Shannon's recent fracas with SKIN & INK magazine is indicative of a long-held prejudice among some members of the tattoo industry. The magazine's reaction to his innovative and overdue proposal, came as no surprise to those of us in the bod mod community who have been exposed to this bias.When body piercing and other modifications first gained the momentum of a speeding train in the mid-1980's, there was quite a hue and cry among the majority of tattoo establishments. Their rigid opposition stemmed from two areas:
(a) professional body modifiers (i.e. piercers, branders and scarifiers) would cut into the profits of the tattoo trade.Tattoo studios only began offering piercing and branding services once they realized how lucrative the "alternative" body art scene could be. Unfortunately, this greed factor attracted and encouraged shoddy scratchers to become shoddy butchers. For if you were not making any money as a shitty inkslinger, you could always pick up an easy $85.00 puncturing the abdominal wall of an unsuspecting piercee. With re-used needles "sterilized" in a toaster oven.(b) at the time, most of the body modifications emanated out of the gay/SM underground, and this reality violated the homophobic, rabidly heterosexual biker-driven ethos of the tattoo industry.
This fraudulent practice angered both the talented, conscientious and legitimate tattoo artists and the equally dedicated professional body modifiers. It imbued BOTH industries with the inaccurate general image of extreme physical danger, incompetence and unsanitary conditions. It was during this early period before the dissemination of informative material, that a lot of the horror stories began to surface. Serious hemorrhages and infections resulting from botched piercings; scars that looked like a deranged plastic surgeon had been at them with an industrial awl; brandings performed with everything from a too- hot table knife to metal spatulas.
To add further impetus to the avalanche, bod mod-specific publications like PFIQ, BODY PLAY, PIERCING WORLD and BODY ART began to appear at newsstands, initially displayed alongside SKIN & INK, TATTOO and SKIN ART.
But as a result of the still-extant negative perception of "alternative" modifications, most of the publications dealing with body art subjects other than tattooing are now often found (when found at all) hidden on VERY high shelves in the gay/lesbian or pornography sections of Ottawa's newsstands. As if to imply that the only people interested in these publications are homosexual or heterosexual men in search of a little furtive cluster fuck. By contrast, every inking publication known to man is openly displayed in plain view in the relatively innocuous automotive section.In the frenzied pursuit of the body artist's dollar, a "them" and "us" mentality evolved between hard line tattoo artists and non-traditional body modifiers. However, there was money to be made, and those tattoo artists who hated to ponder any other form of modification were nonetheless eager to cash in on the "new" craze for ampallangs and nipple rings and fraternity scars.
I have seen firsthand the ramifications of this ground zero rivalry. My piercer often found himself having to repair poorly executed piercings performed by an erstwhile scratcher operating at a particular tattoo studio. His business was threatened--at one point, there was talk of deploying explosives--by this same establishment, as they did not like the fact that he was adversely affecting their trade.
It did not help these hardliners' situation any, when the old mix n' match body art urge surfaced among the ranks of the colourfully marked. Those vast numbers of the tattooed community who rightly perceive the harmony between ALL forms of body art, also began spending their cash at piercing, branding and scarification studios.
Within the tattoo community, there gradually occurred a discernible schism between the diehard tattoos-only group, and such people as a certain charming lady in British Columbia who augmented her full suit with a full set.
I have seen some wonderful examples of tattoos incorporated with other forms of body art: on raised scars; on pubic mounds bearing steel; solar or floral designs surrounding a navel ring -- monsieur Rodman's combo deserves particular mention; on the outside shaft of a bifurcated and beringed penis; surrounding the areolae of stretched nipples.
Occasionally, the concept of alternative or "non-traditional" body modifications is used by some elements of the tattoo industry to drive publication and retail sales. There are currently a number of tattoo magazines with pretensions to hole- boring, and a number of tattoo shops masquerading as piercing studios. There have been cases where body piercers were actively discouraged from acquiring booths at tattoo expos.
The unnecessary divisiveness between the tattoos-only element in the inking profession and alternative modifiers eventually spread to the bod mod community at large. Which brings us right back to the nonsense parroted at Shannon about "only tattooing being art". Or to the strange scenario of a tattoo artist gazing at my decorated, modified vulva and shivering with distaste. His sage pronouncement was that "this was some sick shit". Not sick enough, however, to prevent him from installing that case filled with cheap BCR's in his shop window. And not sick enough to tell the resident pro piercer not to come back.It is ironic that some members of a profession whose history wears the cloak of rebellion, should adopt a position that is every bit as frightened and narrow-minded as mainstream values. The church-and-chino crowd believes that ALL modifiers are children of Satan, and some devout inkslingers are not far behind. I find myself often screaming with helpless laughter at this anachronism: of some guy in leather with hair down to his commode and extensive blackwork riddling his body, pursing his lips and pointing his finger with the same sanctimony as the village biddy.
The tattoo artist:
is indeed a rare find. He will always find a welcome seat in my body art theatre, for he has willingly taken that easy ride down the road to FREE THOUGHT. We'll call him monseigneur and bring him a coffee.
- who is Roman Catholic (for those of us practising Quebec's unique form of epicurean Papacy);
- who has plugged and metallized lobes, a nice scar or two, a couple of hafadas,
- who has performed his own ring-accentuated meatotomy and is now considering bifurcation,
- who has NO BIAS towards deleted limbs, sliced, spliced or nullified genitalia, perforated places or any other modification which the "peripheral" psyche can devise,