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This is not an "academic paper", I quit writing for the benefit of ivory-pigmented farts years ago. If your life is still stuck in that ugly bog, feel free to re-write this and turn it in, with my compassion.
We are going to make some observations about BM as a written culture from an anthropological perspective. That means what most interests us is how exactly humans go about classifying, codifying and communicating their experiences, in written form. We're going to be mostly looking at Shannon's bmezine wiki, not to imply any sort of privileged relationship between that and BM as a subculture, but simply because that's what we're going to be looking at. Remember when you picked your underwear this morning ? Are you implying that's the most representative pair of undies in existence ? No ? Just what you happened to grab ? Okay then, we're clear. We're also not going to be too hard on your left brain. Just in case the entire second paragraph got you a bit worried. And we don't intend to be more obscure than we need. For instance, BM stands for body modification, and you can google from there. First off, let me point out that I'm biased against the entire BM subculture, outright. I won't go into detail right here, because I don't want to get sidetracked, but if you wish to read about it, scroll down to My Bias against BM heading. There's going to be some quoting, but before that, let me go through some very cursory points. These ideas are unsourced, in the following sense : I have read plenty of written material output by people who identify themselves as part of BM. I have then used my own skill and intelligence to deduce what, if anything, lies underneath. If I could observe widespread consensus (be it conscious or not, influence being an excellent example of implicit subconscious agreement) I'd note that. This approach suffers from the fact that it's not properly sourced, namely I won't be answering questions of the type "Who said x?" or "You claim Y, where is the source for that?". My understanding, resulting from my choosing, my filtering and my interpretation of documentary evidence is the source of everything in the next few paragraphs. You could claim they're unsourced, or you could claim I just made them up. I can claim the same about anything anyone else writes, and defend my claim to the same degree. The only difference is that I don't try to lie about it, at least not right now. So that out of the way, let's get some basics down about BM. 1. BM is a form of expression. While not exactly art, it is very similar to art because art, too, is a form of expression. However, most art tends to express something outside the individual, or at least connect to something outside the individual, but not all. Most BM tends to express something inside the individual. This would be, I suspect, the smartest way to attempt to distinguish the two. 2. BM is not a religion, or a cult, even if some practitioners, but not all, will add some element of spirituality to their BM practices. Thus it is similar to yoga in this respect, and in fact thinking about the history and evolution of that body of practices may be the smartest way to draw inferences about BM's probable evolution. 3. BM is a subculture. All practitioners agree in some form or another that their BM practices are not mainstream, that is, not universally accepted as a social norm. 4. There is a strong egalitarian element in the BM culture, and a manifest "natural law" outlook, namely all practices are equally acceptable per se, the only acceptable way to discriminate between practices is whether they are in fact harmful to the body, and even then, that discrimination can't go further than choosing to personally not be involved. Some interesting implications of that last part being that BM members don't have a right to BM procedure of their choosing, but only to those a BM practitioner is willing to do on them. If your desired operation is cutting a star of David into your liver, your ability to have it performed is strictly curtailed by your ability to find a practitioner willing to cut shapes into livers. This is an interesting distance from what happens in the mainstream, where, for instance, pharmacists don't have the right to not sell pregnancy control means, no matter how repugnant they may find the practice, on whatever grounds. We posit that most people from the BM subculture are squarely behind the right of women to buy birth control pills and squarely against the right of practitioners to decide what exactly it is they want to do or not do. At least on the surface, things worked out that way in BM under mainstream pressure, passive and active. By passive we simply mean there's enough people in the mainstream that the more restrictive rule "don't become a pharmacist if you don't like the rules" can be enforced, but a subculture can't afford such luxury. As active pressure, people can get thrown in jail for cutting shapes into livers. Thus, they should have the right to decide whether they are going to do that particular modification or not. However, just because we can show sufficient cause, we haven't proven that there isn't any other cause. More about that later. The end effect of that situation being that there are marginal groups within the broader, yet still marginal group of BM. Obviously, not all modifications are equally appealing (or sexy) to the body of BM practitioners. Consequently, some modifications will be more likely to be done than others, not as a result of the individual wishes, but because of outside constraints. Some mods that people can dream up will be just physiologically impossible to do. That doesn't make them invalid forms of human expression however, it just makes them impossible. And we all know that gap between impossible and invalid. More importantly, it is possible, at least in theory, that some mods people can dream up, while not physiologically impossible, are just not appealing, just not sexy enough for practitioners to do them. It is then the job of a practitioner to do a strange sort of balancing. On one hand, ideologically he does recognize the universal right to expression, and his duty to facilitate that for others. On the other, he has the personal right to self determination. He doesn't have to do things that will put him in jail, and at least to a certain extent he doesn't have to do things he doesn't want to do. Within the space of that balance, the beast we are out to study lies. You see, that sort of balance is in fact fundamentally human. It's there, at work in everything people do. The anthropologist is interested