(Author’s note: Excuse me while I get all meta on you.)
Full-disclosure time: When I first saw on Lane Jensen’s IAM page pictures of the microdermal he’d put into someone’s eyelid, I was mortified. This was too much, too risky, and, though I had not been apprised of the details of the situation, it read as irresponsible at best and fame-seeking at … well, not quite “worst,” but getting there.
The client, it seemed, was quite young [Author’s note: She was 17 years old and her father was present. My point stands, nonetheless], with minimal visible prior body modification work done — not to say she was too immature, but, in the same way that most responsible tattoo artists will refuse to work on a lightly tattooed client’s hands or face, so should it be when it comes to highly experimental piercings (a distinction which, for the sake of this article, we’ll say includes microdermals). Because, as widespread as microdermals have become (and my God have they become widespread), this is still a new concept. The first images of microdermals (then called “dermal anchors” — oh, memories!) appeared on BME in an image update dated October 27, 2005. The first mention of them on ModBlog was April 15, 2006. On November 6, 2006, an article was published featuring interviews with a number of practitioners who had been performing microdermal procedures.
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| ModBlog’s first microdermals |
So let’s say that microdermals are, in their current iteration (as a modernized and ostensibly simplified version of traditional transdermals), at most, about two-and-a-half years old. In most circles, this would place a project in its infancy — far from having been extensively tested or fine-tuned, and potentially rife with unknown (and sometimes well known) risks. (Very seldom are feature films released, for example, that comprise a series of unedited first takes.) Yet, in the body modification community, infamous for its impetuousness, two-and-a-half years is an eternity. The idea of the “guinea pig” is now largely irrelevant; as soon as something “new” has been done, provided the client doesn’t die on the spot, it’s added to the portfolio, uploaded to all manner of Internet forums and, if it’s interesting enough, it’ll probably even get posted on ModBlog.
Pardon me while I put on my ombudsman hat, but make no mistake: ModBlog takes a lot of blame here, playing the dual role of collective consciousness and enabler. Almost everything posted on ModBlog comes via BME submissions, which are filtered for funny, attractive and generally unique content, given a punny caption and then offered up to be criticized and lauded, copied and adopted.
That is to say, ModBlog is supposed to feature the best that BME has to offer.
Such is our position: We want to promote an environment in which new, exciting and beautiful procedures can be put on display and discussed, yet we’re also an archive, for whom comprehensive documentation is a mandate. Appearing on ModBlog, vitriol of the commentariat notwithstanding, is often a validation of sorts: If it’s good enough for BME to showcase, shouldn’t it be good enough for you?
Well, no. Not always. Sometimes in documenting things, we come off a little too enthusiastic about items that aren’t quite ready for prime time, or that we’ve convinced ourselves are worthy of attention simply because we’ve given them a lot of attention — the state of “being famous for being famous.” (See also: Anything related to Kim Kardashian or Brooke Hogan; Gawker’s tireless efforts to track Julia Allison’s every move; The Hills in its entirety.) Is this really a healthy phenomenon? Making stars out of people because of their physical modifications and creating an environment in which this miniscule level of fame can be achieved by pushing one’s limits further, harder and, quite possibly, dangerously quickly? There’s a fine line between celebrating the community and unduly, unfairly celebritizing its members.
And, like I said, this is, to an extent, our fault — “us” being the body modification media, slight as we may be. There is — be it real or imagined — an element of pressure to be more “extreme,” for lack of a better word (and there are many). On another forum, one commenter recently posted that he’d just passed his one year anniversary of entering the wonderful world of body modification, and posted the following laundry list of work he’d done (consider the entire quote [sic]):
septumx2, smileyx2,tongueweb, Apadravya, lorumx5, fingerwebx3, handwebx3, nipplex2, navelx3, lobex9, conchx2, helix/2g Dermal Punch, tragusx2, eyebrowx6, labretx10, “rhino”/unidentified
Though I definately don’t still have all those and I counted where I re-did piercings, I remember wach one… I wonder what mods are to come in the future?
