“The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”

– John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty” (1859)

Thanks to Republican representative Bill Heath, a man who many believe had part of his penis mutilated in a bizarre religious ritual*, Georgia (as in the US state, not the communist republic bordering Turkey) is getting ready to pass a new law banning genital piercing for consenting adult women. This law would dictate mandatory two year prison sentences for any piercer that does these piercings, with a maximum punishment of twenty years in state prison simply for doing a hood piercing. Shockingly, this law unanimously passed the House (160-0!) and is now seeking approval from the Senate before being signed by the Governor.

Bill Heath sponsored the law as an amendment to an existing FGM bill, slipping it into an unrelated bill at the last moment after someone mentioned to him that female genital piercing existed — “What?” the moron replied (“slack-jawed” were the words of the Associated Press reporter). He continued, “I’ve never seen such a thing… I, uh, I wouldn’t approve of anyone doing it. I don’t think that’s an appropriate thing to be doing.” Later, after jotting down a quick anti-woman, anti-freedom rant, he explained, “[I am trying to] make illegal the voluntary piercing of female genitals for decorative purposes.”

This bill is fundamentally wrong. Honestly, it’s so wrong it’s insane. You know, I’ve seen politicians do some stupid things, but I’m still always amazed when someone’s hatred and closed-mindedness can so void any semblance of intelligence and leave them as nothing more than a hollering buffoon. Let’s take a closer look.

There has been no public or private debate on the subject.

Bill Heath wasn’t elected to introduce this ban — he’s not acting on his constituent’s wishes. He introduced it on a whim, after hearing about a subject he knew nothing about. I’ll ignore spending much time asking you whether you really want a politician that rashly forces through law, without consulting experts, the public, or anything other than his bigotry. Even if you agree with his conclusion about female genital piercing, his way of reaching and enacting it spits in the face of liberty.

The House never debated this amendment, and neither did the public — this was forced through so quickly that the media didn’t even report on it until the House had already approved the law. That’s just not how democracy is supposed to work!

This bill is fundamentally sexist and anti-woman.

A bill that bans a unisex activity (since both genders enjoy genital piercings) for only women is sexist. Remember, this bill only bans genital piercings on women — men are still permitted to have them. Saying that women can’t have piercings says that women don’t have a right to their bodies, since every woman I know with genital piercings got them consensually, and usually totally independently of anyone else. The supplemental argument — one that’s currently playing out in the California courts with Todd Bertrang — is that women are so weak that they can’t stop piercers forcing modifications on them, an equally insulting claim.

I don’t know if Bill Heath has fundamental shortcomings in his manhood that make him so terrified of female sexuality that he’s trying to ban it at all costs, but it’s not his place and it’s not his right. Especially given how many women use genital piercings as a way of claiming their own bodies back from male-dominated culture, Bill Heath’s attempt to violate women by taking away that right to their bodies is despicable. His attempt to introduce such legislation via a rider on a bill essentially designed to protect women makes it even more sickening…

This bill ignores thirty years of culture and research.

Genital piercing has been popular and at least partially above-board in Georgia for about thirty years, and publicly accessible commercial body piercing studios have been doing genital piercings for a decade and a half in Georgia. Tens of thousands of women in Georgia have genital piercings and are very happy with them, and complications are virtually unheard of (it’s not as if this is tongue splitting, or a procedure with real risks). There have been no studies suggesting that female genital piercings are anything except healthy, stimulating, and extremely positive.

This bill is unfair to business.

This bill tells companies with a decade and a half of successful and appreciated history in the community that, without space for debate or negotiation, they have to cease operating or face prison time. Government has no right to arbitrarily put people out of businesses they’ve held for most of their lives simply because some small-minded legislator decides to scribe his hate-filled whims onto a larger bill.

This bill violates citizen’s privacy and overextends government’s reach.

The simple fact is that this is none of the government’s business. We’re not talking about minors. We’re not talking about danger. We’re talking about a safe, positive, and private activity between consenting adults. This isn’t like drugs or guns or any of the other hot topics politically — there are no societal risks or dangerous cultural side-effects from allowing people to have happy lives. The government simply has no right to intrude on people’s private lives and tell them how to enjoy and decorate their genitals.

This bill does nothing to protect the safety of the public. It is nothing more than an attempt to enforce one specific moral code, and, even if Bill Heath is right and women with genital piercings are an affront to God, it’s not government’s place to write laws about it. Henry George said it far better than I could — “It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.”

