| At A Glance | |
| Author | wolfbane |
| Contact | [email protected] |
| IAM | wolfbane |
| When | N/A |
The design for the 'ring' that I wanted was a a small spiral with some little purple and white stars around it, just between the knuckle and the joint of my middle finger; a not very large tattoo for such a prominent place. Zele said that he wouldn't be able to do the design that I wanted, but he could do something with spirals and spikes and I decided to go for it. The tattoo, when it was finished, looked good. It wasn't a design that I would normally have gone for but it looked feminine and elegant, and moved well with the shape of my hand.
Photo taken a couple of weeks after the convention
Shortly after having the tattoo done I wrote an editorial entitled Becoming Visibly Modified about my decision to get a constantly visible tattoo, and what being visibly modified means to me. Eighteen months on from getting the tattoo, I think revisiting those ideas is in order, both to talk about my feelings about my finger tattoo, and my feelings about being visibly modified. I will discuss the former first.
Since getting my finger tattooed in October 2005 I have obtained a few more mods; I've had more tattoos, bridge, cheek and surface piercings and have stretched my ears up to 000. But of these my finger tattoo remains the most prominent one, and the one that I get most comments about. However it is also the one that I am, at times, least happy with.
I think this is mainly because I can see the tattoo almost all the time. My facial piercings though very obvious, I don't notice unless I pass a mirror. Being on my face (and as strange as this might sound) I often forget that they're there. I can't feel them as they're fully healed and cause no problems; likewise with my ears. They're stretched but as they don't flare up I forget that I have them. Indeed I get surprised when I walk past someone with mods and get a nod of recognition, or when someone comes up to me and asks 'did that hurt?'. Half of the time it takes a second or two to register that, yes, I am modified, and it sometimes comes as a surprise, albeit a pleasant one, to remember that.
With my finger tattoo though, it's different. I see it when I'm typing, when I'm driving, when I'm writing, when I'm cooking food; whatever I'm doing I'm very aware that I have a tattoo on my finger and, unlike my other tattoos which get covered up in cold weather, my hands are out in the open all the time. Sometimes it feels like I'm suffering from over exposure. I get my tattoos because a) they have a meaning for me, and b) because they're aesthetically pleasing, but although my finger tattoo is pretty (indeed a lot of people I know prefer it to my other tattoos) I see it constantly, and that takes away some of the edge. It's similar to hearing a song you love over and over again; in time you'll start to like the song less and less, and sometimes I feel like that's happening with my tattoo.
In the abstract sense, I do love the tattoo - if I look at it and imagine that the hand it's on belongs to someone else, then I can appreciate it like I did when I first had it done and then it becomes a very pretty, very pleasing, piece of work. The trouble comes when that same hand mucks out a stable or starts doing the dishes. The tattoo then becomes part of a mundane, day to day setting and it's hard to marry the two.
I think the second problem in the way I see the tattoo comes from it being a tattoo that doesn't really have any meaning for me. As I've said previously it is a very pretty tattoo; it's feminine, elegant and aesthetically pleasing, but there's no substance to it. Every other tattoo I've had has had a meaning for me. Each tattoo has been thought out and considered over a period of time, which means that each of the tattoos will stand the test of time because of that deeper meaning. I can't help but think that if the tattoo on my finger had had that same level of thought behind it, I would feel a bit differently about it now. What would I be writing, I wonder, if I'd had my original design.
Saying all of that, however, I wouldn't get rid of the tattoo for the world. I do like it, but I feel like I need to do something to claim it as my own, rather than it being a pretty piece of work that someone else put on me. To that end I'm considering extending the tattoo down the rest of my hand and around my wrist, as well as having a similar design in white ink on my left hand. While it might not have been the tattoo that I'd choose for myself, I can do something to make the piece my own.
So what does this mean in the wider sense of being visibly modified? I said in my original article (the editorial that this piece is a follow up to) that becoming visibly modified wasn't, for me, a decision at all. It was, in some respects, a non-decision in that I didn't consider how it would affect my life in terms of jobs or relationships, or whether 'visibly modified' was a label that I would be happy having.
As I've mentioned previously, both in this article and my earlier one, I do have other visible modifications, in particular on my face. The majority of facial piercings I have, however, are acceptable; eyebrow, lip, tongue. My bridge and cheek piercings aren't yet the norm and they do provoke comments, but what I want to re-examine are the permanent visible mods, those that are in an area that is on show all of the time, somewhere that can't be covered up by clothes; the visible tattoos, tongue splits and implants.
Visible modifications are becoming more acceptable, and to some degree more normal, in society. Tongue splits and ear pointings are now more widely available, and scarification, branding and tattooing techniques are improving so that more and more people are getting them. Implanting techniques are also coming on in leaps and bounds, to the extent that many of these are becoming permanent procedures, microdermal implants for example, where holes in the jewellery allow tissue to grow through, anchoring the jewellery in place. As techniques improve and more modified people get these procedures done, society will have to get used to seeing visible modifications.
Does this mean that visibly modified people will suffer less questions, harassments and abuse? Probably not. There will always be people who don't accept those who look different; I can't imagine this ever changing, but I think as procedures improve and become safer and longer lasting, more people will get permanent modifications, and be happier with having them.
Bringing this back to me then, how have things changed eighteen months on? Regardless of my feelings towards my finger tattoo, it hasn't changed my feelings on becoming visibly modified. I have had two microdermals implanted on my sternum and have plans for more; I am planning two half sleeves as well as considering a split tongue, and plans for wrist and facial tattoos have been in the pipeline for longer than those for most of my other mods. Visible modifications are an extension of those that can't be seen. My mods don't make me whole, or fill some gaping hole inside that religion, drugs or culture can, but they are an extension of my personality and without them I wouldn't feel like me.
I guess the moral (if any) of this article then, is that, regardless of what sort of modification you are having, make sure you're happy with it. Visible mods, no matter how much others might like them, are fundamentally for you and if they're somewhere you'll be able to see them all the time, it is imperative that you are able to cope with seeing them all the time. Otherwise, why are they there?