BME: Body Modification Ezine

A black-and-white photo of a person mid-air in a Superman-style body suspension pose, supported by multiple hooks in their back and legs, smiling joyfully toward the camera. They are suspended horizontally in a large indoor space with high ceilings and visible rigging. A group of onlookers—some seated, some standing—watch with expressions of admiration, amusement, and support. The atmosphere is lively and communal, capturing a moment of shared experience and transformation.

Tattoo, Piercing, and Body Modification News, Events, and Culture

  • SPIRIT+FLESH: THE ENERGY PULL (PART 1) – Fakir Rants & Raves

    Written by

    BME

    Spirit+Flesh: The Energy Pull:
    Part I

       
    Special Announcements

    NEW WEB SITE AT FAKIR.ORG
    Now up after several years of construction, Fakir is very proud of his brand new web site with lots more information and many color pictures of Fakir schools and Spirit+Flesh workshops. For Body Piercing, Branding and Rituals CLICK HERE.

    DANCES DVD AVAILABLE AFTER 20 YEARS IN THE DARK
    For many years bodymod and piercing fans have asked for copies of this classic film first released in 1986. Now Dances Sacred & Profane is back in circulation as a fantastic DVD REDUX with bonus material. See Fakir and Jim Ward doing the Sun Dance and O-Kee-Pa suspension ritual in Wyoming. For more information, video clips and orders CLICK HERE.

    MODIFY: A NEW MOVIE WITH FAKIR & LOTS OF BME FAVORITES

    Just off the editing machine, an official selection for screening at the TRIBECA Film Festival in NYC in April 2005, this new full length documentary walks a twisted path. Produced over the last two years by Committed Films LLC, this movie is destined for the mainstream. It’s a “must see” for BME fans. For more information, video clips and national showings CLICK HERE.



    Fakir’s Spirit+Flesh group energy pull and ritual
    in Minneapolis, June 2004.

    So What’s an Energy Pull?

    I first experienced the “energy pull” when I was only about twelve years old (way back in 1942). Being the weird kid that I was, I had already discovered I could pierce needles and pins through my body with impunity — that I could get into a head space where I was a mere witness to cold steel passing through my flesh. In this state of mind I was removed from physical sensation, what the rest of the world called “pain”. But after I had pierced myself, there was no further sensation. Only a static needle stuck through me. It did not hurt. I couldn’t feel it. It was just there.

    So wanting to expand my emotional experience, I soon learned to tie a small string around the needle and pull on it. I could pull gently and gradually increase the tension. I was in control of how fast and how much sensation I was receiving. Soon I learned to tie the string to a hook in the wall and pull back against it. I loved doing this and it became a regular practice for me. Every time I did this, I experienced a sweet rush of energy. At this time in my early life, I didn’t analyze what I was doing or try to rationalize it. I just enjoyed it.

    In my teens, I lived in libraries (there was no internet for another forty years) and I devoured books. I was very curious to know more about the practice of piercing and pulling. I didn’t take long before I found out that what I was experiencing in my secret basement hideaway was not unique. Piercing and pulling was, in fact, a very ancient and honored practice in several cultures. I learned that in Savite Hindu Culture, they had been doing this kind of body ritual for at least 3,000 years. For them it was a technique for trancing, going beyond the body, leaving the body and allowing the body to be temporarily possessed by higher spirits and archetypes (like Murugan, Lord of Piercing). It was not a display of strength or macho or stoicism or an entertainment. It was the seeking of “a state of grace”.

    Even closer to home for me (because I grew up on Indian lands in South Dakota only a few miles from Indian ritual grounds) was the Native American pierce-and-pull ritual called the “Sun Dance”. I didn’t need to study books to learn more about that practice! I had some first hand access to the stories and tales of Native American elders in my own community. I listened to them in the flicker of kerosene lamps as they talked in hushed tones about the glories of the “old days” when Sun Dance was the way to the Great White Spirit. Of course when I was a boy, the ritual had long been made illegal for Native Americans and they could be put in prison if caught secretly doing a Sun Dance. My heart ached for them to be denied the practice of one of their most sacred rites! I guess so far we Modern Primitives are very lucky that what we do has not been made, in most cases, a prisionable offense!

    “It’s not how hard you pull, but how long…”

    That phrase was a mantra used by Ogallala Sioux medicine men when they were instructing young men before doing a Sun Dance. What most contemporary hook pullers do not seem to understand about this practice is the complex interaction between body and spirit. When one does an “energy pull”, one is manipulating and rearranging the connections between body and spirit. Sure there are physical and chemical changes like the release of the body’s natural opiates, the endorphins. But there is more to it than that. At first there is the sweet rush, euphoria. Some of you know how that feels. But if the pull is prolonged, in concert with strong shamanic intent, there can also be intense visions, healing, travels to unseen worlds, going to core and touching the void. A few of you may have even gotten there. It is not about “trucking” or “tugs of war”.