This bill is fundamentally unamerican.

This bill takes the shockingly backwards view of a tiny minority and attempts to force it on the majority. America, at least in theory, is a place where you can be whoever you want to be and do whatever you want to do, as long as you’re not hurting anyone else. Your own thing in your own time. America isn’t a country that passes laws putting people in prison for having the wrong political views. It’s not a country that tells people what they have to believe. It’s not a country that would send people to prison over body piercings for longer than they’d get for most armed robberies… or is it quickly becoming that, thanks to traitors like Bill Heath?

In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”

So let’s be real clear on this:
Bill Heath isn’t just a moron and a bigot. He’s also a traitor.

Bill Heath is involved in an active conspiracy to strip American citizens of their fundamental civil rights and freedoms. Mask it in moralism all you want, but you can’t get rid of that core truth. Even if you think female genital piercing is sick and perverted, are you comfortable living in a country where the government is so controlling and invasive that they even tell you how to have sex?

Bill Heath thinks that’s what America should become. You can reach the treasonous bastard via email at [email protected] or via his homepage at billheath.net. In addition, here are three more direct methods:

3917 Washington Road
Martinez, GA 30907
706-869-1774

Be sure to let him know what you think — in the form of words though, not the bullets he deserves. Or, if you think you can contain your rage better than me and you think you can get through, try and explain to him or his wife why genital piercing is important to you and why you hope he’ll recant his crimes against humanity.

Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com

PS. You can also contact Governor Sonny Perdue himself at 404-656-1776 or online by clicking here. In addition, here’s a list of all the email addresses for Georgia’s Senators (who have to sign off on the bill next, although since it’s obvious that this ludicrous law would never stand up to a challenge in court, I’m hoping they’ll have the sense to remove it) — you can paste list this into your email and urge them to vote to remove Bill Heath’s anti-piercing amendment to House Bill 1477 (Senate Bill 418):

“When truth is discovered by someone else, it loses something of its attractiveness.”

– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Some people tell me that the problem with BME is that it’s very “us and them”. It’s true. There’s a strong separatist movement on BME, and when it comes down to it I don’t trust people without body modifications. I’ll even go one step further — I don’t believe that people without body modifications are really even fully birthed and evolved humans, because I believe that communication, expression, and self-improvement are core to what a human is, and I believe that body modification (in one form or another, including everything from body building to transhumanism) is the purest form of these traits.

There’s an old saying that the difference between people with tattoos and those without is that those with tattoos don’t care if you have tattoos or not. I’d like to expand on that by adding that the difference between people with tattoos and those with fake tattoos is that those with the fake tattoos are losers that are not only making themselves look like idiots, but make real tattooed people look bad as well.

A lot of people have been sending me links to the site above (www.sleevesclothing.com), a new business venture by the folks at Tinsley Transfers, a temporary tattoo company. Basically they’re flesh-tone shirt/stockings with high quality prints of large tattoos on them. Unlike fashions that simply co-opt tattoo designs (which I have no fundamental problem with, and think is flattering), the goal of these is to actually make it look like you have large-scale tattoos — it’s a costume. I’m certainly not doubting the quality of their product technically — it looks quite well made. However, when you’re talking about an “I’m an idiot” sign, quality really isn’t your core problem.

At it’s most basic, shirts like these show a fundamental lack of respect for people with tattoos. It’s basically stealing tattoo culture in a way that would be no better than stealing the religious icons of another faith and turning them into some sort of disposable pop culture reference (an ironic analogy given that this is one of the sins of the tattoo community in many people’s eyes).

To me the issue is in the conversion of a permanent message into a transient message (to say nothing of the elimination of the “message of the message” altogether) — the exchange of commitment and loyalty for transience and whoring. Most people with tattoo sleeves take them quite seriously. After all, they’re there for life! Sleeves shirts on the other hand can be taken off, discarded, and swapped for another one as easily as any t-shirt, and because of their “it’s better than a real tattoo” stance it’s a slap in the face of anyone with genuine tattoos. Not only are they being crass and ignorant, but people wearing these shirts are making the public statement that their definition of self is a deception (ie. “I am a lie; I am not what you see.”) — and that tattoos are a part of that lie.

