for a piercing gun technician to receive just an hour’s training in the food court of some mall… Do you really think that’s enough time to adequately explain and train the finer points of universal precautions?

You see, even if the disposable cartridge type of piercing gun goes a long way to addressing the obvious contamination issues, if the surrounding area (the gun body, the outside of the cases, the storage bins, the hands of the technician, whatever) becomes contaminated, it’s all for naught. The same of course goes for piercing studios, nail salons, barber shops, and any other business that comes in contact with blood; its safety really is judged by the lowest common denominator.

In addition to poorly trained staff potentially negating any benefits to the redesigned guns, the issues that make the gun unsuitable for anything other than at best earlobes have not been addressed and likely can not be addressed. And that — the fact that the gun will never be anything other than a tool for punching holes in earlobes — is the main reason that BME doesn’t support the piercing gun and doesn’t publish stories built around it.

But BME does publish things like self-piercing stories, often highly irresponsible and misguided. So why not publish stories using a gun? Doesn’t the end justify the means, at least a little? I don’t think so; in my opinion piercing guns are a dead end. Piercing guns have nothing to do with body modification. They’re a mistake.

Look at it this way; if you wanted to become an astronaut, would you teach yourself to drive a motorboat, or would you teach yourself to fly an airplane? Both are methods of transportation, and really, it’s a lot cheaper and a lot more accessible to learn to be the skipper of a little fishing boat… But it’s not a path that leads you toward the heavens — just as piercing guns will not lead you to body modification.

There is no direct bridge between the piercing gun industry and the body modification community. Sure, you can “move up” from the gun, but it represents not a step up from where you are, but instead a rejection of where you are and the embarkation on an entirely new path with sounder philosophies and methodologies. What that means is that by contributing financially and socially to the piercing gun industry, you are helping solidify a false path (and again, that ignores the fundamental health factors that on their own should be enough to convince any lucid individual to stay away from these devices).

If BME were to pledge support to the piercing gun industry it would be spitting in the face of the piercing and body modification communities by propping up a business that in my opinion not only endangers its customers but misleads them about their potential future. After all, the easiest way to keep a person from achieving enlightenment is by sending them on a holy quest that is anything but holy — nearly every religion warns in its own way of the danger of false idols and dead end paths.

I realize that I’m largely preaching to the choir here, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t have friends and relatives who end up in the sights of the well-funded and well-advertised piercing gun machine… Remember, “friends don’t let friends get gunned”. Unless you’re looking for a dead end path that’ll put your life in needless danger (and, if body modification is a spiritual act, perhaps even put your soul in peril), seek out a professional that can do a good job making all your dreams come true… not some hack that at best can do a shoddy job of making one dream come true, with no hope for the rest.

Needles, dermal punches, and scalpels make my day.
Use them well,

Shannon Larratt

BMEzine.com

Maybe we should judge books by their cover?

"A popular admonition goes 'Don't judge a book by its cover.' Yet we do it all the time. We ascribe qualities of character to people based on their physical characteristics. And our language takes shape to reflect that attitude."

– Anu Garg, founder of
wordsmith.org

One of body modification’s core purposes is communication. Humans are of course communicating animals — in some ways the complexity and depth of our methods is our most unique and defining characteristics. So when we permanently inscribe a public message using our bodies, it is the most core and true way in which we can communicate, as we say “I feel so strongly about this that I will become it”.

I don’t think anyone would have any problem agreeing that the way you wear your hair and clothes and so on is a way of communicating who you are to the world. Even if a conscious effort is made “not to succumb to fashion”, that as well broadcasts a message. It’s inescapable. By looking a certain way we invite contact from some people, and also send a “stay away” message to others as we give them a brief but powerful visual introduction to who we are. Every culture in history has ascribed uniforms of style and appearance to themselves as a whole, to their subgroups and castes, and then of course to the individual.

It is impossible to escape this conversation without withdrawing totally from in-person human interaction. Humans are designed for content-rich multi-media communication — to illustrate, think how different it is when you read a movie script versus actually seeing it, where you can watch the way a person presents themselves, how they move, their tone, and so on. Everything we can observe, we interpret.

So when we modify our bodies in a way that’s visible to the public, we are communicating. Like it or not, we are sending a message. It is unavoidable.

The interesting thing about transmitting a message with body modification is that it’s a message that will almost certainly be misinterpreted; how can an unmodified mainstream be expected to understand something that’s totally alien to them? But maybe it’s like abstract art: a subconscious way of communicating? Body modification is the most guttural and carnal way we can communicate, even more so than the primal cries of a fresh baby.

Body modification doesn’t just seize control of the message; it changes the medium of transmission into the message. Marshall McLuhan of course wrote, “the medium is the message”, referring to the subliminal effects of the choice of medium both on the message and as the message. McLuhan believed that mass media would eventually bring us to a “global village” and the “spiritual form of information” would eventually transform all of “the human family [into] a single consciousness”. I have to wonder if the embracing of body modification — where humans transform themselves into the message itself — is a step toward that dream?

If a person walks around in public yelling while holding a sign with a drawing on it, can we reasonably say, “oh, maybe they just liked the way the sign looked and didn’t think about what it meant”? Of course not — I think we all agree that if someone runs around carrying a sign that they don’t understand that the person is being a bit of an idiot… So why should it be any different with body modification, where you become the sign?

There’s nothing wrong with judging a book by its cover when the author actually got to design it — a well designed cover should reflect the content of the book quite accurately. We, the modified, are in the privileged position of being willing to design our own covers, but we must take that privilege seriously. After all, what would you think of a book where the author had just done random scribbles that bore no relevance to the content, or did it poorly — or even worse, just copied the cover of someone else’s book?

The other thing to remember is that we, as books, have only one cover, and we keep it for life. The message we inscribe on it is permanent, so we must be secure in saying what we say today tomorrow and the day after as well. The messages we choose to become must be eternal truths, or at least ones that can be eternally cherished and valued.

Being aware of the above, how should we think about our body modification plans? How can we make our body modifications work for us, not against us?

As I see it, we have five primary considerations that should be taken into account for any body modification decisions:

1. Quality
If you get a tattoo of something you care about, what does it say when you don’t bother going to a qualified artist? After all, you are becoming the tattoo. It’s not just a sticker that you can throw away — it is you. By stating something poorly, even if the message is true, the fact that it’s poorly stated may become the primary message. This world of ours has been populated by a multitude of amazing and beautiful people, but only those that put in effort to speak clearly and eloquently rise and succeed.

