At A Glance Author Acarpous Contact [email protected] IAM Acarpous When N/A
I was asked once by a psychiatrist why I cultivated an unusual appearance if I disliked the attention it brought me. The only response I could think to give her was that I'd rather be hassled for who I am than be left alone to live the rest of my life in camouflage. We make our choices.I accept the "Why did you do that / Didn't that hurt / How much did that cost / Does that go all the way through?" people. I don't believe you can be unwilling to accept that if you are modded, you do look unusual and therefore people will want to know more. I cannot deny that the way I have chosen to look sometimes affects those around me even more than it affects me, so I'm polite, I answer their questions and they're happy.
When I'm in a good mood, I can even give a civil answer to "Why did a beautiful girl like you go and do that to yourself?" - naturally everybody has a different aesthetic ideal � though I would question the manners of those who ask such things. I tell these people the same as the "You must like pain" people � that I've deep seated psychological problems, would they like to see my razor blade collection and doesn't that splodge on the wall over there look like somebody's grandmother lying in a pool of blood?
I get asked these things because it is lazily accepted majority opinion that knows I don't get modded for myself, for reasons pertaining to things only I might be interested in. I get these things done because I am an exhibitionist (through choice or the ever-popular assumption called 'a bad childhood') because I like being looked at or I like the pain and therefore everyone else may ask me potentially offensive, certainly embarrassing, questions because I'll like the attention.
In the end it's annoying, but harmless. And in the short eight years I've been getting modified, I've experienced such a positive change in attitude towards other modded people and myself, which I'm sure is thanks in huge part to the 'trendy' girls and boys that self-proclaimed 'freaks' love to distance themselves from getting the navels and the eyebrows piercings that takes body modification into places that wouldn't otherwise experience it.
It's good that I can be patient when I want, because there are also situations in which I can be nothing but.
I have had men be openly hostile to me when my tattoos are on show � I've been verbally abused in the street and had my clothing tugged and pawed at in nightclubs. I'm slim and I'm not strong. Practically any man could pin both of my wrists down with just one hand if they wanted to. I cannot fight a man, and at three AM waiting for a night bus home it is not in the best interests of my safety to argue back to a drunken group as they decide to crowd round me and pull at my clothes so they can get a better look.
Is the reason I get pulled around by men when my tattoos are visible because they are shocked into defensive aggression by someone obviously not trying to meet their standards of attractiveness? After all, women are supposed to dress for men not for themselves. Nothing is worn, nothing about a woman's body is adorned the way it is for reasons of personal aesthetics, it's done to attract men. Everyone knows that. So when someone doesn't do that, can it be taken as a personal insult, a provocation worthy of violence?
There's an interesting comment from a tattooed woman in the April 2002 edition of Skin Deep magazine about appearing on a television show to discuss her tattoos and having a man in the audience stand up and cal her a 'trollop', though he had two full sleeves.
I have never once received such treatment from a woman. No unthinking questions, no hostile negativity. The usual comments I get from women are wishes that they'd been 'able' or 'had the courage' to do something similar themselves, which is a terribly sad thing to say, and makes me wonder whose opinion is stopping them. Of course I cannot say that every woman I will meet will love my body art and that all men have been antagonistic, but I do think that what I have experienced so far is an interesting and important distinction.
I think the real challenge you face with appearing to be different to most has less to do with the fact that you have a ring through your lip than you think. Contest other majority-accepted ways of behaving first and I believe that attitudes to the modded would improve along with those changes.
There's a long way to go. But you knew that.
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been edited. We can not guarantee that the experience is accurate, truthful,
or contains valid or even safe advice. We strongly urge you to use BME and
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