The fact is, the type of expression you get from fashion is fundamentally different than the type of expression you get from tattoos. Tattoos say “not only do I believe in this message, but I AM become this message,” whereas images on a piece of clothing (or makeup) simply say “here’s the lie of the day” — at best they are decorations without meaning or value, part of an elaborate social bluffing game. Now, maybe you’re asking why I have to take this all so seriously, why does it matter if someone likes the way tattoos look but doesn’t want to actually have them? The reason it matters is because they are stealing and then damaging — the only reason they “look cool” is because of the hip cachet that we (the tattooed people) have created by the way we collectively lead our lives. They want to be us, but they don’t have the commitment to be us. It’s not so much that they don’t have a right to share that look, it’s more that they don’t have a right to destroy it through devaluation (as they take a permanent fashion and turn it into the look lie of the month).

In any case, these shirts are incredibly lame, and even if the fashion world loves them briefly, they’ll be spit out as the remnants of a now uncool trend a few months later… tagging all tattooed people with that brush as they fall — after all, if fake tattoos are passé, how lame are real tattoos?

Now, I promised you this was going to be about COINTELPRO tactics and the elimination of the tattoo menace. COINTELPRO was an FBI program between the 1950s and early 70s that sought to “neutralize political dissidents”. This included everyone from communists, socialists, and union activists to influential anti-war and pro-civil rights celebrities like Jane Fonda and John Lennon, the Black Panthers, the KKK, the Yippies, and so on. One of their most effective strategies, far more effective than assassination and more brutal suppression, was simply to discredit. Instead of killing the speaker, or logically debating their politics, they simply used media actions to paint them as buffoons (watch Steal This Movie for a decent fictionalized account how COINTELPRO eventually pushed Abbie Hoffman to “suicide”).

Being painted as buffoons is what these “Sleeves” shirts do, and it’s a growing media trend when it comes to the coverage of tattoos. Take a look through the BME newsfeed and you’ll regularly see articles on people regretting their tattoos (or other mods) and having to get them removed in shame. Here’s a sampling of headlines:

The casual mainstream reader gets the impression not that tattoos are dangerous or “underground” in some way, but instead that they’re simply a stupid mistake, and that people getting them regret it because tattoos are lame and become dated fast. Basically, the current media premise is that tattoos are for buffoons — prompting a friend of mine to make a sign for the door of his new tattoo studio reading “if you’re not a criminal or a drug addict, you’ve come to the wrong place.” In the past, tattooed people were frightening, but these days they’re simply pathetic and laughable… or so the media would have you believe.

In my last column I pointed out that the best way to get young people covered in tattoos is to tell them they’re dangerous, edgy, and underground. Conversely, the best way to get them away from tattoos is to try and trick them into thinking they’re lame and less meaningful than they actually are — and that’s why we need to worry when we start seeing these COINTELPRO-type tactics being used. Now, I’m not proposing that this is some grand conspiracy where some secret anti-tattoo illuminati is meeting to orchestrate this whole thing. The media is doing their normal coverage cycle where something goes from scary to cool to mainstream to lame to forgotten, and the fashion world is simply latching onto that to try and make a quick buck. But when it comes down to it, it’s the attack’s end result that we need to worry about as much as the motivation or lack thereof.

So how do we make this a non-issue?

I suppose the simple answer is that we need to put outlaw culture back into tattooing. So if you’ve got a tattoo, make sure you kick someone’s ass at least once a week — preferably while you’re rip-roarin’ drunk — and do at least a little prison time.

Seriously though, some people have suggested that it’s quite wonderful that the mainstream has gotten into tattooing with such gusto. In some ways I agree, and it’s been wonderful to watch so many human flowers bloom. Additionally, the mainstream attention has resulted in a lot of money flowing in this community and great things are happening because of it. But the mainstream is fickle and looking at even just the last forty years of Western history, it’s obvious that the mainstream’s sensibilities shift radically every decade or so… and we’re starting to approach the end of the “tattoo decade” in terms of mainstream acceptance. It’s possible that we’ve hit a threshold where there’s no going back (15% of Americans are tattooed), but we’re still a tiny minority when you look at it objectively, especially when you only consider those that are heavily or publicly tattooed.

Tattooing as expressed by Western culture is nearly unique historically in its level of variation. No other culture in history that we know of has allowed for this depth of personal expression (indigenous cultures usually used tattoos to emphasize social structures and offered little in the way of personal variance). Not only for our own good, but for the good of the human race, we must embrace this individuality and fight anything that tries to commodify it and make it mundane. Tattooing should be an expression of self; a carnal message rather than some banal false-individuality of a temporary mask. Maybe the truth of the matter is that most people simply don’t have anything to say (but desperately want to), so they are drawn to this “prepackaged mass-produced individuality” that mainstream tattooing (and fake tattooing) gravitates to. Maybe the mainstream drones can’t appreciate the meaning of tattooing, because they don’t have a meaning themselves?