2. Interpreted meaning
How others interpret your mod is of course of primary importance since it’s what will open or close minds and doors. At present the modified represent between one and ten percent of the Western population, depending on what demographic you are looking at, so most people seeing your mods will be seeing them as alien to their own existence. The meaning they draw from them is with minimal common ground. If you want to reach the mainstream with your message (to say you don’t is to advocate isolationism and separatism), the interpreted meaning either has to be clear to them, or at least provide a bridge so you can open a productive dialogue and reveal to them the true meaning.

3. True meaning
The actual meaning will only be clear to you and to people who take the time to get to know you well. Depending on how abstract your message is, it may also only be apparent to those who are also modified since there are things one learns on this path that are very difficult to put to words. Either way, it’s important to concisely define your goal, and ensure that you’re working toward it with clarity, and that your mods are expressing that goal — even if you’re simply saying “this is making me happy”.

4. Vibe
While the specifics of a mod define its literal meaning, there is also a larger “vibe” that’s created by both the subtleties and the overall look you’re building. At its simplest, let’s take a classic rose tattoo. What vibe (if any) does it put off when it’s on an ankle? What about a forearm? A shoulder? A neck? In the pubic region, peeking out from just above the belt-line? When a person first comes into the range our senses, our mind automatically “classifies” them. That’s not a bad thing; it’s what allows us to structure ourselves socially. Body modification of course allows you to seize control of that process — use it to your advantage.

5. Endurance
It’s important to ask yourself exactly what message you’ll be sending not just today, but for all time. Will the mod become “dated”? There’s nothing wrong with something screaming “I got this in 1985″, but if a mod is permanent, you must consider both whether the message will continue to carry relevance (maybe you’d have been better off with a N’Sync t-shirt than a tattoo?), and more importantly, will it change in meaning in the future?

Now don’t get me wrong — I believe that the primary consideration in any mod should be:

“Does it make me happy?”

…but as the metaphysical poet John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…” Few of us can escape our role in the larger universe where we must productively communicate with the beings around us. So we must always remember that our body modifications, so long as they fall on public skin of course, are not just for us — they are also broadcasting a message to outsiders.

And in return, we should feel free to judge others by the messages (or lack of messages) that they choose to transmit to us. We are the communicators. Complex communication is the tool we use to raise ourselves to being something other than animals. Remember that the next time you transform yourself into a message.

That message can help you achieve your goals, or it can hinder you. While we are to some extent bound by the prejudice and ignorance of the lowest common denominator, ultimately the power rests in our hands.

Good luck and keep on spreading your message,

Shannon Larratt

BMEzine.com

What the Modified can learn from Satan

“I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day.”

– Albert Camus

Anton LaVey, the late founder of the Church of Satan, a modern spiritual movement that preached self-determination and self-empowerment as well as a rejection of societal norms (including mass religion) and embracing individually defined ritual for personal gain, defined the fifth of nine “Satanic sins” that all free individuals should avoid as “Herd Conformity”, writing,

That’s obvious from a Satanic stance. It’s all right to conform to a person’s wishes, if it actually benefits you. But only fools follow along with the herd, letting an impersonal entity dictate to them.

Clearly “the modified” have rejected the herd. Unless massive changes happen in mainstream society, body modification by definition forces the individual to stand outside the herd, whether in secret or in public. Simply by taking that little step of putting a small piece of metal through your navel, or permanently etching a design under your skin, you become something other than faceless.

Not that stepping out of the herd guarantees success. While LaVey did call on his flock to practice discretion when it suited them — or, as my father once told me, “if you’re going to be a sociopath, you can be more effective if you don’t advertise the fact” — he also felt that there were times when it was important to be public about one’s allegiance. When asked how Satanists could achieve mainstream success and world domination, he replied,

We need to do things, not just huddle together like pigs to keep warm. That’s what will destroy Christianity’s stranglehold on evolution and progress. When Satanists make pioneering discoveries and achievements, objective authorities can’t point to Satan as the Father of all that’s worthless and detrimental to society. They can’t say, ‘Gee, I wish we could use this vaccine — it’s too bad you’re a Satanist.’ On the contrary — they will be forced to see and acknowledge the quality, productivity and superiority of Satanic thought.

Many famous people joined the Church of Satan at the time that LaVey wrote those words — Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, the Eagles, Tina Louise, Sammy Davis Jr, and a multitude of others who chose to remain anonymous — and similarly, many well known celebrities and other people of influence are members of BME and body modification enthusiasts. I wish I could list them here in a way that didn’t violate their right to privacy, but unfortunately body modification carries a higher stigma in the 2000′s than Satanism did in the 1970′s. As a result, the vast majority keep their interests a secret, even when they rise to positions of power that would be difficult to erode no matter what they pledged to publicly.

In any case, the modified should learn from that statement and follow its advice. The easiest way to disprove the theory that the modified are degenerate losers that’ll never amount to anything is by not only succeeding in life, but by being better than them at everything. Not only does the modern Western world test truth by measuring success, but more importantly, whoever wins gets to set the rules for the next round of the game… Right now there are many rules in place designed to keep us down; only by asserting ourselves and succeeding can we change those rules — whining isn’t going to change anything.

Satanists are superior people. To gain immortal perspective and power, you must actively practice isolation from the herd. Turn off the television set. It’s meant to program you to think like everyone else. Use it as a device for your own pleasure, but as with fire or electricity, be aware of the danger. Use your difference, your alienation, rather than be used by it. Know that it’s your differences that makes you powerful — you don’t want to lose them, or you lose your power.

Our biggest advantage may be that we, at least for a moment, were able to reject the shackles that enslave and imprison the herd — and if we could do it once, we can do it again. In order to exercise control over the herd and solidify their position the powerful (wealthy families, corporations, banks, governments, and so on) impose a way of living that is detrimental to achieving success and rising through the ranks. So what do we need to do?

1. Reject all things that enslave us. We know we don’t have to look like them… so why do we have to accept the rest of the self-imposed slavery?
2. Once you’ve chosen your path, do it well. Work hard. Do it as well as you can, and win, using those victories as the foundation for more.

But once you’ve achieved some modicum of success, how do you spread that influence universally? LaVey’s Satanism sought not only to liberate its members, but to liberate humanity, and it recognized that to do that it ultimately would be faced with destroying its philosophical nemesis, Christianity.

Choosing not to go to church isn’t enough. It’s not going to stop the brainwashing of millions of other people. There can be no room for this ecumenical attitude of, ‘Well, if God works for them and makes them happy, it won’t hurt me to let them go on believing it.’ But it does hurt you. When there are that many people in positions of authority thinking muddled, incoherent thoughts, it’s going to affect you. To completely overthrow mystically-oriented religions, Satanists choose active opposition. We don’t need to show any tolerance or good fellowship to these sheep now that we’re calling the shots. Have Christians ever shown Satanists any mercy?

