At A Glance
Author	soze
Contact	[email protected]
IAM	instigator
When	N/A

� fuck em - no (Fake experience, Layout problems, Non-BodMod Filler [to author: This is NOT an experience.]) (206 seconds)

That's the inaugural entry in my BME Community Experience Engine logfile, my introduction to reviewing experiences. Not exactly an awe-inspiring start.

I first started reviewing when I was still new on IAM.BMEZINE.COM. I didn't feel like I had much to contribute to the community, or even that much in common with it despite my stretched lobes and my new tattoo. At the time I didn't really hang out with anyone who had modifications, not even a nostril piercing in the bunch. I wasn't quite sure how I fit in or how to build a rapport in this community; I mean, how do you start that conversation? "Hi, I've got Pyrex in my vulva. How 'bout you?"

But, when Shannon Larratt mentioned in his journal that BME needed more reviewers, I decided to give that a go. I figured I'd give it a shot. After all, I had a light semester, and if anything else at least reviewing would provide more reading material. I read up on the guidelines, joined the two reviewers' fora I could find, and sailed away...

..into a sea of CRAP. My first two votes were on fake experience submissions, one a copy-and-pasted semi-literate complaint about how an essay was required for membership, the other simply copy-and-pasted filler of a couple of words. The next few, though, were more promising. A nipple piercing was next, hotly pursued by some tattoos and lobe stretching essays. I decided to take my reviewing a few at a time, so I'd get some feedback on what I was doing wrong.

My initial votes passed through moderation without any hitches. I figured I'd go ahead and do this a little more to see what would come of it. Navels, septums, PAs, eyebrows, tongues, cuttings, and conches followed, bringing with them a little piece of the authors along the way. I read about disapproving teachers, attempted bribery by mothers, caring artists, boyfriends who paid so they could watch, the importance of tipping, frustrated but accepting fathers, and bizarre and Byzantine rules of aftercare.

By the time I had reached my first landmark of five hundred votes cast ( commemorated by a lovely t-shirt), I knew I wanted to stick around the IAM community. While I'm not a very social person on fora and IRC, I started to have things to talk about. A few experiences whetting my interest in metal allergies, so I subscribed to a forum that holds heated debates about acceptable body jewelry. I read about all sorts of genital piercings, and how it made people feel in control of themselves spiritually and sexually, so I got a horizontal hood piercing to try it out. While I was passing judgment on other people's work, their work was changing me.

When I hit fifteen hundred votes cast, I had a general expectation of what I'd find whenever I clicked on a new submission. Prince Alberts were candid and joking, tattoos had much more backstory than procedure, navels and nostrils were self-pierced relatively often, and labrets often came with the paternal complaint of "all that metal in your face". Entries from those thirty and older were to be welcomed for the different perspective they provided, and I learned all about variations between American and British English. I knew why people pierced their uvulas (because it was there), why they stretched their labrets (because it was there), and why they amputated finger and toe joints (well, because it was there). Just when I thought I'd seen it all, I learned something new, whether it would be from the most out-there tale of scrotal subincision to a self-pierced navel.

I'm at three thousand one hundred and thirty experiences reviewed as of this writing. My account is credited up for the next seven months, and I'm not excessively naked so I don't need any more t-shirts. I no longer have to do this to learn, to be exposed to different ideas and mods. Heck, if I want to read something new and interesting I hit 'random' on the BME Wiki. Nowadays I review to participate, to contribute.

Explaining to other reviewers what's going on has become easier: it comes down to communal effort, the work put in by a group of like-minded individuals. We all submit stories for review, so that we may learn from each other. We all vet these experiences together, so that the well of knowledge doesn't get contaminated with fraudulent or crapulent essays. Our strength as reviewers is not in the individual comment, but what all of our eyes see: one reviewer out of twenty may pick up on a fake experience, and makes sure to vote appropriately. If we were fewer in number it may not have been picked up on.

Likewise, these experiences that we review have their strength in numbers. After your first dozen septum piercings, the message isn't the push of a needle, the startling cold of fresh jewelry, or the crusties afterward. The procedure doesn't matter, the experience itself does: the rush of endorphin, the clarity and singlemindedness of thought, the reactions from those around the writer. These aren't just essays, they're diary entries, love letters, and declarations of war from the collective heart of those who self-modify.

Some review for the t-shirts. Some review for the IAM coupons. But me, I review to be part of something bigger than me.