    Since the revival of the Sun Dance in modern times (starting in the 1970s), many of the Native American elders who direct the energy pull called the Sun Dance have noticed and bitterly commented on the conflict they see in some young dancers between traditional Native and Western European values. Western culture, with its focus on competition and individuality, clashes with traditional values of surrender, patience, group energy and letting go of ego. In some recent Sun Dances, young dancers were seen to compete with each other about how hard they could pull, how fast they could break free, how quickly they could be done with the dance. In the old days, a Sun Dance was frequently arranged so whatever the dancer was tethered to could only bend and resist the pulling. Breaking free of the piercing(s) was made impossible. The length of time one could pull against piercings was the truest measure of worth and devotion — and a great way to reach unseen worlds.




    Left: 1830’s George Catlin drawing: prolonged energy pull by Ogalala Sioux against a springy sapling. Right: Fakir does three-hour energy pull during 1982 Wyoming Sun Dance and O-Kee-Pa ceremonies seen in the Dances DVD.

    Any meaningful energy pull is not about pain, macho, testosterone or stoicism. It is rather a way of slowly increasing and prolonging the tension until one enters an altered state. In traditional Native American Sun Dances, pulling on piercings was not minutes or even hours, but often days. I personally know several recent Sun Dance pledgers who were pierced and pulled for four days! In Penang Malaysia I saw devotees who pulled on their multiple back hooks from five in the morning till eight at night — 15 hours! In my own experience (see the Dances Sacred & Profane DVD) Jim Ward and I pulled for some three hours before opting to break free. As the Ogalala medicine man said, “It’s not how hard you pull, but how long”. That is what makes the difference between a momentary thrill and a truly memorable and life transforming experience.




    Tamil Hindus do day-long energy pulls from multiple hooks. Photos taken by Fakir during the 1995 Thaipusam Festival in Penang, Malaysia.

    Opening Fourth Chakras

    This brings me to the chapter in my life that began about 1987. Until that time, it was inconceivable to me that anyone else, except Jim Ward, might want to try what I was doing. My first volunteer was my life partner, Cleo. She had lost many friends and lovers in the AIDS epidemic that had begun in the early 1980s. She was filled with grief and heart-centered pain. So at her request, I made a ritual out of piercing her upper chest and back — then attaching balls to tug and pull with every movement. She danced for hours up and down a dusty path on a hillside in Northern California. On each side of the path we had placed stakes with photos of sick fiends, dying friends and those who had passed beyond the veil. She cried. I cried. And we both felt a release of heart-centered pain and grief at the end of the afternoon. I called that ritual a “Ball Dance”. It was then I began to realize the therapeutic effect of tugging and pulling on piercings, especially in the fourth (heart) chakra.

    Over the following years, we repeated our piercing rituals and introduced them to many others in the subculture. In 1990, a group of us “ball dancers” got ridiculed and laughed at during the first gathering of Black Leather Wings. Some of the Leather Daddies present dismissed our ritual as a silly and trivial event. A few years later, we met with greater acceptance in Dallas, Texas where Allen Falkner hosted a large “Ball Dance” event that even got mentioned in the newspapers.

    During the 1990s, I started experimenting with hooks in the chest (fourth chakra) instead of lighter piercings with attached balls or limes. I found them far more effective in opening the fourth chakra and releasing “stuck” energy. So beginning in 1996, I introduced the “hook pull” to various groups of seekers in the subculture.




    Group energy pulls during day-long BLW rituals in Northern California, 2003/2004

    Over the next nine years, the practice of pulling on flesh hooks spread from my first groups of only five or six people to the large number of hook pullers you can now see in the photos posted on BME. However, there is a difference between the hook pullers you see in photos on my Spirit + Flesh web site, and I suspect, most of those in the BME photos. In our shamanically-directed hook pulls we are very conscious of chakras — those important energy centers related to the body that open, close, and change energy flow in both our psychic and physical world. Of all the chakras, the fourth one, the heart chakra, is the most screwed up in our culture. It is the gateway from lower consciousness (survival, self, base emotions) to higher consciousness (love, clear mental activity, inclusiveness, selflessness). If it is blocked and full of crap, we live in world of confusion and misery. We live primarily as victims and make bad decisions. Read some writings of Caroline Myss for more on this. Actually, I wish we could compel our U.S. politicians (especially you-know-who) to participate in a shamanic hook pull and then send them to Caroline Myss.

    With this insight, and what I feel was a strong nudge from my Patron Saint Lord Murugan (Hindu Lord of piercing and opening up), we have been doing public Sprit + Flesh Workshops & Rituals for about five years now — with repeat rituals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Phoenix and Minneapolis. My partner and I consider these workshops and rituals a humane and needed service more than a vocation. Obviously, we still focus on opening the fourth chakra, and sometimes chakras above number four. But I don’t see much point in doing knee or elbow pulls because there are no chakras there to open, close or manipulate.