In our case, we need to ensure that we do a few important things to get started:

1. If a job rejects us because of mods, or a business treats us badly, we need to stop giving them money, and we need to make sure that everyone we know does the same, and we need to make sure the business knows it. We need to ensure that we aren’t paying to be oppressed, and we need to ensure that our money feeds only those who value us and the freedoms we stand for. Put simply, don’t support those who would destroy you!
2. If someone, be it a parent, a friend, or a stranger reacts negatively to the modified, we should first try and correct their ignorance, but if they choose to embrace their stupidity, blacklist them. Cut them out of your life. Do them no favors, and accept none in return. If they are not willing to accept who you are as a free person, you should not accept them as your passive jailor. Even if they don’t discriminate against you per se (ie. the double standard of telling someone you love them while saying you hate who they are), as long as they support a system that does they are declaring themselves your enemy.
3. If we find ourselves in a position of hiring employees, we should do our best to hire qualified and modified people and ensure they do the job we give them well. Doing so will have a snowball effect; the more modified people the public sees, the more willing they are both to take that step themselves, the more comfortable they are around modified people, and the more likely they will be to hire modified people themselves. We need to make being a free individual “normal” and desirable.
4. The more success we reach personally, the more we should use that success to show the world not just that “Joe is a success”, but that “Joe the modified man is a success”. This is extremely important. We need modified doctors, lawyers, bankers, police, athletes, and more. If you’re modified, and people look up to you, use that to our advantage. When people imagine a stereotype of success, it should include individualistic (rather than conformist) behavior, including body modification.

Because I am a proponent of “friendly isolationism”, people often write me and say, “Shannon, why do you always have to be so ‘us-and-them’… wouldn’t it be better to build bridges instead?”

To me the idea of building a bridge is ludicrous. Why would a free person want to build a bridge to a slave colony? If anyone should be building bridges it’s them — to escape their boring prisons! The only reason to open a dialogue with the unmodified is to allow them the opportunity to take a step in the right direction — toward our way of life, a way of being that doesn’t place fearful boundaries on our bodies as defined by skin… a way of life that provides powerful tools that can guide a person to enlightenment.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I’m very aware that there are many paths up the mountain and that the view from the top is probably the same — certainly there are free and enlightened individuals that choose not to undertake body modification personally. I’m reminded of the scene in Once Were Warriors (a highly recommended movie that addresses the need to bring the values that allowed people to survive oppression and slavery into modern lives) when a facially tattooed Maori asks his younger brother why he doesn’t wear the traditional moko. “I wear mine on the inside”, he replies, and there’s certainly truth to that statement.

But it’s not that easy. Just because a person says “I choose not to be modified” does not mean that they actually made a choice. Hiding under your blankets at night because you are afraid of the dark is very different than loving the light. Their “choice” may well simply mean that they are afraid to step into a self-determined and self-responsible way of living.

Assertion: Body modification is the most accessible and safest “key” to unlocking the doors to personal freedom, individual affirmation, and spiritual enlightenment that I’ve ever seen. We, the modified, need to work hard to succeed in life, and through our actions ensure that this key is protected and can reach as many people as desire it.

Keep fighting,

Shannon Larratt

BMEzine.com

A Modified Man in the Air Force

“Don’t ever go in the army Trey. A black man don’t got no place in the army.”

– Furious Styles, Boyz N the Hood, 1991

As those of you who read the BME newsfeed know, earlier this year the US military amended its dress code regulations to clearly ban certain types of body modification. Specifically, this included banning what it called “mutilation” — implants, split tongues, stretched ears, and so on. For example, the following was added to the Navy’s regulations:

8. Mutilation. Intentional body mutilation, piercing, branding/intentional scarring that are excessive or eccentric are prohibited. Some examples are (1) a split or forked tongue; (2) foreign objects inserted under the skin to create a design or pattern; (3) enlarged or stretched out holes in the ears (other than a normal piercing); and (4) intentional scarring that appears on the neck, face or scalp.

What you may not know is that those regulations were passed as a retaliatory measure against a small number of people in the military who were involved with heavy body modifications on their own time. Even though these activities hurt neither their performance or their commitment to the military or their country, nor did they reflect poorly on the military, these individuals were forced to have dangerous and damaging surgery to “correct” their body modifications.

BME had the opportunity to interview the airman that appears to have been the catalyst in this entire process. I’m keeping his identity anonymous here so as not to further endanger his chosen career. He is an IAM member though and I’d be glad to put other members in touch with him.

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BME: What made you decide to join the military?

As far back as I can remember I either wanted to be in the Army or fly in the Air Force. Around ten my uncle would give me Army stuff from work — he was a Supply Sgt. in the Army National Guard. At around sixteen I learned that my chances of flying were slim to none… That and the fact that I wanted to get out of my parents’ house as fast as I could influenced my decision to join the Army.

Right after my junior year of high school I signed up for the Army Guard and did basic training, and then I did my senior year of high school. That way I could get the discipline — the discipline that I needed to keep my life from going down the drain.

After two years in the Army Guard I decided that I was not far enough from home — I needed more distance from my roots, so I went into the Active Duty Air Force in August of 2000. As it stands now I am preparing to go to Guam and then fifteen months later I will be in Fairford, UK.

And what made you originally decide to get a tongue splitting?

I had always been interested in heavier body modifications, and the research I did about tongue splitting showed me that:

(a) It was a way to move forward spiritually. I believe that all body modifications are an expression of what your mind thinks your body is (or should be)… Something akin to aligning your inner image of yourself with the outer image.

(b) It was a reversible procedure (or so I thought).

(c) It was not against any current military regulations.

(d) There was very little chance of complications and it heals quickly.

(e) It was easily hidden.

How did you actually do the procedure?

The procedure was done three times in total. The first time, March 16th, 2002, it was done by a friend using scalpel. Another friend recut it for me on August 1st, and then again on Christmas Eve of 2002, to cut out the regrowth using a cautery pen.

Did your tongue splitting affect your effectiveness as an airman in any way?

In my opinion I don’t believe that it negatively affected me in any way. I took leave for the procedure. When I went back to work I was talking normally and the people that I work with never had a problem with it.

Was it apparent to others?

Unless I showed you that it was split or if you were looking hard in the right light for the split you couldn’t tell. If you were looking for it, it looked more like a crease in my tongue than a split… Plus at work I didn’t show it off. If someone asked me I would usually tell them that I was not comfortable with that subject in the work environment.

