Nothing says HARDCORE like vegetable knives in your nose.All right, so we don't all keep our cutlery in our nostrils. But, as Dr Follett pointed out, we do all modify our bodies in various ways. In fact, at the most basic level we don't have a lot of choice. Human beings have evolved in such a way that there is no distinct line between behaviours that are considered 'grooming' in other species, and what we have to acknowledge in human terms as body modification. If we didn't cut our toenails,¹ for example, we'd wind up progressively crippled (whether we live in shoe-wearing cultures or not).
Even the line between "necessary" body modification and aesthetic or expressive body modification is an almost entirely subjective one. I've heard certain people maintain vigorously that not cutting one's hair short all the time constitutes a long-term health hazard, in terms of risk of infestation and (I shit you not) accidental injury. Coincidentally, the same people generally tended to regard tattoos or piercings as socially reprehensible stigmata...
Yeah, yeah, you're saying. We know there's no logical consistency in Polite Society's attitudes to pretty much anything, body modification included. But it's not simply a case of Us vs Them (or 'modified' vs 'unmodified') here: very few of us who have permanently modified our bodies can claim to be free of judgemental or small-minded attitudes to others, and other forms of modification in particular.
Case in point: Me (always the best one, I feel). Over the years I've had a modest quantity of ink smashed into my dermis in various locations--most of which most of you will remain fortunate enough never to see--and accumulated a fair few pieces of gradually-tarnishing metal embedded in various soft fleshy parts (although I confess that many of my most ill-advised piercings have not been extant for some years now). I actually pierced my left ear myself, at the age of 12, by means of a tack needle, a camping stove, a wine-bottle cork and some pink-titanium CBRs another kid had stolen from a market stall (I'm pretty sure he nicked the bottle of wine too, come to that). The main reason, in my admittedly hazy recollection, was that possession of ear piercings was one of the most heinous imaginable contraventions of the rules of the boarding school in which I was incarcerated.² Yet it's not uncommon, when I see some other BM practices (or their results), for my first thought to be "oh, no way", "why on earth would you do that", or "that just looks fucking stupid."
I suspect--or maybe just naïvely hope?--that the reason for the rise in popularity of highly visible, permanent modifications is essentially the same reason why I won't take out my piercings or wear a suit (or cut my hair, or shave, etc...) for job interviews: if people are going to judge me on some stale, flatulent preconceptions regarding my appearance, then I'm afraid they can just get fucked. I've had 30 years to make up my mind about the values of integrity and self-respect, and I still find myself wholly unwilling to trade an iota of either for wealth or social status. In a word: knickers.
So I'm not suggesting that we should try to identify which forms and/or functions of body modification are "more transgressive", or "less meaningful", or whatever. Fact is, nobody chooses to do any of these things without a rationale that makes sense to them, and the right of an informed adult to do whatever they want to with their own body is not up for debate as far as I'm concerned. What I would recommend is that those of us who defend that right bear in mind that the issue of prejudice vs recognition is no more black-and-white than the semantics of definition I mentioned above.
Oh, and don't tattoo your pets, please. That's just fucked up.
¹ Or chew them; whatever works. And don't go 'ew', because that's exactly what human beings did to curtail errant toenail growth back before they came up with clever things like files and nail-scissors. Just go watch chimpanzees' grooming routines if you don't believe me.
² I don't think the Rules even made mention of piercings other than ears; their authors probably never conceived of such an abomination. Other things that were banned at that boarding school included (but were by no means limited to):
- tobacco (check);
- alcohol (check);
- drugs, obviously (double-check);
- possession of 'inappropriate material' (this term was used to encompass pretty much everything from wank-mags to D&D rulebooks to heavy metal cassettes--triple-check);
- growing one's hair during school holidays (check);
- loitering in town on the journey between school and boarding-house, and/or hanging out with kids from other schools (check);
- especially girls (check);
- wearing full-length trousers, as opposed to shorts, during summer term. I don't think I ever managed to break this one. For some reason, nobody ever decided to save up their pocket money for a pair of illicit trousers, rather than speed or vodka.
Even the line between "necessary" body modification and aesthetic or expressive body modification is an almost entirely subjective one. I've heard certain people maintain vigorously that not cutting one's hair short all the time constitutes a long-term health hazard, in terms of risk of infestation and (I shit you not) accidental injury. Coincidentally, the same people generally tended to regard tattoos or piercings as socially reprehensible stigmata...
Yeah, yeah, you're saying. We know there's no logical consistency in Polite Society's attitudes to pretty much anything, body modification included. But it's not simply a case of Us vs Them (or 'modified' vs 'unmodified') here: very few of us who have permanently modified our bodies can claim to be free of judgemental or small-minded attitudes to others, and other forms of modification in particular.
Case in point: Me (always the best one, I feel). Over the years I've had a modest quantity of ink smashed into my dermis in various locations--most of which most of you will remain fortunate enough never to see--and accumulated a fair few pieces of gradually-tarnishing metal embedded in various soft fleshy parts (although I confess that many of my most ill-advised piercings have not been extant for some years now). I actually pierced my left ear myself, at the age of 12, by means of a tack needle, a camping stove, a wine-bottle cork and some pink-titanium CBRs another kid had stolen from a market stall (I'm pretty sure he nicked the bottle of wine too, come to that). The main reason, in my admittedly hazy recollection, was that possession of ear piercings was one of the most heinous imaginable contraventions of the rules of the boarding school in which I was incarcerated.² Yet it's not uncommon, when I see some other BM practices (or their results), for my first thought to be "oh, no way", "why on earth would you do that", or "that just looks fucking stupid."
I suspect--or maybe just naïvely hope?--that the reason for the rise in popularity of highly visible, permanent modifications is essentially the same reason why I won't take out my piercings or wear a suit (or cut my hair, or shave, etc...) for job interviews: if people are going to judge me on some stale, flatulent preconceptions regarding my appearance, then I'm afraid they can just get fucked. I've had 30 years to make up my mind about the values of integrity and self-respect, and I still find myself wholly unwilling to trade an iota of either for wealth or social status. In a word: knickers.
So I'm not suggesting that we should try to identify which forms and/or functions of body modification are "more transgressive", or "less meaningful", or whatever. Fact is, nobody chooses to do any of these things without a rationale that makes sense to them, and the right of an informed adult to do whatever they want to with their own body is not up for debate as far as I'm concerned. What I would recommend is that those of us who defend that right bear in mind that the issue of prejudice vs recognition is no more black-and-white than the semantics of definition I mentioned above.
Oh, and don't tattoo your pets, please. That's just fucked up.
¹ Or chew them; whatever works. And don't go 'ew', because that's exactly what human beings did to curtail errant toenail growth back before they came up with clever things like files and nail-scissors. Just go watch chimpanzees' grooming routines if you don't believe me.
² I don't think the Rules even made mention of piercings other than ears; their authors probably never conceived of such an abomination. Other things that were banned at that boarding school included (but were by no means limited to):
- tobacco (check);
- alcohol (check);
- drugs, obviously (double-check);
- possession of 'inappropriate material' (this term was used to encompass pretty much everything from wank-mags to D&D rulebooks to heavy metal cassettes--triple-check);
- growing one's hair during school holidays (check);
- loitering in town on the journey between school and boarding-house, and/or hanging out with kids from other schools (check);
- especially girls (check);
- wearing full-length trousers, as opposed to shorts, during summer term. I don't think I ever managed to break this one. For some reason, nobody ever decided to save up their pocket money for a pair of illicit trousers, rather than speed or vodka.
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