to see how fundamentally human processes work in a different, remote, simplified environment. Different, because he stands a better chance at noticing things he wouldn't in a familiar environment. Remote, because it gives him a chance to study something new, and earn a copper, be it straight money, or research funds, or peer respect, or whatever. Simplified, well, because he's dumb. We're all dumb. If we were all that smart, we wouldn't have to constantly read and write and point at shit. We'd just know it all already. We don't, and the more we can simplify the problem, the better shot we have at getting it. And now, within that space, there's many beasts that live. I'm not going to study them all, at least not right here. And I haven't picked mine according to your criteria, or anyone else's. I've just picked mine. I just reached in there and grabbed one. This may not be fair, neither to the other, more interesting, beautiful, hoofy beasts, nor to the bush that's now being mis-represented. It's being mis-represented because, if there's five hundred beasts alive, of fifty species, and of the five hundred there's only five of the kind I picked, yet nonetheless there's a grand total of two available descriptions of the bush, I make it sound as if a good half of the bush's beasts are the one I picked. Which simply isn't true, by a factor of 50:1. However, I don't make it sound that way. Idiot readers that don't understand what they read might. So, please don't be one. That said, let the quoting begin. (I didn't ask for any kind of permission, nor do I intend to. All notices to go to the usual address.) First, let's look at the piercing gun issue : A piercing gun, traditionally used by mall stores for piercing ears, is typically inappropriate for piercing of any kind. Almost all medical professionals agree that piercing guns cannot be adequately sterilized (an alcohol wipe is NOT sterilization); this means that they are capable of passing hepatitis and other diseases. In addition, experience has taught the industry that: Ear piercing studs are dull and tear through the body, causing unnecessary pain, healing duration, and other possible complications. Ear piercing guns are inaccurate and not designed for piercing most body parts, resulting in improper piercing placement. Ear piercing studs are the wrong size and too short for most piercings, their diameter is commonly 16ga or 18ga : that's too small for any piercings, and might cause migration. Any "piercer" using a piercing gun should be avoided. Now, what interests me is not the facts as described. I can see the sense behind them, to some degree, and the nonsense behind them, to some degree, and I couldn't care less. What does interest me, however, is the phrasing. Sure, ear piercing studs are comparatively dull. Sure they cause unnecessary pain. Sure, they cause possible complications. Compare People with any kind of elective body modification are violent and prone to nervous breakdowns, causing unnecessary costs, police intervention, and other possible complications. Is it true ? We can certainly make a case for it. Who isn't prone to nervous breakdowns ? Especially while trying to prove they aren't, especially to an obnoxious busybody with a particularly narrow field of vision. Do we want to say it however ? No, not really. The objection that the quote quote isn't about people, but rather about objects, needles as the case may be, and their objectively measurable physical characteristics, sharpness, as the case may be, is pulverized by this tiny item : Any "piercer" using a piercing gun should be avoided. Is that a sort of Any "person" sporting a tattoo should be avoided. It would seem as if the BM people are doing exactly what's done by society to keep them a little marginal thing that doesn't matter. Why ? Well, we don't know, so let's keep right on quoting. Piercing guns are blasphemy! "The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it." - Ralph Waldo Emerson "One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." - Elbert Hubbard Those of you who have been reading BME for a long time probably remember our "No Piercing Guns" t-shirt published about five years ago, which we discontinued after lawsuits were threatened and launched against us and others with similar warnings. The gun manufacturers' objection was with the list of reasons printed on the back, centered around the sterility issues as well as some of the design flaws that made the guns unsuitable for body piercing in general. Now, to wit. Exhibit A, "The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it." This would seem to imply that BM is a sort of accomplishment, so let's go completely hogwild and presume we've heard this before. Think computer geeks in the open source community. They're also a subculture. And when I read "The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.", they're the first people that come to mind. Why do they do things ? It's really simple, computer geeks don't have penises in between their legs. They have penises inside the head. Instead of chasing sexy women, they chase sexy projects, try to cut as big a piece as possible of the sexiest project available and then run around the bleachers telling everyone they nailed it. Ha ha, only kidding. They will walk slowly around the bleachers, the avatar of aloof modesty and wait for others to tell them they nailed it, and if possible praise their immortal nailing capacities. Don't believe me ? Go ask 'em. So, is it possible a little bit of that is going on through the BM community ? Go ask 'em. But wait, there's more. Exhibit B, "One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." No, seriously. We are so utterly impressed with the exploits of people that could have gone to med school instead and been all the extraordinary they want. O, no, wait. There's about five trillion doctors out there, and some are actually pretty good. That's one hard to cut pie. And then there's just a few people doing BM, and some of them didn't even finish college. Well, shoot me, I think an unhinged door frame stands a better chance at being an extraordinary BM'er than an extraordinary doctor, wouldtcha say ? I know, I'm biased. Since when finishing school means anything. Now that I've gotten all the idiots up in arms, let me point out the chief advantage of modesty : If you don't pick bombastic quotes to preface sludgy articles, you won't have to read about me laughing at your sanctimonious pumpkin. Especially if you don't pick TWO of em. Aite ? The important part, anyway, is the mention of legal strife. There's two ways you can get into legal trouble. There's kind one, where