Anyway, most of my fellow airman just wanted to know the usual questions that all modified people get. “Did it hurt?” “Why did you do that?” “How much did that cost?”… Stuff like that. I think we’ve all gotten the same questions at one point or another. Once they got the answers to their questions they seemed to accept it. I’ve never heard a fellow airman that has talked to me complain about it.

How did your CO find out about it?

The day after I got it done I went and talked to a “friend” who was also on leave. I went by his dorm room to pick up some stuff I’d let him borrow. He asked me why I was talking funny, so I showed him and asked him not to tell anyone at work.

I wanted to explain my reasons to work on my own time, but the next day he went out of his way to go in to work and tell my shop chief… Then it was a matter of the news travelling up the chain of command.

How did they respond at first?

The way that the military responds to most things that they cannot figure out… they “up channel it”.

By the time I made it off leave — only five days — it was already at 9th Air Force Legal. I won’t say how far past that it went but it went a lot further than I think anyone thought it would. After about three months of trying to decide out what to do they came down and said that there was no legal recourse that they could find, but the matter was still open.

On January 1st, 2003, a new regulation went into effect, a broad regulation that bans, among other things, tongue splitting.

What options were presented to you?

I really had no options. I was given a direct order by my CO to reverse it. I was given about forty minutes notice of this meeting, and then was told that in five hours I was going in for an evaluation. Then four days later I had another evaluation, and then three days after that I had the surgery. The only options I had were obey, disobey, or fight it via legal, which would have meant losing my orders to Guam.

Why do you feel the military felt so strongly about this?

I think they thought that I was sticking my nose up at that them, like I was daring them to try and do something about it… But that was not my intention at all — I just did it for me.

Why did you choose to reverse the split, rather than say, quitting?

Ever since I joined the Air Force I have wanted to do my twenty years and retire at thirty-seven. I’d have lost everything I’ve worked toward. If I have to bend for some new regulations to fall into line and complete this goal of mine, then so be it.

How was the reversal procedure and the subsequent healing?

The procedure was about an hour long. It was done under general anesthesia so I don’t remember any of it.

They cut all of the skin from the inside of my tongue and stitched it up with twelve stitches. I was out of work for a week with far more extensive pain and swelling than when I had the split done.

Four days after the surgery I noticed that I had a large loss of feeling and taste in the front of my tongue. I brought this up at my first check-up, and was told that it would be weeks before I got feeling back. When I went back for my two-week check-up, I brought it up again. The doctor said that it could be months.

It’s now been two months and while there has been some improvement, there is still a large loss of feeling and taste. I can feel the mass of scar tissue in the front of my tongue. Even though I am classified as “fully healed” I still have problems with it.

That doesn’t sound very nice at all…

I also have a shorter tongue and less movement in the front part. I have throbbing pains that would be best described as “ghost pains”. I also catch myself trying to move it independently as if it was still split, since that’s how it is in my mind.

Not only that, but in my work environment I feel I’ve lost some trust in the system. Normally, whenever there’s a change in a regulation the people that it affects get grandfathered, which is how it was when new tattoo regulation came out — they didn’t force everyone to have emergency tattoo removals. I feel that because I was just a single airman the military didn’t take grandfathering my case seriously.

If you’d known the problems the reversal would cause you, would you still permit them to do the reversal procedure?

It would have made me take a step back and think harder as to whether or not I should fight the ruling or not… I guess it depends on if I get full function out of my tongue back. I am in the process of seeing what legal options I have if full function does not return.

Did anyone appear to “feel bad” about forcing you
to undergo this procedure? What about when they saw the
aftereffects?

As far as the people that out-rank me I’ve not had any sympathy for any of the pain or on the issue of the fairness of the order. I was forced to return to work six days after my surgery when I still had stitches and a substantial amount of pain. I had to just sit at work for three days because I was not allowed on the flight line because I had such a bad speech impediment that I couldn’t use a radio.

When I came in with stitches my supervisors said that it looked really “sick” and told me not to show them again. Now most of my supervisors say you can’t tell that I ever had it done — when I tell them that I can tell on account of having no feeling in my tongue they just dismiss it.

How did your fellow airmen react to the reversal?

Most of the people that know me or of my case thought it was wrong of the military to force me to reverse it. A few have had the attitude of “you should have known that this was coming when you first did this”, but they’re a very small minority.

I’ve also had a few that wanted to help me fight this, going so far as to start writing letters to the Air Force Times. Out of fear of backlash to my fellow airmen I asked them not to do that. Overall most people simply say that the military should have grandfathered me.

What would your advice for “the modified” also interested in a military career be?

I’ve never suggested someone should get into the military. It’s a personal choice. If you want to get into the military and don’t have any tattoos showing on your forearms or above the collarbone, then you’ll be welcomed as any non-modified person would. If you’re into piercings on the other hand, you’ll be ridiculed until you either take the piercings out or learn to deal with the ridicule.

Note that when I say “piercings” I mean those that can’t be seen; piercings below the neck. In the Air Force you can have holes in your lobes. You just can’t wear jewelry on base.

For people into the heavier side of body modifications I’d tell them to stay away from the military. If you get modified after you enter the military then you’ll be in violation of their rules and regulations. If you’re modified before the military they probably won’t let you into the service anyway.

All that said, do you personally support the military’s new regulations on body modifications?

I don’t see how I can support a regulation that was unfairly enforced on me. So personally, no, nor do I support them from a professional point of view. I was not treated fairly.

I believe that these regulations are too broad and too open to interpretation. Now anything that makes you look anything other than, as I say, “Christian Conservative”, can be considered violating a regulation. It’s up to the commander to decide whether or not it’s violation…

Does the military in general consider the bodies of its staff its “property” to surgically alter as it sees fit? That is, does this attitude manifest itself in other ways as well?

The military sees its personnel as government property. They can’t force you to get procedures, but on the other hand, the military is not forced to keep you either, nor are they forced to give you an honorable discharge if you decide not to get a procedure that they want you to get done.

Almost every person in the military is told that if you get a sunburn bad enough to stop you from wearing your uniform that it’s “destruction of government property”.

Do you know if this has affected others in the military?

Yes, it has… I talked to a fellow IAM member that is the Marines about this who had similar issues. Also, the new regulations forced an airman at my base to remove his 000 gauge plugs in his lobes so that they shrink back down. He never wore them on base though. Even though he did not break the regulation he had the same choice as to whether or not to fight as I did… And he made the same choice I did. He now has about a 6 gauge hole. So as to not get into trouble if someone sees him he wears a small mall-bought post in it.