Keep your tattoos real and believe in them. Get your tattoo, not someone else’s. Like the ancient gods, tattoos gain their power from faith, sacrifice, and belief. Tattoos are power sigils, personal magic that can help rocket a person to their full potential. They’re not buffoonery, and they’re most certainly not something you can take on and off like makeup or clothing.

The mainstream never got it, and they never will.

Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com

Next column: Applications of body modification in modern magick.

Photos of “Sleeves” clothing (including cover image) property of Tinsley Transfers Inc. (http://tinsleytransfers.com/), reproduced under fair use doctrine.

“All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.”

– H.L. Mencken

The media has been full of stories recently warning parents and teens about the dangers of home-made tattoos, but they fail to realize what’s going through the minds of teens when they see these stories. Instead of discouraging do-it-yourself tattoos, these articles make them even more desirable.

The man: Do-it-yourself tattoos are dangerous and look bad.

Teen: Tattoos? Cool!

The man: Maybe you didn’t hear me. They’re dangerous.

Teen: My middle name is danger. Bring it on!

The man: They look bad though. Look at this tattoo!

Teen: If by “bad”, you mean “BAD ASS!” See you later dad, I’m going to my room… to get a tattoo.

So basically these articles tell kids that tattoos, especially DIY tattoos, have an underground or outlaw status, and then top it off by showing the kids a super-cute skull and crossbones tatty as a “warning”. If I was still a teen, articles like these would make me head out to the garage and take file to coat hanger to make myself an impromptu tattoo torture device and then scrawl out some hip little icon on myself.

But lets look at the truth of it instead.

When I was a teen I was enamored with tattoos. While he was in college, my father won a panther tattoo in a wrestling match and I remember how proud I was to show it off to all my friends at school. As a teen I thought tattoos were tough — signs of manhood — and they appealed to my sense of rebellion and individualism. After little to no planning I went to a pharmacy and bought a small box of insulin syringes, after which I went to an art store and bought some India Ink. Sitting on my bed, I drew a one inch by five inch “tribal” design on my bicep with a blue ballpoint pen. I filled up one of the syringes, pushed the plunger a little to form a bead of ink on the tip of the needle, and began poking the tattoo into my arm. Every time the ink was used up I wiped my arm clean, pushed some fresh ink from the syringe, and kept going. Within half an hour the small tattoo was complete. Within a week I also had a small Eye of Horus on my shoulder and a cat skull on my calf.

Good, bad, and terrible tattoos. Which do you want?

After a brief period of showing off though, the coolness was gone and I was left with three crappy tattoos. The first still takes up valuable real estate on my bicep (you can see it above-right), and is complicating getting a proper sleeve done. After taking a high school art course as rehabilitation made him consider a career as a tattoo artist, the second was covered up with a dragon by a friend who had recently been released from prison. That cover up was later covered up again, and I now have a huge blob of scarred up color on my shoulder that I don’t know what to do with. The third was covered up with a thick black band around my calf and shin.

The problem with teens’ thinking isn’t that they’re ignorant or short-sighted. The problem is that teens are excited and full of life and tend to be impulsive, especially when adults dangle carrots of cool in front of their noses like these articles do (and like buddies with needles and ink, as well as unscrupulous scratchers, are more than willing to facilitate). Now, personally I have an agenda to see as many tattooed people in this world as possible, but really, I’d rather if they had good tattoos that they’re happy with in the long run!

So here’s my advice to young people who want tattoos:

1. Your tattoo is a reflection on you.

Not only is the subject matter of your tattoo going to communicate with the rest of the world what you stand for and who you are, but so is the quality. A bad tattoo is like dirty unwashed clothes that don’t quite fit right, but are stuck on you for life — or like an essay that hasn’t been properly proofed for spelling and grammar… It just doesn’t communicate its message well. The effort you put into getting a high quality tattoo is a direct reflection of what you think about yourself and how much you care about yourself.

A bad tattoo might make you look tough to people who are suffering under the stereotype that criminals and tattoos go together — in fact, the worse the tattoo is, the more likely they are to assume you’ve “done time”. But is this really something you want? Some sort of mock balls? All that’s going to do is make you look like a fool to people who actually have been in prison, and make the rest of the world look down on you (especially when they realize that you’re faking it).

