I offer to you the example of the masai peoples in africa who have been stretching earlobes for longer than I care to know. To me this modification has been beautiful since I was a small child looking at pictures in National Geographic magazines and the like.

The psychological community may say that sadomasechism is a disorder. I'll admit that if you need pain to adequetely "get off" then you may or may not have a disorder. I personally feel that pain is merely just another sensation, like a different color perhaps. We all feel it at one point or another but some people try to avoid it and others like myself see it, as it is felt in body piercing, as a means to an end. I could discuss what it does for me religeously and emotionally as a cleansing agent but that is beside the point.

I have been sticking things through myself since I was about twelve. This was mostly safety pins through my ears. By the time I was fifteen I had stuck pins through my lips, eyebrows, nose, ear cartilage, and hand webbing. Due to non-sterility none of these delighfully youthful punctures are with me today. Now I'm nineteen and pierce myself, my friends, and anyone I meet or finds me through word of mouth. I have a small autoclave so now all my work is infection free. To this date I've never let anyone else pierce me. The pain is just a mere complication during jewelry insertion, as my hands tend to shake with the pheremone rush.

In conclusion, no we're not crazy. We just have a more open minded idea of beauty, some of us have some interesting philosophys on pain, but all in all we're just as with it as anyone else in this world.