Thank you for talking to us, and good luck in Guam.

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DAY ONE

DAY TWO

DAY SEVEN

DAY EIGHT

DAY 36

“The modified” are a fascinating cultural group. We span all religions and political leanings, and, unlike race, we actively choose this path. While some would argue that we are born into it, just as people are born into a sexual orientation, I would argue that all humans are born with the innate desire to self decorate and explore and enhance themselves and the world through body modification — most people are simply too repressed and afraid. In any case, before I get off track, on many levels we are a distinct cultural group and it’s important that we learn to think and act as such when we need to.

Farrakhan and other minority revolutionary leaders often refer to the military as “the white man’s army”. What I think is meant by that, on a more general level, is that the military exists to defend a certain mainstream status quo, rather than to protect the interests of minority and subcultural groups that don’t have massive representation in the governance of the nation. As such, these leaders hold that when minorities enter the military, they may be fighting to keep empowered a group that does not act in their best interests.

I can’t say whether “a black man has no place in the white man’s army”, but I can tell you with certainly that “a modified man has no place in the unmodified man’s army” — you don’t even have to take my word on it. It’s the law! They’ve illustrated through forcing this involuntary surgery to “make normal” the appearance of their staff that they’re willing to go to extreme lengths to destroy freedom of the body. That says to me that all modified people, and all people who care about the rights of the modified should seriously consider whether it is in their best interests to assist in a military-industrial complex that seeks to destroy us.

“Seeks to destroy us”…

It seems like a crazy statement, doesn’t it? But we’ve just watched one of our friends get a body modification that brought him closer to spiritual fulfillment and enriched his life… Then we watched the government step in and offer him two choices: (a) the end of his life as he knew it, or (b) surgical destruction of something he loved and had enhanced his life.

This isn’t the place for me to be making larger sweeping statements about the military — my pacifist attitudes on that subject are no secret to readers of my IAM page. However, I do need to point out that a nation’s military on some level must represent the will and the face of its people. What message is being sent by these acts and these regulations to the people of America, and, since America imposes its military might — and the culture it espouses — on the world, what message is being sent to the modified people of the world? What freedoms are being protected, and what freedoms are being trampled?

Think about it,

Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com

Joshua: Transdimensionally Modified

"...angels dressed in the prejudices of the twentieth century; avatars of another plane, speaking to us from truths beyond normal human understanding."

– L. Stanley Davis
A History of Transdimensional Abduction

After posting the pictures and experience of my forehead tattoo a few weeks ago (see “Does this mean I’m not getting that job at McDonalds?” in the tattoo section), I was quite surprised (and of course excited) to receive the following email:

Shannon,
"Long time listener, first time caller"... LOL... just saw your new tattoo and felt I should write you about a similar project I've been working on myself (and our mutual friend Lukas Zpira has been telling me to for ages). I've attached a few pictures and yes I will answer your questions!
Joshua

Suffice it to say that I most definitely had questions. I can’t confirm the validity of any of Joshua’s backstory of course, and he freely admits that it’s difficult to believe, but the mods speak for themselves. That said, while folks such as Katzen and The Enigma (who just released their album, check it out at HumanMarvels.com) are well known, there are many lesser known concept transformations such as the British performance artists who transformed themselves into witches and ghouls in the 1980′s or the “Belgian Furry Collective” who became werecreatures, or the many transformations by artists such as Steve Haworth in America, Emilio Gonzalez in Argentina, and Lukas Zpira in France.

Photos above, left to right: 1. Steve Haworth with Rex (more pictures of Rex and his procedures on Steve’s IAM page and in BME/extreme). 2. Demon (background) at the 2000 NIX tattoo convention (photo: Phil Barbosa). I’m sure I have better pictures of him; if anyone can find the URL please let me know so I can link it. 3. Julie Harrows, one of the British artists that used plastic surgery to permanently alter their appearance into various fairytale creatures.

That said, sometimes what’s more interesting than the modifications themselves are the motivations that brought the person to make such a radical change to their lives.

While he’s asked to remain anonymous for now, he has set up an IAM page at iam:Krill. Following is a transcript from the phone interview we did (Joshua is currently in Japan doing an art installation) along with some additional photos (thanks to Vanilla for transcribing it; as soon as the BMEradio server is up and running again I’ll post the MP3 file).

Shannon/BME: Thanks for talking to us about your remarkable transformation Joshua. Can you tell me a bit about what brought you to this decision?

Joshua: When I was about eleven years old I was living with my parents on the [US military] base near Helsinki, Finland. My father was a radar technician involved in early detection in the case of Soviet attack. One night I was woken up by a loud hum and a thumping noise. When I opened my eyes I saw bright balls of light surrounding me — it was so bright that everything was white.

Suddenly there was a sound like an electrical “pop” and the balls disappeared and when my eyes readjusted three dark figures were standing there. I don’t really know what happened to me, but a few moments later the lights flashed again and I found myself with them in another place, what I now know was their “ship”. I was never afraid; if anything I felt a strong sensation of euphoria the whole time. They told me that it wasn’t safe for me to stay with them — something about my human physiology being incompatible with the speed or way we were travelling at or something like that.

To allow me to be there safely they did a number of procedures; what they did was typical of what other abductees report so I won’t bore you with that; I’ll post the full story and details to my IAM page if people are interested.

My next memory was of waking up in my bed the next morning. The memory of my abduction was vivid, but my father had been telling me bedtime stories about “UFOs” they’d tracked recently (which I never took seriously) and I figured it was just a dream. When I went to the kitchen for breakfast my parents broke some horrible news to me — my Husky puppy Charlie had died that night. Like all kids, I was close to my pet, and to try and make me feel better my mother unveiled early the dirtbike I was to receive for my birthday two weeks early.

When I got back from playing my clothes were dirty and I brought them down to the laundry room where I was suddenly shocked back to reality — standing over the basket that Charlie had slept in was the same Grey creature that had taken me to his ship the night before. He was stroking the blanket that Charlie had been lying on when he died — I didn’t move — I was terrified that he might see me. I didn’t know what to do.

I thought he hadn’t seen me as he ran his hands over everything, and picked up some of Charlie’s hairs and held them between his long slender fingers. He turned his eyes and made contact with me, and suddenly we were one — I was flooded with a terrible feeling of guilt and grief and loss… I could feel what he felt, and we were one. I was him, I’d done this. I mean, I, Joshua, hadn’t done this, but in his attempt to communicate with me the night before, something had fatally injured Charlie.