2. If you’re too young, suck it up and deal with it.

The unfortunate truth is that if you’re under 18, the vast majority of reputable tattoo artists on this planet will not tattoo you. That’s not because they don’t think you’re ready for it, or because they have some sort of uppity over-30 attitude toward teens — it’s because they own a business and can’t risk losing it over a violation of some stupid law.

Yes, you will find artists willing to bend the rules. They are out there. But the truth is that they’re not the best artists, and they’re not the artist you should be going to if you want the best tattoo. If you’re underage, take the time to search out the best artists, and when you’ve found one, you can make an appointment for your 18th birthday and work with them on the perfect design beforehand.

3. Save your money and do it right. Go big!

One of the most common regrets people have with tattoos, as with many things, is “I wish it was bigger.” Too many people make the mistake of getting a small tattoo on a large piece of skin. Common mistakes are a small logo on the shoulder, or a band around the arm which later interferes with getting a full-sleeve piece.

A large tattoo is bolder in a graphic design sense, and moves with your body — it becomes a part of you far more than any “patch” could. Additionally, it forces you to think about what you’re doing on a more profound level, and the result is almost always far more satisfactory to both the person wearing the tattoo, and the general public viewing the tattoo.

4. Think about it; what do you want to say? Who are you?

If you had to wear one outfit of clothing for the rest of your life, and it had to suit you in all situations that life throws at you, what would you choose? That’s basically what you have to decide when you’re selecting a tattoo.

Try to articulate why you want a given image tattooed on you for the rest of your life. If “because it looks cool” is a good enough answer for you (and it surely is for some tattoos), please consider that “cool” has a radically different definition now than it did in 1975, and you can bet it’ll be different again in 2025… Just remember that your tattoo should be cool in relation to who you are, rather than in relation to what society is at that moment.

5. Educate yourself.

Knowledge really is power. A lot of people make the mistake of getting tattooed at the first tattoo shop they step into, without ever seeing another. This is inexcusable in my opinion. Absolutely inexcusable. Of all the things you buy in your life, a tattoo is one you should definitely do your research on, for one simple reason:

There are a lot of bad tattoo artists out there!

Even ruling out the artists that don’t meet health board approval (want to find someone who will tattoo minors? look for the shop without an autoclave!), there are a multitude of dudes with tattoo machines that are anything but artists. So go to every studio you can and look through the portfolios. Buy tattoo magazines and browse online portfolios and see just how good a tattoo can look.

Looking at the tattoos in this article, can you tell which ones are good and which ones are not? If you can’t, then you’re not ready to be tattooed yet.

6. Resist the impulse buy.

There are exceptions to all of these rules, but if you want to have a good tattoo that you’re going to be happy with for the rest of your life, here’s how you can be fairly sure you’re making the right decision: don’t get it the day you think of it.

If you can get the artist (or a friend, or yourself) to stencil the tattoo onto you or paint it on, take a picture of yourself with it. You can also do this by drawing it on yourself in a paint program or sketching it onto a photo of yourself. Put this picture by your mirror or by your computer or somewhere that you’ll see it every day — how do you feel about yourself with this tattoo? If it still looks as good to you at the end of six months (or whatever you feel is a good time), then you can be a lot more sure that you’ve come up with something with meaning that you’ll appreciate for life.

The suggestions above are far from teen-specific. If people of all ages listened to them, we’d have a world with a lot better looking tattoos. Perhaps I’m betraying my art school background here, but I really believe the value of a society can be gauged by the diversity and perfection of its aesthetic landscape — so in my world anyway, when you put effort into tattoos, you are being patriotic.

In a twisted sort of way, teens are at a huge advantage when it comes to tattoos — they have a forced waiting period. Certainly many don’t take advantage of this and end up with bad hand poked tattoos followed up by poorly done tattoos by sub-par scratchers like I did… but more and more teens are using this time period to save up the money for a good tattoo (they are expensive after all — $500-$1000 is a good starter budget for a mid-sized tattoo), plan the perfect one for themselves, and go to the best artists. The 21st century is going to be a colorful one, so I hope everyone does their part in making sure the future is as beautiful as possible.

Shannon Larratt
BMEzine.com

Next column: COINTELPRO tactics in eliminating the tattoo menace.