Fifty-three piercings and six tattoos in one year. His first year. Holy crap. Another poster followed up with their own first-year anniversary inventory ([sic] again):
it all started with a septum piercing … It’s now at 1g … 0g flat punch, 0g conch punch, x4 vertical bridges, x4 horizontal eyebrows, 6 tattoos, 1 chest scarification, 6 lip piercings, venoms (now stretched to 10g), tongue webbing, ears pierced at 8g (now 5/8ths), multiple arm surface, belly button, clavicle surface, x2 nape, x5 lower back surface, tragus, smiley.
AND MANY MORE TO COME.
This isn’t a journey — it’s an obsession, whether it’s instigated internally, by a desire to fit in, lead the pack, or otherwise. A bodybuilder doesn’t start out deadlifting 700-pound weights. A mountain climber doesn’t scale K2 as an introductory ascent. This is unhealthy behavior, regardless of the outlet, but body modification allows for it rather easily — even encourages it, be it to pad a portfolio or to get one’s 15 minutes of ModBlog fame. If I had a nickel for every conversation I’ve had with people who mention the role that ModBlog played in the popularization of microdermals, well, I’d probably be able to afford to have one put in my eyelid.
This isn’t to decry experimentation or having fun with one’s body — Rachel posted a video of Lassi doing a guiche suspension a few weeks ago, for God’s sake. But this eyelid microdermal business is different; these images presented an ethical dilemma. By all accounts, it was awfully unsafe and, while not in direct contact with the eyeball, would potentially be a nightmare for the general eye-region. It’s one thing for a trained professional and experienced body modification enthusiast to throw a hook through his taint, but it’s another matter entirely to risk massive harm to a young, inexperienced client just because the opportunity presented itself and it seemed like an interesting procedure to try. I’m not an expert of anatomy, but one thing I’ve picked up on is that unless you are incredibly certain of your methods and the anticipated outcome, you don’t screw around with someone’s eyes. In a field in which calculated risk-taking comprises a significant portion of the action, simple consent should not be the be-all end-all for a practitioner when deciding whether or not to perform an experimental procedure.
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| The microdermal in question |
On the other hand, though? This was ModBlog fodder in every conceivable way. It was probably the first time it had been done, it looked healthy enough and, most importantly, it was new. Considering our standards, it probably deserved to be posted.
We decided not to post it. ModBlog’s influence is tangible, and we decided that appearing to endorse it in any way would have been irresponsible. Let’s wait, we thought, and maybe once we can see some results, we can determine if this is appropriate to post. It would end up in the BME image archives, of course, but ModBlog, to be sure, is a different beast altogether. This was a test — one that didn’t need to be publicized, and arguably performed on the wrong client. We didn’t want to be nannies or censors — BME would still accept the photos for its galleries — but as for ModBlog? This didn’t yet embody the best that BME had to offer. Body modification practitioners should cherish their guinea pigs — not exploit them.
Of course, being an online company has its drawbacks. Through a miscommunication, it ended up getting published on ModBlog. Naturally, some people loved it, some peopled hated it. Some claimed it was yet another moment in BME’s perpetual decline, while others probably asked their piercers if they could get their own (or, conversely, some piercers likely asked their clients if they were interested in trying it out). This isn’t a criticism of the chain of events: It’s just occurred enough by this point that there exists a recognizable pattern and, for the most part, we love it (see also: mustaches tattooed on fingers, etc.) — that’s why we do this. Body modification is a passion, and dealing with it professionally every day would be impossible if we weren’t legitimately excited by people’s experimentation and determination to modify and beautify themselves.
But that’s not an absolute, and it doesn’t mean that everything must be supported or looked upon favorably. Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be; there may be no right reasons for modifying yourself, but there are sure as hell wrong ones, and those are made substantially worse when the client is being used — whether it’s by the one performing the procedure or the one publicizing it.
(Ed. note: While Jordan is an editor for and a valued member of BME, this is an editorial and does not necessarily reflect the views of other BME staff or BME as a publication. As well, Lane has been invited to do an interview and defend his position. This will be published as soon as possible.)
Comments
207 responses to “On Eyelid Microdermals, ModBlog and Turning Body Modification Into a Contest.”
