Her first exposure to bodyart came when she was twelve years old. After much begging she convinced her parents to allow her to pierce her ears. Shortly thereafter she repierced her ears herself with a needle and an ice-cube. While in high school, listening to the Sex Pistols, goth, and Britpop she dreamed of a lip ring but since she was living at she home never had the freedom to do it. However, once she left for college these restrictions were lifted. She moved to Harrisonburg, Virginia with her husband Dan where she discovered the internet, and, with Dan, piercing through the now-retired Washington piercer Logger and a friend who prefers to be known as R.I.P.
At that time the rec.arts.bodyart FAQs were being maintained by Paul
"Synthetic Man" Davies. Anne recounts how she came to take over that role:
"I emailed 'Synthetic Man' with Gauntlet studio address updates, and he
responded that he hadn't had much time to devote to the FAQ. I suggested
that I could help update it, we discussed the state of the FAQ openly on
the group, and Lani and I ended-up taking over management of the FAQ (she
volunteered to manage the Tattoo section, and hence it was split between
tattooing and piercing)."
"To maintain an FAQ means to be responsible for posting it to said group on a regular basis. On RAB we chose to post the FAQs monthly."
"In addition to these basic duties, I update the FAQ in some way, shape or form monthly. Usually this involves including new Piercer Reviews in the directory of studios, adding new publications of reviews in the resources list, and updating or adding to the informational texts when the need arises."
Since Anne is a professional piercer as well as the FAQ maintainer, I asked her if it ever put her into a difficult or "conflict-of-interest" position. "Exactly the oposite. Because I manage a non-profit publication, I am considered impartial. Because I do not work for a jewelry company, I feel I am impartial in my jewelry reviews."
"While my studio is listed in the directory, I do not include recommendations of my services. Hopefully this will prevent people from accusing me of maintaining the FAQ to benefit financially from it (no one has accused me of that yet, but with the change in climate on the 'net in the last year, anything is possible)."
What is that change? Anne sums it up as "Spam spam spam spam spam spam eggs sausage and spam..."
"The readership of RAB has grown to include a broader range of people in terms of age, occupation, sexual proclivities, and bodyart / bod-mod interests. For example, 5 years ago branding was considered very 'extreme' and was rarely mentioned." (Anne herself was recently branded by another rec.arts.bodyart regular).
Anne says that the biggest difference between the online and real world (F2F, 'face-to-face]) bodyart community is that when you're discussing bodyart, you can't usually can't see the bodyart in question. "Introductions are made opposite than how they occur in real life: on the 'net people come to RAB to find others interested in bodyart, while in the real world many times it's the bodyart that speaks first and starts conversation."
Women, especially women with piercings have traditionally faced discrimination and harassment. This manifests itself on the net in the same way that it does in real life. Anne points out though, "many people who harass me online ('You're fucking sick!') would never, ever harass me in public. The 'net offers some sense of anonymity, a kind of firewall that people take advantage of. They think, 'Well, this bitch will never see me in real life, so I can get away with it.' Little do they realize that I will not hesitate to report them to their ISP and have their account cancelled for sexual harassment!"
"On the 'net, people can harass you from any geographical location. In real life I've lived in small-town Virginia and now in the San Francisco Bay area. In Virginia, I was harassed or assaulted with endless questions on a daily basis, nearly every time I was out in public. In SF, people ignore you or they admire you for your style."
The combination of the FAQ and her web page showing pictures of her piercings (all of them) exposes Anne's name to a wide range of people. Every other month (posting) she says she receives some stupid message in response to the FAQ. For example, in response to the sections addressing genital piercings, "Why the hell would you do that?"
"I've experienced more harassment in response to my webpage, which I
installed almost exactly a year ago." Dan, who maintains her page pipes in
the exact date, March 14th, 1996. Anne is as out and outspoken on her
webpage as she is on RAB, visually as well as verbally. Because of that,
she gets a few emails a month commenting on either how sexy her genitals are
or how disgusting they are! She says, "I feel more threatened by the
'I want to screw your pierced pussy' messages than the 'You're gross'
messages for obvious reasons."
To females approaching the net Anne suggest that they educate themselves of the "risks". By that she doesn't mean risks that are inherent to the net, but risks that become "more prominent or in-your-face" due to being on the net. She says, "the dangers of 'net have been hyped in the media during the last few months, all about seduction (seduction of children by pedophiles, or seduction of unwary customers by MMF ['Make Money Fast'] schemes). There are assholes everywhere. The 'net is just another venue in which they can operate, unfortunately. As in the real world, one is responsible for self-education and awareness. Luckily, the 'net has many sites and resources to draw from (like news.newusers.announce)."
Although piercing is a largely male-dominated career, Anne has had the advantage that she has a predominantly female clientele. Just as there are women who would rather visit a female gynecologist (herself included) because they feel that a woman will have personal insights and empathy that a man could never have, there are also plenty of women who would rather visit a female piercer.
Later I asked Anne what she thought about all the media attention piercing and more extreme modifications have been getting over the last couple of years. Would it have a positive or negative effect? Could it act as a unifying force inside the body modification community? Anne pointed out some of the rifts inside the bod mod community. "There will always be people for whom any piercing is considered unhealthy or a sin. There are people with facial piercings who are not interested in genital piercing, and vice versa. I've heard that many tattoo conventions discriminate against piercing or piercers signing-up for a booth!"
"In terms of mainstream culture vs. 'underground' culture and governmental interests, the more extreme modifications may scare a lot of people into seeking a ban on all bod-mods. But this highly personal reaction of the conservative quarters is always voiced in terms of 'protecting our children.' In the eyes of conservatives, anything aside from one hole in each lobe is unacceptable, and 'By God My Child Won't Be Doing It, Because I Won't Let Her.'"
Recently Anne has developed an interest in female circumcision -- Not the involuntary kind she'd just described, but a voluntary splitting of the hood with the purpose of exposing the clitoris to additional stimulation. She clarifies, "I've always lived by, 'To each his/her own, as long as he/she is not harming others.' And of course I'm against someone being forced into piercing, cutting, or even eating spinach if he/she does not want to. The stories I've heard of forced circumcision turn my stomach. But so does infant male circumcision, now that I've seen and read how the procedure is done; no anesthetic is used, the babies are restrained by all four limbs and scream themselves unconscious. This, in a country that prides itself on basic human rights. While I am in favor of parental control in terms of educating a child about the world, forced circumcision and physical punishment are unnecessary and contrary to educating the child to respect others' bodies."
At the end of 1993 Anne began piercing out of her apartment and eventually went on to pierce professionally. Anne Greenblatt can be contacted online via email at [email protected]. Or you can explore her web page at http://www2.ba.best.com/~ardvark.
