BME: Body Modification Ezine

A tattooed person suspends from hooks, laying flat, one leg higher than the other. Their head is back, and they seem to be smiling, dark hair dangling like an anime character.

Celebrating body modification culture since 1994.

Author: Rob

  • Everyone makes mistakes, right?

    Written by

    Rob

    ModBlog reader Brendan sent me this link of a news story NBC posted recently.  It seems that a plastic surgeon has invented a “new surgery” that can reverse the process of stretched ears.

    When Daniel Bocchino was 16, he started stretching his ear lobes, expanding them until he had an inch-wide hole in each lobe. But by the time he was 19, he was so over the piercing trend known as ear gauging.  He removed the thick plugs from his lobes and slathered the holes with all kinds of weird ointments and creams, hoping the stretched-out skin would just shrink back up. But that’s not how it works — once that hole is stretched any wider than 6 millimeters, there’s no going back.

    Glatt, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Morristown, N.J., says he’s seeing more people — mostly young people, and mostly men — who started gauging their ears as teenagers and are now joining the military, seeking a professional job or, like Bocchino, are simply over the fad, and are trying to figure out how to fill that hole back up.  The surgery takes about half an hour per ear, and costs anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000, which Bocchino paid for himself with the money he makes as a tattoo artist. He says he’s happy about the results — the worst part of it all was probably telling his parents he regretted gauging his ears in the first place.

    So it seems the good doctor, and the reporters at NBC have found a way to save all of the people with stretched lobes from the future embarrassment of facing the world when this silly fad is over.

    Excuse me while I slam the palm of my hand into my forehead.

    Color me shocked that a news outlet wouldn’t do research into a story before going to print with it.  Aside from the obviously degrading language being used towards those with stretched lobes, there’s also the fact that the article is claiming that this doctor is the first person to figure out how to “fix” the lobes, and charges quite a bit for the reconstruction.  It’s ok NBC.  Everyone makes mistakes.

    For those of you who don’t feel that your choice of modifications is part of a fad, then kindly enjoy this image of a woman who is obviously upset with her lobes and is regretting ever having stretched them.  You can see the sadness in her eyes that tell the story of how the only job she can get because of her lobes is that of a cutlery rack.

    forks

    Seriously.  That’s the saddest face I’ve ever seen.  There’s no way I could make a mistake about that.  Could I?

  • How can you mend a broken heart?

    Written by

    Rob

    First things first.  Take a minute to enjoy the Al Green.  Now think to yourself, how does one mend a broken heart.  The sarcastic ones out there will naturally say “bypass surgery”, but to anyone who has ever suffered having a broken heart, there is no one single answer.  Some people find solace in food.  Others in the company of friends and family.  A lot just need the passage of time to help heal their wounds.  But for a great many, music is the cure for their ails.  If you think about how many songs have been written about lost loves and heartbreak, you’ll spend months trying to finish the list.  I’m pretty sure the entire country music industry wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for heartbreak.

    So when I saw this tattoo in the galleries I thought to myself, what music do I turn to when I’m down?  I couldn’t really pinpoint a single song, but I’m pretty sure it’s something loud and obnoxious.  For others, it could be a soft pop song from the 80s that John Hughes used in one of his films.  I’m sure those who enjoy country music have an ample supply.  The point is, everyone deals with heartbreak differently.  To mtpchick18, music is what helps her through a breakup.

    music

    What about you?  What music do you listen to when your heart is lying shattered on the floor?

  • Shazam!

    Written by

    Rob

    I need to say something first before the die-hard comic fans storm my place with torches and pitchforks.  I know that the character’s name is Captain Marvel, but dagnabbit, “Shazam!” makes for such a better headline!