That’s probably the best written, most thoughtful commentary I’ve ever seen posted on Modblog or anywhere on BME.
good thoughts…. I agree…
As bertrand russell has said… “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
that’s what I get from this.
more than anything it bothers me when people want to be heavily modified just to stand out, or be the most extreme.
it’s pretty easy to decipher the difference between someone who does it for the wrong reasons (previously stated), and someone who does it because they feel it is a true part of them.
people like that really do give the modded community a bad name.
I was talking to my piercer while I was waiting to get my two new piercings done, and she was saying how half the stuff that pops up on here isn’t cool, it’s just stupid.
Holla, I agree, this was quite well written and thoughtful. I hear about and see loads of people these days(especially the younger people 16-23) getting ridiculous amounts of work done in an incredibly short amount of time, and not just simple piercings or tattoos, and it’s kind of troublesome. In many ways there is a lot of pressure from the modified community to be more extreme, more heavily modified, and be so at a much younger age than you would have seen even just 5 years ago. I think Modblog of coarse does play a small role in this, but it’s certainly not just modblog, it’s just a part of the modification community as a whole right now.
I thought we’d already heard Lane’s defense – “It was done to see if it was possible.”
I really don’t think he deserves any more attention out of this.
deeeeep
Jordan, I’ve really enjoyed past articles you’ve written (the recent piece about Buck Angel was fantastic!), and this piece is certainly no exception.
Thank you so much for being such a reasonable voice in the world of body modification.
This article makes a very clear point. BME specifically is known worldwide. If any 16 year old types in ear piercing on google, they get BME. If you look for tattoo content, first thing you get, BME. Theres no escaping it. There are the opinions posted by those who chose to voice their opinion all over the modblog pages and on IAM, though there are thousands of other people who simply chose to go with the flow. This does not mean they don’t have an opinion. Be it questionable content relating to “The Best of BME” or “The Worst of BME”, it still comes from the collected conciousness of the website and those who choose to submit their pictures and those who process that content. With that being said, I personally don’t think it was a mistake to post the picture in question. It’s just something to think about. Just like everything else that’s ever been posted and will continue to be put into the objective/subjective eye of the public.
Damn, a whole lot of people just got verbally bitch slapped.
I love it. And kudos for saying what needed to be said.
This is the most interesting and thoughtful thing I’ve ever read on BME. Thank you.
Now thats an excellent piece, and about time.
BME/Modblog is an tricky position between representing BodyMod & encouraging BodyMod. A difficult balance im sure. i loathe censorship & urge BME to continue being as far-out as possible, but articles like this should be written more often.
” Body modification practitioners should cherish their guinea pigs — not exploit them.”
that about sums it up for me (NO pointed fingers).
more importantly, Body modification practitioners should cherish everyone they work on.
this aint no fucking videogame.
I don’t think that “mortified” is the word you were looking for. Sorry to get nit-picky about words, but I hate to see poor word choice in an otherwise well-written article. Thank you, though. We need more intelligent, thoughtful articles like this one.
While I agree with this text on a lot of points, I think we have to be careful not to judge people’s choices too quickly if we don’t really know them. It’s easy to draw conclusions from a single photos or two lines of text, but I don’t think it’s very sane for a community. People are still responsible for their own deeds, they are not children, they don’t have to be taught how to behave.
Still, I think the message of the article is quite wise. Body Modifications should be a personal journey, not a contest of “who’s-the-freakest-person-on-earth” or “who’s-got-the-most-insane-piercing”, and this certainly has to be remembered sometimes. Especially since on the Internet, things tend to spiral quickly.
and in the end, everything said was irrelevant.
BME is about sharing information, bottom line.
Censoring that flow of information seems to defeat that entire purpose..
Some people are going to take that information and make good decisions with it, and some people are going to take that information and make bad decisions with it.
I really don’t think that it should be in any way BME’s job to “parent” the entire modified community.
To each his/her own, whatever floats your boat//whatever sinks your ship.
very well said 🙂 simple as.
I once knew someone that felt they had to get it all and now – I may have been guilty of it myself at one point (not particularly extreme modifications but I had a fair few at one time) – but I think it is very much down to self esteem and feeling the need to fit in and/or create attention for yourself.