And in a blink it was over again. I was totally drained emotionally — I reached out and touched the Grey, I guess to try and give him some comfort, but, with a pop and a hum he was replaced with a bright ball that shot through the basement wall and was gone. In a daze I put my clothes in the wash and contemplated the death. “We” weren’t sad so much because Charlie had died, but because we had killed him before he was “supposed” to die if that makes any sense…

Even though that was nearly fifteen years ago now, I’m still remembering new details from it and still learning to understand how it affected my life. Overnight I went from a boy who didn’t take anything very seriously and spent his days playing to a being who felt connected to all life around him…. I don’t think I really knew how to express this love and commitment and connection to the universe I felt.

Shannon: Ok… Wow… I don’t really know what to say. I can’t say that I’ve ever experienced anything with aliens, if that’s what you’re describing, but my experiences with the interconnectedness of all life are what have motivated most of my decisions over the past couple of years.

Joshua: I know — I didn’t write you because your tattoo looks like crop circles, I wrote you because I thought you’d be able to relate to the message that was shared with me.

Shannon: Did you tell anyone? What did your parents think? Your father must have been receptive at least?

Joshua: Oh no! It turns out he really was just joking when he told me those UFO stories… When I told them they assured me it had all been a dream. If it wasn’t so real, I’d believe them… But how do you prove an experience like this? For all I know there’s some kind of X-Files implant buried away in me somewhere, but it’s not like anyone’s going looking for stuff like that so I really have no idea. It was clear no one was about to believe me so I just bottled it up until, as is obvious, I couldn’t keep it inside any more.

Joshua with his cousin in front of the amateur radio telescope array his father had built in their back yard as a hobby project.

A day of hiking near their home in Finland, several months after Joshua’s “alien abduction”.

At home with his father enjoying Groscht, a Finnish desert similar to an America ice cream soda float, but made with whipped goat yogurt.

Shannon: Yes — let’s talk about how this experience actually made you want to start modifying your body.

Joshua: I never had another “encounter” or “abduction” since that day, but I feel like in the joining I had imprinted the Grey’s identity on myself on some level — much like how many Native Americans describe their relationship with their totem animal. When I thought of myself, I never was able to picture just Joshua again… I mean, I was still Joshua of course, but I was also that Grey being at the same time.

I think people have an “internal image” of who they are… When you close your eyes, you know where your arms are, where your heart is, where your mind is, what you look like, and all that. I had that, but it was overlaid with the Grey. Since that encounter I’ve not been able to think of myself as just human any more.

I know all of this must sound crazy, but what really drove me crazy was that what I saw in the mirror just wasn’t what I felt like inside… I had the wisdom to understand that it didn’t really matter, but it was just making me bonkers to be one person on the inside and another on the outside. I tried to lose as much weight as possible and tried not to exercise and did get my build as close as I could to the Grey’s, and it helped a lot, but I knew it was just a start.

Oh, at this point I was about eighteen and, other than a few tattooed buddies of my father’s, I had no contact with “body modification” or had any concept that this type of transformation was possible outside doctors. My father was transferred to Fort MacDill in Florida, which eventually brought me to enrolling in USF’s …

Shannon: Sorry — what’s USF?

Joshua: University of South Florida — I was accepted at their fine arts program, and to make a long story short I ended up in their art history exchange program in Paris [France] and met the amazing Lukas Zpira… I know he’s started to become quite well known in America at this point so I’m sure listeners know who I mean.

Anyway, after meeting Lukas and seeing the amazing work he’d done on others like the Brazillian Monkey Boy and Pierre [ed: Joshua is referring to a well known French full-body concept transformation client of Lukas’s that has been slowly “cyberneticizing” himself into robot form] who introduced us, I told him what I wanted him to do to me — although I have to admit that I never told him why. I hope he’s not too shocked when he listens to this. He told me he wasn’t really comfortable doing something this radical without a proper explanation, but after three years of calling him every two weeks, I guess he knew I was serious and wasn’t just asking him on a whim.

He told me he respected my individualism and we began to seriously plan the work and he helped me work with both him and a tattoo artist at a studio he owned at the time (I think he’s sold it since) to achieve what you’re seeing in the photos and what you’ll see in person this year when I visit you for ModCon.

I’ll continue with Joshua’s interview shortly, but since Lukas is on IAM as well, it was easy to do a brief interview about Joshua’s procedures with him. I’d like to include that now; Joshua and I didn’t really get too deep into the technical aspects.

Shannon: Thanks so much for talking to us again Lukas. Can you tell us about the day that Joshua first contacted you?

Lukas Zpira: Everyone always asks me when they see Joshua’s photos in my portfolio what I was thinking accepting him as a client, I mean, who wants to transform themselves into an alien, you know? But he is an artist, I understand what he seeks.

Shannon: How did he approach you?

Lukas: He knew Pierre. Pierre made the introduction and Joshua presented to me drawings he had made — the alien pictures like you see on the X-Files and what else. I had not done anything quite that extreme on an American (it’s not so uncommon here in France). But, a few years passed, and I understood he was serious so I accepted the task.

Shannon: Could you give me a run-down of the procedures?

Lukas: Some of what he wanted was not possible… changes to the orbit of the eyes, his jaw work reshaping… I used a mix of implants and surgical works to shift the shape of his face, and then with tattooing to pull it all together. The tattoos were not done by me personally.

On his mouth, he wanted it to be small and fine. I did this in two stages — I must say these aren’t things I’d offer to just anyone when I tour. All work such as this I do only in France with a plastic surgeon associate I met through Les Tour d’Avril [ed: A French implant manufacturing company that’s friendly to body artists]. First we excised triangular strips along the lip and pulled it “in” toward the mouth’s inside. The effect was thinned lips to almost nothing, and no “divet” under his nose. In the second part we cut away the edge skin of his mouth and stitched it together. There was scarring but we knew we would tattoo over it.

Shannon: Did this have any detrimental effects?

Lukas: It did change his voice, but only a small amount… But yes, it did. Before the surgery we super-glued his mouth edges shut to see what it would sound like. He is harder to understand. He accepted that. The musculature has not changed — we knew we could reverse it should he desire.

Shannon: And his ears?

Lukas: I cut them off. It was not hard.

Shannon: Um… OK. Simple enough I guess! Tell me about what you did to his nose.

Lukas: I am proud of what we did. I had done a similar mouth procedure on another customer, but at the time the nose work was the first. If you look at anatomy, you will see the nose is a jigsaw puzzle of cartilage with skin stretched over. We used Jesse’s [ed: Jesse Jarrel, a 3D implant designer that most will know better for his work with Steve Haworth of HTC, another pioneer of this type of transformation] 3D scanner at school to capture Joshua’s nasal structure and designed the piece on his computer system.