you do something and other people see it and go complain, and get enough people to agree that "You are not to do that ever again!" You are then a victim. You may be a necessary victim for society, but you're still a victim. Just like the little situation discussed above with the impossible and invalid. If you don't get what you want, you don't get what you want, regardless if what you want is gettable in the first place. And when you're not allowed to do what you want, you aren't allowed to do it, regardless if it can even be done to begin with. But there's kind two. There's the kind when you see other people doing something, and you go and complain, and try to get enough people to agree that "They are not to do that ever again!", except you fail, and instead the decision is "You are to shut the fuck up". Both kinds are a hassle, but in kind two, you aren't a victim. You're a frustrated busy body. You don't get to impose your will upon others, be that will disguised as opinion or whatever else. You don't get that little bit of cultural territory you wanted. But why did you want a bit of cultural territory in the first place ? Again, the objection could be raised that, well, what's wrong with some people that do something a certain way thinking some other way to do it is wrong, for whatever reason ? I'm glad you ask. Nothing at all. Without that, we couldn't function could we ? However, that's not what they did. They made t-shirts to protest the measly guns. Let's quote yet more While I'm mentioning "reputable" piercing gun manufacturers (it makes me sick to say that) What's that, then ? Here, read the entire article, I've saved it for posterity. It is not a matter of opinion, not really, nor information and access thereof. It's Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt at it's best. Unless you're looking for a dead end path that'll put your life in needless danger (and, if body modification is a spiritual act, perhaps even put your soul in peril), seek out a professional that can do a good job making all your dreams come true... not some hack that at best can do a shoddy job of making one dream come true, with no hope for the rest. Why would the BM folks sound like the MS folks ? The soul-pinching gun ? Since when are souls a sort of hot air balloons ? So, let's start a little collection of questions we don't know how to answer. 1, from above, is "Why would BM people be doing exactly what's done by society to keep them a little marginal thing that doesn't matter ?" 2. would be "Why would the BM community want territory ?". Now we can happily carry on. A scratcher is a tattoo artist that does extremely poor, jailhouse quality tattoos—often out of their homes. A general rule with tattoos is you get what you pay for. That means: Shop for quality, not for price. If it costs more than you can afford, save up for it. A cheap tattoo is not good; a good tattoo is not cheap. Now, how do we know the jailhouse look isn't exactly what's desired ? And why are we implying that the jailhouse look is not, and could not be, exactly what's desired ? When did the home become the source of all that is evil ? I happen to like my home. People work out of their home doing all sorts of useful things, from legal and fiscal consulting to writing programs and starting companies, Apple computers and the apparent idol of BM, Microsoft come to mind. Isn't saying something like that on the same page with considerations about the spiritual and soul the absolute bottom of the shame pit ? Since we're having fun this way, let's compare some more. A loafer is a person that does extremely poor, bum quality work, often out of their homes (which happen to be cardboard). Sounds great, doesn't it ? O, yes, and their mothers are ugly. But never mind that. Apparently there is a general rule with tattoos. This is incredibly good news for the anthropologist, mostly because, well... maybe it'd save some effort and head SCRATCHING, since shoot me if I was able to figure "general rules" all that well so far. And I thought I was smart, to boot. That general rule, bless it's little ruly soul, is no more and no less than "You get what you pay for." Also known as the quintessential corporate bullshit story. However, over here in reality land, you don't get what you pay for, ever. You get what you get, and you pay for what you think you're paying for. And marketing is there to ensure that divide stays open and profitable. If you can't afford it, save for it ? Can you believe the gall of that single statement ? I'm not making this up. Here, have a snapshot. The only people with comparable zest are the dearly beloved pharma companies. You need AIDS medication and can't afford it ? Well fucking save. So apparently BME is going corporate, and has recently acquired a marketing department, which is happily churning propaganda and stuffing it down throats. The glory. The gory glory. And the agony. A cheap tattoo is not good; a good tattoo is not cheap. O rly. Check out the Gods Must Be Crazy film if you have half an hour sometime. "Modern primitives" centered around expensive shit is squarely a doomed adventure. What's this, the yuppie side of BM ? So, question 3, then, is why does BM as a community need BME's marketing department, and why does it need BME's ostensibly informative articles that are stuffed with corporate bullshit ? This one I know how to answer. They don't need it, but they don't notice it either. So I kind of have to come along, and point out the matter, doing the world the same service BME did the world pointing out the shortcomings of the pierce gun. With the difference that I'm not trying to take BME offline. I just hope they get their heads fixed. I'm somehow thinking Shannon, Jon and the rest of people running BME aren't in fact corporate. They just got a little contaminated, that's all, but now that someone's pointed it out, they suddenly realised what the problem is, and how deeply rooted, and how much better people they will become by uprooting it. Not to mention, you know, the souls. Or at least, they will do all that after screaming abuse at me over the phone for a few hours and so forth. Shannon Larratt is the editor and publisher of BMEZINE.COM, the largest and oldest full-spectrum body modification publication on the planet. He also is known for his promotion of radical individualistic politics, spirituality, and on a more base level, his main vice: exotic cars. Shannon lives in rural Canada with his family and friends where he is currently producing the BME movie. BM for everybody bitch. As they are, as they need it. Get back to the roots. 10 guiches fell out upon reading the heresy. |