I have since become a lot more level headed and no longer have a huge interest in getting mods (having 16+, mostly visible, piercings and 32mm lobes a year or so ago, to a simple 4mm labret and wanting to get my ears sewn up has been a fairly extreme change)
I no longer wish to get pierced and only have plans for ink in the future and while I don’t particularly regret anything i’ve done, I do think there are a lot of young people out there setting themselves up for them.
I certainly agree with kw – I find Jordan’s pieces the most interesting and articulate and appreciate his non-sycophantic views of all things body modification and BME. Sir, I salute you!
BTW, the woman in the pic kinda looks familliar to me. like someone i met briefly at APP.
its quite likely that she has alot more experience then her appearance implies. Are we judging a boom by its cover?
whether or not we, as individuals, feel that Lane was appropriate in doing this piece, we certainly cant judge his choice of recipients. or the recipient herself.
I just woke up, and with the assumption of maybe seeing a new comical tattoo or possibly a suspension picture, wandered over to ModBlog.
Needless to say, this article is very refreshing, I only wish these kinds of problems would be addressed more.
I personally know a lot of people who modify for the sake of being modified, and I have a friend in fact who told me a couple of days ago that he is going to be a “BME star”. This kid did not know of ModBlog thankfully, so I can only hope his view of “extreme” is somewhat limited, and that he will not do anything to his body that he will later regret..
It all reminds me of a clip in the movie MODIFY, where Zulu mentions the discrimination factor within the community, stating that someone with a small heart on their arm is looked down upon by someone with full facial tattoos. I am worried that this is something that will never stop, obviously, people will always strive for attention and to do “the next best thing”, but so many times this sort of “one upping” is completely detrimental. This article is an invaluable source to the community, let’s only hope that it is as well read as it is written.
Kudos for drawing a clear line between the philosophy between “Shannon’s vision of BME” and “Rachel’s vision of BME”. Good to see that the site is going to be responsible for a change. The body modification world has changed, and BME needs to change with it.
I hope that we will also see this material removed or clearly marked as irresponsible in the main BME site as well.
Thanks for posting this, I agree completely with the above statements! The eyelid microdermal was a horrible idea, if it was the clients or Lane’s doesn’t matter. This to me seemed like a case of mod before client! Or even maybe Modblog before client.
agreed.
this article seems more like an “outing” than a form of entertainment witch i thought modblog was supposed to be. this article would have been better placed in bme where an interested piercer or piercee goes or should go(if it weren’t for it being posted here) to find RELEVANT piercing information. the option to add comments there can surely be changed. if the decision to post this article here because of heres popularity then its obvious what direction here is going. but, who am i to say what here is?
ha ha im going to add my two cents anyways. i’m reminded that body piercing as such with everything ever invented started as an experiment. i’m sure the lightbulb was considered “immoral” by a great many leaders at the time. not to say that doing this was correct but if the client is well informed of the risks and that it was relatively new and uncharted territory then they live and learn (or lack there of) with the consiquences. first and foremost, i would ask lane if he would have done this “experiment” on himself first.
ha ha and then there are simply people who get off on taking risks….
Modblog does occasionally feature modifications that I consider to be somewhat or overtly ridiculous; but generally when I have that feeling about a specific photo, so does the general mass of people leaving comments. I’ve been very impressed with the way the community has responded to the more unlikely modifications featured on Modblog, and those shared responses seem to be what it’s all about.
If someone were to look at one of the aforementioned types of posts and be impressed by what they saw, and then go out and try to find someone to do experimental or high-risk work on them without even reading comments, I suspect said culprit would not have been so inclined to do her/his research in the first place.
That said, this was an excellent article articulating the assumed responsibility that Modblog has to consider with every post, which will always be in question. My personal feeling is that in opening the discussion forum to the public by merely allowing comments, Modblog has already delegated some of the responsibility to make ethical judgment calls to the people of the community, which is, more or less, where it belongs.
Keep these posts coming!
ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
This was a really really well said article. As a concerned party AND a practitioner finding myself scrutinized for NOT doing high-risk, never-been-done procedures I appreciate the support from the author and the community.