The whole thing is in my portfolio. If Joshua permits it you may post the pictures to BME. We pulled out all of the cartilage in his nose through an incision under the upper lip. This left us with some loose skin in the shape of a nose but with no structure, no support. Then we inserted the implant which we had made on the school’s polymer printer and pulled the skin tight over it.

It sounds mad, I know, but nose job surgery is so common that we had much to go by and it healed well. You can see this in his pictures… Also, we put in a few Teflon implants — that was first — and then tattooed over all of it in a light grey to unify and hide scarring.

Shannon: Wow… Is he the most modified individual you’ve ever worked on?

Lukas: I have travelled the world and done and seen many amazing transformations. I have done four other “alien” transformations (I think Melise has put some of them on our website), where the people wanted to be made into grey creatures, but it is true, Joshua is farther than anyone… But I am currently transforming a young woman into a Grey as well, very exactly the same. I have promised Joshua I will introduce them when he meets with me in Japan [ed: Lukas will be working in Japan shortly; check his IAM page for full tour details] — he is quite excited! I will take many photos of them both. I will also be in New York soon, and I can show people in my portfolio.

Shannon: Thanks for talking to us about this Lukas, and I hope we can have you back again soon to do a full interview about everything you’ve been doing these past years.

Lukas performing Joshua’s first procedure (the forehead augmentation procedure). Sorry about the pixelation — Joshua does not want his pre-surgery mouth or nose shown here, and the other folks in the procedure room need to be kept private. The full set will be added as soon as Lukas is able to scan them.

And now back to Joshua…

Shannon: Do you have more work planned for the future?

Joshua: There are a few things I’m not happy with; I’m not happy with my eyes. I want them to be bigger, and I want the orbits to be less pronounced… I do wear special scleral contacts to give it that illusion, and I hope one day to find an osteopathic surgeon who can help me with that… But I also don’t want to cripple myself in the process. I’m trying to make myself happy and complete, and if I’m “broken” in the process it sort of defeats the whole purpose.

I’m not a big fan of my jaw either… I want it to be more triangular. I’ve talked to a few oral surgeons and they’ve told me that there’s no way they could restructure my jaw and keep the dentition functional. So to do that I’d have to pull all my teeth and switch to custom dentures. As extreme as I may seem, I’m not crazy — that would be going too far I think.

Other than that I’d really like to lengthen my fingers… I fantasise about doing that trick they use to make models’ legs longer — they did it in that movie Gattaca as well. Basically you break the bones in numerous places, and set them slightly stretched. It’s very painful, but you end up with longer bones. I’ve been fiddling with a stretching apparatus, and I found a vet that said he’d help me with it, but in all honesty I’m really nervous about it. I don’t want to screw up my hands. [ed: BMEnews recently featured a link on this subject, click here to read it now]

Shannon: Maybe someone on IAM will have direct experience for you… I’ll be sure to include your IAM name with this interview so people can anonymously get in touch with you. I have to ask you though — why did you keep your hair? I’m sorry if this sounds insulting, but aren’t aliens supposed to be bald?

Joshua: (laughs) You’re not the first person to ask me that — I don’t “think I’m an alien” or anything goofy like that. I’m half way; a spiritual hybrid perhaps is the best way to put it. Anyway, I’ve had all kinds of different hairstyles over my life. I never really thought of my hair as being a part of me. More like a hat that’s glued to my head, you know?

I will admit though that I also think it’s a bit of a safety blanket… One day I’ll probably shave it all off. I did it once, but I just couldn’t go anywhere without people freaking out!

Shannon: Yeah, that’s true… I guess a hairdo is more of a fashion thing that “who you are” for most people. Let me ask you now, what’s life like as an alien?

Joshua: I’m not going to tell you it’s easy. Obviously I can’t — and don’t — go out in public very often, and when I do I usually cover up. I’m proud of what I look like, but you have to understand that I did it for me, not for anyone else and it makes me sad when people turn me into someone to laugh at.

Shannon: I’m sorry… and I know what you mean.

Joshua: The amazing thing though is that when I first had this experience I didn’t really know if I was alone or crazy, or if it was aliens, or if I’d met God, or what… and you have to admit, it’s hard to take alien conspiracy crap seriously. But then I started meeting people; I don’t know how we found each other, but I now have a small network of about forty people who’ve all had similar experiences and all were driven to change their bodies in similar — albeit less extreme ways… And now Lukas tells me he’s working on a young woman to an extent similar to my own. I’m very much looking forward to meeting her.

I’ve learned that the world is a very big place, and when you’re special, it’s very easy to feel alone… But the truth of it is that even though it may not always seem like it, this world is also full of special people, and with open hearts we can and do find each other. I have faith that with Love we can all live joyful lives and serve the universe in the way we’re meant to.

Shannon: Were your body modifications instrumental in your understanding of who you are?

Joshua: Yes, I think so. I’m not going to tell you there aren’t other ways I could have gone about this, but being able to tackle it all hands on and really live it, I was able to find my place in the world and as a result I feel both closer to myself, closer to the life around me, and of course closer to the Grey that started me on it all.

I know I’ve identified in my own internal rationalisation as an alien, but to be blunt, I really can’t tell you if that’s just a projection of having grown up around science fiction. It would be arrogant for me to say that we are the first generation to have this happen to us…. If I had been born four hundred years ago, would I have perceived him as an angel? I really don’t know… I know he was good.

I often try and explain it by quoting Barbarella: “An angel doesn’t make love… and angel is love.”

Shannon: Thank you so much for talking with us, and I look forward to seeing you in a few months. Is there any last message you’d like to leave for the readers of BME?

Joshua: Love each other. That’s all you have to do in life.

A drawing Joshua did of the “Grey” who he met as a child.

Well there you have it. I’m not sure if there’s really any commentary I can add to this… I feel like anything I write would pale next to both Joshua’s message and his remarkable transformation. Thanks again to Joshua for speaking to us, and thank you to Lukas Zpira for filling in the details.

When the interview is posted to BMEradio I’ll add the updated link here and mention it on my IAM page as well. Until next week, be good.

Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com

When does modification become mutilation?

"Every good artist paints what he is ... The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art."

– Jackson Pollock

I recently got the following question from a reporter in Seattle; variations on it are asked fairly regularly, and I think people tend to assume that their perception of “mutilation” (and just about everything else as well) is objective when it is in fact subjective. Anyway, the question:

Is there any point at which you would draw the line in body modification? To clarify, is there a line you wouldn’t cross and don’t feel others should either? A point at which you would say “Okay, that’s not modification. That’s mutilation.”