    Let me share a story with you.  A long long time ago, I had to do some form of assignment for my grade 4 class.  The details are exceedingly fuzzy, but I do know that Captain Marvel was the subject, and for some reason I recall hounding some guy at a local comic book shop for days, grilling him on everything Captain Marvel related.  In the end, I somehow convinced him to come to my class and do a talk on The Big Red Cheese.  Since then, I haven’t really given much thought to Billy Batson, other than seeing an image of him here or there in my travels.  So imagine my surprise when I saw this image of Captain Marvel in the cartoon tattoo galleries.

    shazam

    I think what I like most about the image is that it’s closer to Alex Ross’ take on Captain Marvel, as opposed to the traditional “cartoony” feel that is normally associated with him.

    It’s pretty interesting to think that there’s an entire generation’s worth of superheroes that never made the transition to modern popular culture.  Be it simply because the publisher shut down, or the rights were never picked up by Marvel or DC when they took to the forefront of the industry.  All the independent/small scale publishers fell by the wayside over 60 years ago, and anything that wasn’t bought up has slipped into obscurity.

    Do you have a tattoo or something else related to an obscure comic/cartoon/other?  Send it my way.

  • The mind can play strange tricks

    Written by

    Rob

    The first thing you’re going to notice about this post is that the image is behind the “read more” button.  There’s a reason for that, and I’ll get into it momentarily.

    ModBlog readers and BME members alike are very familiar with the human body.  Every day we see an image or hear a story about someone pushing their body to the extreme.  The surgical and hard galleries are a prime example of this.  It’s safe to say that the average ModBlog reader isn’t really the squeamish sort with it comes to modifications, which is why the majority of us have no problems looking at images of all sorts of mods.

    The image you’ll see below would hardly be classified as an extreme image.  In fact it’s pretty tame compared to most of the “Guess what?” images that get posted (especially today’s), but what the image lacks in it’s overt graphic content, it makes up for it the viewer’s mind.

    What I suppose I’m getting at here, is that no matter what images we see on a day to day basis, the mind can always come up with something that goes beyond the content of the image.  Often times the images on ModBlog are the “after” or “during” photos, where we get to see the process and the end result of the subject matter.  In the image below, we’re seeing what is potentially a “before” image.  It’s these images that the mind can have a field day with.  You can see the potential outcomes, and it is your mind that fills in the blanks.

    Like the image I posted last week of a girl moments away from suspending, this image has captured a moment in which the anticipation can be felt.  The moment where you know something is about to happen, where you hold your breath and the adrenaline begins to flow.  That is precisely what this image says to me.  And while I look at images daily that would make a surgeon cringe, this is probably the first image I’ve come across that really made me put my mind in the place of the person who took the picture.  I was right there, in the moment, and my mind went into overdrive producing exactly the type of reaction one would have in a moment such as this.  I held my breath, and braced myself for what was about to happen.  Of course it didn’t, but in my mind it sure did.  Which of course made me want to share this with you, the ModBlog reader.

    Now as you can probably assume by now, the image definitely has genitalia, so I’ve placed it behind a link so those of you browsing at work won’t get into too much trouble.  So without further ado, the image in question…

    scissors

    So as I said, the image itself is pretty tame compared to most ModBlog images, but the anonymous uploader has really captured a great moment in his frenum piercing play.  It’s interesting because I know in my mind that if it had been any other object placed in the piercing, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.  With the scissors though, you can guess where my head (ha!) went.

    What about you?  Does the image do for you what it did to me?  Or am I just a big wuss?

  • I wanna do bad things with you

    Written by

    Rob

    I’m 100% positive I’m not the only True Blood fan that reads ModBlog, as evidenced by the following photo uploaded by Gabriel Cece.  I just finished watching last Sunday’s episode when I saw this image had been uploaded to the fantasy tattoo galleries, and I immediately had the urge to re-watch the entire series from the beginning all over again.

    trueblood

    I have a feeling that the comments section will probably be filled with comments about the show, so while I can ask that nobody posts spoilers from the most recent episode, I can’t guarantee it won’t happen.  So consider yourself warned.

    To those of us who have also read the books, what are your thoughts on the differences between them and the TV series?

Latest Tattoo, Piercing, and Body Modification News