I think it’s important to ground ourselves every now and again and remember that it’s not a race and it’s not a competition at the expense of our clients and our reputations.
to each their own.
perfect.
Wait.
What?
“The client, it seemed, was quite young, with minimal visible prior body modification work done”
How can you tell this by simply seeing a picture of her from the neck up?
And since when is it a problem that ‘younger’ people are getting modifications, of any sort? Some of us started younger than others. Some of us didn’t. Does this make any of us better or worse? Honestly? Is this really a popularity contest now? And if the artist did this, and took pictures, and posted them, how is that “publicizing” his client??? A lot of artists do work and take pictures to post them. They do this to make a “Portfolio”, for other prospective clients to get an idea of how good/bad their work may be.
Yes, i will admit, this procedure may be new. It may not have been done before. But is it really that horrible?? What about eyeball tattooing? I personally feel eyeball tattooing is a lot more hardcore than a simple microdermal on an eyelid. And i o not doubt that the artist fully made the client aware of any and ALL complications that could arise from this procedure. That being said, why do we feel we have to meddle in his business? Is it our place, because we might ‘feel’ its not right?
All body modifications have to start somewhere. And there are always going to be people (artists and/or clients) that are going to push that envelope to make them happen. But that doesn’t mean that we have the right to get up on our soapboxes and put them down, simply because we feel it is immoral, or wrong in some way.
What irony it is that Rachel and her mercenaries decide to side with Lexci and the Lane haters, when they have been posting pictures on Facebook of Rachel’s gnarly and way more risky boob implants and making fun of them behind her back.
What BME contributor is going to get attacked next? Stainless? xPUREx? Steve Haworth? Howie?
Naw, this is all just infighting and a popularity contest. Go back to shilling for INKED and making excuses for corporations. Pathetic.
I THINK THAT A COMMUNITY THAT SAYS THEY DO NOT JUDGE PEOPLE BASED ON THEIR APPEARANCE AND OTHER NON-IMPORTANT BASIS IS BEING A BIT EFFIN BACKWARDS IF THEY’RE GOING TO SAY THAT JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE LOOKS YOUNG THEY SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO TRY A NEW THING. SHE MAY BE OLDER THAN SHE LOOKS AND NEVER EVER EVER TRY AND RELATE HOW MUCH METAL SOMEONE HAS IN THEIR FACE TO THEIR SKILL LEVEL EVER… SOME OF THE MOST PIERECED PEOPLE I KNOW HAVE HAD MORE THAN A FAIRSHARE OF PIERCINGS BOTH REJECT AND HAVE HAD LENGTHY HEALING TIMES, BITS OF METAL ARE NOT EXPERIENCE MEDALS, YOU DON’T RANK UP WITH EVERYNEW PIERCING. I’M NOT EVEN GOING TO DEBATE THE CLIENT BEFORE MOD BASIS, BECAUSE ALOT OF THIS COMMUNITY IS BASED ON CONSENT. Working with Lane i have known that he has fully explained the procedures and their risks before performing them, if she was old enough to sign for the implant (+18) at dragon she is old enough to decided if it is a good idea or not. THANKS!
This is a good start, and it’s all well and good to bitch-slap a few overachievers every once in a while on ModBlog, but this post will have scrolled away in a few days.
What I want to know is what is really going to be done about this problem? Like Christian said, if someone looks for tattoos or piercings, BME comes up first. Not ModBlog. BME. And these pictures are still there in the photo galleries without any of these warnings. And people will keep copying them and keep wanting them and keep believing they are safe and sanctioned by BME. So this achieved nothing but a few cheers, and tomorrow, BME goes back to profiting from the photos and the artist goes back to promoting their shop. And so in the end, this means nothing.
What site-wide changes will be made to deal with this? The kind of people who makes these mistakes don’t read BME/Risks. A warning buried away in some reference page or an old blog post won’t stop people from getting hurt.
Lucas, 18+? You so sure about that? Furthermore, how would the piercer who did the eyelid anchor KNOW the risks of the procedure if they’d never done it before? According the girl (who IS under 18, by the way) said that as soon as she learned the piercer would do it for free she was sold.