To me, the question seems strange. Let’s play Greek philosopher for a moment and imagine a dialogue between two people, Gerald and Charles, as they walk through an art gallery. They are in the abstract wing, looking at a series of Jackson Pollock paintings.

Gerald, the first man, points at The Key.

Gerald: Is that art?

Charles: Yes, I think so. It invokes feelings in me and has meaning. I like looking at it… But that one, Number 8, it’s just scribbling. It does nothing for me. It’s not art, and I’d never hang something like that in my home.

Gerald: Perhaps you simply are unable to understand it due to your own shortcomings and life experiences. I see meaning in it, and I enjoy looking at it. It is art, and I’d be honoured to have it decorating my living room.

Charles: If you believe it is art, and I believe it is not, and each of us can experientially confirm our belief, then who is right?

Gerald: We both are.

Some things may really be defined only in the eye of the beholder. After all, some people don’t like chocolate. Some people do. Does that mean that we can definitively answer the question of “does chocolate taste good?” with a yes or a no? Of course not — the clear answer is “it depends on who’s eating it.”

Looking at it coldly, almost any change made to the body, even simple earrings, is mutilation. It is also modification. In this context the words mean effectively the same thing, one simply appends a condemnation of the act. Given that the interpretation of the modification (that is, “does it make me happy? has it improved my life?”) is up to the subject, I feel it is unreasonable for anyone to attach the label “mutilation” as long as they can answer those two questions affirmatively.

I posted this same question to the members of the iam.bmezine.com community, and on the whole the answer was an overwhelming “whatever makes you happy”:

“I think it all comes down to intent. If somebody wants to modify their body in a certain way and that’s what they want, who is to say that it is wrong? I don’t think it would be considered mutilation if they want it.”

– communist

“The only line is the one that the individual draws personally. Hopefully anyone getting serious, extensive modifications has thought deeply about it and reflected within themselves. If they don’t feel the line has been crossed personally, there is no line. Hopefully, my line is not someone else’s line.“

– mal

“One man’s treasure is another man’s junk! As long as you are making decisions for yourself and not forcing them on others, anything goes. Everyone needs to follow their own hearts and minds in their pursuits, but one also needs to accept responsibility for one’s actions, and the consequences, positive or otherwise.”

– biggbiceps

“To give an example, I would never consider amputation for myself, but I admire people who see that as a form of art and expression. I can appreciate their reasons behind it, and I don’t consider it to be mutilation for them, even though it would be if I did it.”

– flightless_faerie

“I think the line is different for every person. I’m sure that I’ve done and continue to do a lot of things that most people would never do, but at the same time I wouldn’t cut my foot off… But mabye Joe would — that’s up to him and if he wants to do it, more power to him. It’s just not something I would do. Draw your own damn lines!”

– kenduddly

“If what you do benefits you in positive manner spiritually and mentally and you are prepared for the implications, there isn’t a line. When I am branded, I am spiritually and mentally affected in a positive manner — I feel this within myself. Whatever others might think of my decision is unrelated to that truth. I do not feel I can draw lines for others, but I know my own personal limits. Knowing what is positive and negative for me; that is what matters.”

– Elysiat

That said, a number of people did point out that it was possible for a person to hurt themselves; that sometimes, even when a person desires something, their reasoning may be ultimately self destructive — that is, sacrificing one’s life to defend one’s family might be “good”, but sacrificing one’s life because someone called you “ugly” is not. Many readers recounted their own experiences with self-harm.

“I have ‘mods’ (scars) that were a result of what, at the time, was definitely mutilation… But, since then, I have begun to experiment with scarification and branding as a form of art and beauty, not as something to express all my hurt. I think it’s all highly personal, and up to each individual to decide… not for someone else to impose upon another person.”

– flightless_faerie

“It depends entirely on your motivation. If you are cutting yourself out of self-hate or loathing then it’s clearly harmful. If the motivations are positive then it’s a different story. Everyone has their own ‘line’ and we have no right to judge others based on what their line might be. Just because an act is physically harmful, doesn’t mean the result is.”

– punkass

“When I was younger I was a self-cutter, and by no means was I attempting to modify my body. I was dealing with anger and frustration in the only way I knew how. Now I have many different mods that were painful to get, but were in no way related to emotional problems.”

– siogrrrl

“It’s mutilation when the modification is done by an individual not in a sound state of mind… That is, incapable of understanding the full physical and/or social implications of the modification.”

– newaddict

A couple people pointed out that the line between self-harm and self-improvement may not lie only in the self. If a person chooses modifications that cripple them, even if the mods themselves make them happy, they may still place a burden on society. For example, does a self-amputee have the right to demand that their community pays for their prosthetics? Does a person who tattoos their face have the right to demand that if they are no longer “hireable” that the state provide them financial assistance?

“I think once they burden society around them it is going too far, but I don’t think it is ‘burdening society’ if some people just don’t like it.”

– outsider

“I draw the line with whatever won’t get me fired from work.”

– gorelord

My feeling is that if a modification is going to change the way you interact with society, that should of course be taken into consideration. We have the right to put extra burdens on ourselves, but not on others. Just because you like a body modification doesn’t mean that you have the right to take more from society than you put in.

All that said, I think Tankgirl gave perhaps the most relevant response:

I think a better question would be why do people in society in general think some of what we do is mutilation rather then modification?

It’s true — one really does have to wonder why some people are unable or unwilling to believe that different people might have different desires. After all, unless one takes the hardline stance that all mods are wrong (earrings and circumcision included), the hypocrisy should be clear. The pathology that goes into that closed-mindedness would be far more fascinating a study!

In any case, I hope it’s obvious that everyone has the right to define their own line and their own limits. How do you know for yourself when you’ve gone “far enough”? Since I keep bringing him up, I will use Jackson Pollock one last time. When he was asked how he knew when a painting was complete (they took a long time, sometimes years, to complete), he answered,

"How do you know when you're finished making love?"

My official answer to the initial question? “If a body modification activity makes the person who gets it happy, or it empowers or improves their life in some way, I will do everything I can to both help facilitate that process and defend their rights to enjoy life with it. That said, body modification is a serious and permanent act, and should not be taken lightly. The easiest way to be ‘mutilated’ is by acting without foresight. A person who enters body modification with a clear head and a clear heart will never be mutilated.”

So try not to mutilate yourself,

Shannon Larratt

BMEzine.com

PS. Shout-out to York University, Class of ’95 Bachelor of Fine Arts program… of course, I dropped out after a year to do my own thing!