At A Glance
Author	alisse
Contact	[email protected]
When	N/A

**Yes, this is a disclaimer. For all the people who don't read properly, I have to spell this out: I do NOT hold any bias against heavily modded people, unmodded people, teenagers with bodymods, or girls with pierced tongues. Cheers.**

I suppose to read this you might want to know a little about me. I'm 18, female, and am taking a break from college after an international move...which means I'm still living at home. Anyway...I never really had a modification fetish until I was sixteen, when I got a small (and rather bad) tattoo on my hip. (Please, no lectures. I get enough from my parents.) I later got a tribal backpiece which I love and don't regret for a second. And what many people say is true--it *is* addictive. Since I'm living at home all I can do is plan future mods, but I know I'm not finished. Anyway, more central to the point of my article, about a year and a half ago I committed what seems to currently be a most heinous blasphemy in the bodymod community--I pierced my navel.

I hear a lot of complaints from modded people about how the "teenybopper crowd" is invading the bodymod scene, running around with their navel rings and thinking that makes them God's gift to men, or whatever. Being someone who lives right smack in the middle of Suburbia, I see this all the time. Call it "Abercrombie Syndrome"; I feel piercing is no more meaningful to some people than wearing a trendy little t-shirt or listening to trendy music. Yeah, it's annoying, especially when people (modded and non-modded alike, I might add) presume that I'm like that just because I don't have any really hardcore mods. But why waste my breath reading some vacuous-minded person the riot act because I don't agree with their reasons? It's not worth my time, frankly. (Well, that, and I just don't like socializing very much, haha.)

I find it ironic that people--usually heavily modded people--put down and insult people who have their navels (and recently tongues, also) pierced, but few or no other mods. I thought most people of the bodymod community were seeking to make the world less judgmental of an individual merely because of their personal choices. I think anyone who has modified themselves knows what sort of comments and views, largely unwanted, that modded people receive. (ie, "Freak", "Sicko", "Satanist", "You're going to hell", "What's wrong with you?" and so on.) So far as I can see, the general attitude in the bodymod community is "Let me do my own thing; as long as it doesn't affect you, why should you care?" Applaudable sentiment. I certainly agree with it. I may find the personal choices of others objectionable, or not quite to my taste, or just a damn mystery, but as long at that choice doesn't affect me, I'm quite happy to keep my feelings to myself. My pique stems from hearing people en dorse some variation of the above attitude, and then seeing them turn around and blast someone for a piercing that they consider to be merely "trendy".

First of all, it's a grievous mistake to assume that someone who has a navel or tongue or eyebrow piercing, or whatever other mods you consider shallow and trendy, really is shallow or only concerned with being "cool". You can't judge one person by the actions of many; history, among other things, should have taught us that this simply doesn't work. Come on, that's like saying a every girl who gets her tongue pierced is a slut.

Secondly, if you're modded yourself, you KNOW what bias based on your choices is like. You know that it goes from petty and annoying to frightening and hurtful. Why would you want to inflict that on someone else if it's the very thing you're trying to fight against?

Thirdly, why sweat it? So what if some dumb kid pierces her navel to fit in at school? Why make it your problem by getting up on your high horse about it? Besides, lots of people do things during their adolescence that they later think, "Damn! What was I thinking?" I bet you were a "dumb kid" once; I know I was. Do you really think that a hysterical rant is going to change anything? It sure won't make you look mature or knowledgeable.

I don't know whether it's human nature to insult, condescend to, and hold bias against people who have different views. I know it's generally not my nature. The reason for my confusion is that I see so many people who seem to prove that it is. I know I'm willing to take responsibility for my actions and opinions, so does that make me a lone weirdo? I doubt it, since I know a there are people out there who share my opinion. So, there lies the eternal question, naked and revealed: is it human nature? Or just plain irresponsible hypocrisy?

I vote hypocrisy. In other words, get your thumbs out of your asses and get over it.

Well, that's one girl's opinion, anyway.