There are a lot of potential clients out there who would be just as happy to have the next new thing put in their bodies by piercers who want to DO the next new thing. Very often, I daresay the majority of the time, the novelty of these procedures and the very idea of being “modblogged” completely blinds the big picture – often the part where common sense comes into play.
It raises the questions if the media is responsible for teaching us, or if we are responsible for teaching ourselves?
I personally think that Modblog (or any other form of media outlet) is there to give information and news.
What people choose to do with that information is their own responsibility.
However, I have thought that Modblog has been lacking a bit on the information side and leaning to heavy on the news side.
People come here to see new and cool pictures, rarely to read long articles about the risks and the story behind the picture. But I’ve always thought that they should go hand in hand.
If people choose not to read the article/information that is related to the picture then it’s their own fault, but it should still be as easy to find as the picture itself is.
I guess what I’m missing is a sort of reminder to people that some of this stuff is actually dangerous and isn’t just something you should be doing with your drunk buddies.
I remember that for a short period it seemed to be really cool to chop your fingers and toes off and then submit pictures that showed a finger that had been cut off two times (why would you cut it off in two places?) and a bottle of vodka or something standing beside it.
Those kind of pictures always make me wonder if those people realize the risk they’re taking and if that was really something they had been wanting to do to themselves, or if they were just fishing for their 15 minutes of fame?
In the end I think it’s their own responsibility and they have to live with the mistakes they make.
Much like many of us have to live with the scars and stories from experiments gone wrong back in the day.
But I do think that it is any news outlets responsibility to supply the masses with the full information/risk warnings along with the cool picture.
I would also like to point out that many of us (me included) are to blame for what is happening.
As soon as someone pops up on Modblog they really get their 1 day of fame if they belong to IAM or attach an E-mail address.
Through out that whole day they will get mails and IM’s telling them how cool this picture is, how awesome of a person they are and so on.
Many people long for attention like that and are quite willing to do anything for it.
We all need to take responsibility here.
I remember messing up some years back and being a total idiot with my new love bead implants. Two got ripped straight out and it got featured on Modblog.
It was a stupid chooses I made with them. I messed up. I took it with humor and the crew from Modblog saw the humor in it and posted the pictures of my girlfriend biting down on the removed implants.
Yet I get several IM’s from people who wanted to know how I did it, that they thought it looked cool and if I could give them any pointers on how to force implants out of their body so they could get some wicked scars and pictures out of it..
We all carry the responsibility of searching out information before we do something risky. It’s BME’s responsibility to have that information ready, but in the end it’s really our own responsibility to make sure we use the knowledge before making a decision.
It is also our own responsibility to stop glorifying attention seeking behavior that boarders on a Jackass attitude towards our own safety..
My mistake about the age thing she looked 18+ to me, seems like that kind of goes against the store policy.
i feel that the competitiveness to have more work, younger, faster, bigger!.. is kind of a sad thing to see in the body modification community. sometimes it takes the fun out of it for me sometimes to see people who are constantly trying to one-up other people in the same community by bragging of more pulls, having bigger gauges, treating others as if it’s not ALL THE WAY, it’s not good enough ,etc. in that mindset, doing/getting risky procedures just for kicks without really thinking of the consequences seems to be a fast way to create a bad image for the community.
I think what a lot of the people who have said that ModBlog is merely here to provide information have forgotten is that sites like ModBlog are *very* opinionated. They are not simply neutral suppliers of information; people do post opinions, and those opinions are as visible to a visitor as the pictures themselves. When ModBlog says something is good, a whole lot of people agree just because it’s ModBlog and are far more likely to go out and get it done themselves than they would be otherwise. In that respect, ModBlog and places like it do have a responsibility to not present new and likely dangerous procedures as being good or safe, just as a doctor has a responsibility to inform a patient of all the risks and possible side effects from a prescription.
Anyway, this was very well-written, and I agree entirely. If I could shake Jordan’s hand for saying what desperately needs to be said, I would.
So, BME staff finally take a stand against sketchy practitioners. Funny that it happened AFTER Shannon left.
This is the best thing that has been featured on ModBlog for a very very long time.
very well articulated entry, wish things like this would be addressed more often
One thing that i will add is that i do agree that it is not a contest about who is the most hardcore or the most modded, however i found it sort of un-professional for you guys to pick one particular artist (who has contributed sooo much to your site and is an avid IAM user) and single him out as the badguy, meanwhile there are artists everywhere doing sketchy procedures with sketchy jewlery with minimal experience. (just look at the Edson Alberta piercing parlor for example.)
Very well said, Jordan. Thank you.
Lucas: Who do you think submitted the pictures to begin with? Lane is the subject of this criticism not on account of being singled out in a witch hunt, but because he did a silly and potentially quite dangerous procedure on a minor and felt proud enough of it to submit pictures.
Very well stated Jordan. Great article.
lucas (34) – so…why is it wrong to point him out when he’s the one who did the work? and last I checked, DFX uses “sketchy jewelry”, but charges top dollar for it….
I’ll echo what a lot of folks have already said – this is one of the best written pieces I’ve read here in just about forever. And I totally agree with the points you were making – I see far too many people who jump first and think later (if at all), and sometimes it comes back to bite them in the ass. This is NOT a contest. IT’s not (or shouldn’t be) about getting your face on Mod Blog or the cover of BME. I don’t think that refraining from publishing things that probably shouldn’t be published is censorship – it’s responsible journalism.
I keep thinking back to that modblog post about the after effects of facial modifications in car crashes.
A well written article which brings up some good points. I am glad you touched on the whole modblog V BME thing, I still think there ought to be an uncensored arena for people to share pictures and stories of body mod culture, IRRESPECTIVE of risks. That’s kind of what keeps drawing me to BME after all.
Now, I guess to some degree, the old “great power great responsibility” adage could ring true for a phenomenon like BME, but I am not sure I agree with the idea that every picture and story should have warning labels plastered up and down them.
Comments like ‘And people will keep copying them and keep wanting them and keep believing they are safe and sanctioned by BME‘ really don’t make sense to me personally. I mean, call me cynical, but don’t we all have some responsibility not to assume anything, perhaps particularly online? Sanctioned by BME.. What does that mean? It’s the same site that also has pictures of people splitting their cocks, hanging from hooks and amputating limbs.. I think BME should keep sanctioning what it (to me) always has done – freedom to experiment with your own body in any way you want. But I’m also glad to see someone thinking about it and expressing their skeptical views once in a while, so well done Jordan.. 🙂
Her lip rings look pretty poorly healed, and she wants to mess around with her eyeballs? A lot of microdermals look really great but the eye one just looks awkward and kind of painful. It’s one thing to try it on one of the piercers at the shop who’s agreed to it and knows the potential risks, but a 17-year-old, even with her father’s consent? Who’s to know that her father is informed enough about the procedure to make the decision for her? I was allowed to have my eyebrow pierced at 15 at a reputable shop after sending my parents about 50 bazillion links from BME but my parents would have exploded if I had asked for something as experimental as this – though at 15 I probably would have lied about it to get them to cave…
Really appreciate the article, Jordan. It’s expressed a lot of the misgivings I’ve had about Modblog as of late, and you really know how to write a good editorial. Once I started seeing a lot of stretched/scalpelled labrets on here, they started cropping up on the local teenagers, 16-year-olds with 00g labrets that they most likely stretched straight from 14g and jammed an acrylic plug in, given how irritated it looks. Then again, you can’t guarantee that people will be, you know, not stupid, even with a million disclaimers.
Why do so many people have to hate so much here? The only problem I see with this whole thing is that the girl was under 18. Why act like this community shouldnt push you to go further and more extreme. Thats EXACTLY what this community is here for. Encouragement. This entire community is built around pushing the envelope of what one can possibly achieve(be it safe or not). I’ve been a modblog reader for years now, and it never seemed that it featured the best of BME. It seemed to feature stories that showed new procedures, new ways of doing old procedures, events, naked girls, and other things that showed what this community is and where it is going. in my opinion there is nothing wrong with getting 50 piercings and 20 tattoos your first year, and there would be absolutely nothing wrong with an eye microdermal as long as the client is 18. Lane Jensen FTW