    Trance states and the opening of heart chakras was the intent and purpose of group energy pulls in this 2004 Minneapolis Spirit+Flesh ritual. See my web site at fakir.org for participant feedback.

    Cleo, My Partner in Spirit + Flesh Rituals Says:

    “I have been doing this ritual many times now. Every time it has been a different journey. The whole exploration for me is about altered states, a heightened state, energy, fire (yes it can be really hot), and visions. Most especially if I am pulling alone against a stationary object with my eyes closed. Any awareness of others or spectators quickly disappears. It is a personal dance of ecstatic fire, bright or soft. I went several times to a place that is not a place. Beautiful!”

    “My last hook pull ritual was like wringing my heart from its grief. During the second stage it was a very sexy, a big energy exchange with my puller/lover. The third phase was fun and releasing as I pulled in a big circle with other dancers. You connect intimately with friends, lovers and even strangers pulling on your cords, tuning in to each other, experiencing group energy in a ceremonial tribal ring. At the end I was laughing and very high in this pool of energy and fantastic live drumming.

    ”

    In the second part of SPIRIT+FLESH: THE ENERGY PULL, I would like to take you on a guided tour of some of the more memorable experiences we’ve have had, even in our next ritual which is only one week away in San Francisco. I’ll include some more photos and also feedback comments from energy pull participants. And if hook pulls must be entertainment, at least they can be “art” as my friends Vaughn and Joey Wyman of Body Manipulations did a few years ago. We’ll get into that and more in my next column.

    Yours for safe and enlightened journeys,


    Fakir Musafar
    fakir at bodyplay dot com


    Fakir Musafar is the undisputed father of the Modern Primitives movement and through his work over the past 50 years with PFIQ, Gauntlet, Body Play, and more, he has been one of the key figures in bringing body modification out of the closet in an enlightened and aware fashion.

    For much more information on Fakir and the subjects discussed in this column, be sure to check out his website at www.bodyplay.com. While you’re there you should consider whipping out your PayPal account and getting yourself a signed copy of his amazing book, SPIRIT AND FLESH (now).

    Copyright © 2005 BMEzine.com LLC Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published February 25th, 2005 by BMEzine.com LLC from Los Angeles, CA, USA.

  • BME Newsfeed for Feb 25, 2005

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Please note that links may expire. IAM members, please help out by submitting stories!

  • NASTY, NASTY CLIENTS [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt



    Nasty, Nasty Clients!


    “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”


    – Bill Gates

    I recently interviewed a couple hundred piercers about the low points of their career. You know how they say “the customer is always right”? Well, these piercers might not agree with that claim. Their stories break down into the four sections of this article:

    1. The customer is always right stinky

      Stories about piercing clients with serious lapses in personal hygiene.


      While I think most piercers have ran across the occasional hedge that needs to be trimmed, or butt-crack that needs a good washing, the worst hygiene problem I’ve encountered was a session during a hood piercing. Once she was on the table and went to go spread her legs, I got a blast of a smell that nearly floored me, but the visual was the worst part. This stringy white and yellow shit was all over her cooter, and as she spread her legs, it stretched like a spider web. It was nasty. Stinky crotch goo.


    2. The customer is always right perverted

      If you get aroused by this section, stick to self piercing.


      I had a guy once while getting his frenum pierced start sticking his finger in his own anus and sort of masturbating it, just moving it in and out of his anus. I asked “Um… what are you doing?” And he replied, as if nothing was wrong, “oh when I feel pain this makes it better.” I told him he couldn’t do that in here and he agreed but continued to do it. I just very quickly finished with the piercing and told him not to touch anything on his way out.

    3. The customer is always right suicidal

      A compendium of some of the insane things people do to themselves when the piercer isn’t there to help.


      I saw a kid that tried to stretch his own tongue with the latch from an outdoor gate (the hook in eye-bolt kind). He came in because once he got the hook through the hole he couldn’t get it to move. So for a day he was walking around with a patio latch hanging out of his mouth. That procedure required cutting the material out of the tongue.

    4. The customer is always right angry

      Encounters with violent and deranged clients are far too common.


      A guy came in ready to kill us for piercing his underage daughter. We tried to find out who it was — he even said she would have used a fake ID, but we didn’t even the name of the fake ID on record so we told him we didn’t do it. This just made him even more upset. He was like well she told me she got it at blah blah blah shop, and we where like “uhh… sir, this isn’t even that shop!” He looked at us all dumbfounded and turned and walked away… he later came back to get a tattoo.

    Reconsidering taking on a glamorous life as a piercer? As one of the piercers I talked to put it, “and people seem to think I have a fucking dream job.”

    Next time you go and get a piercing, please, at least have a shower first.


    Shannon Larratt
    BME.com

    Illustrations by Jason Craig (iam:jasonthe29th).

  • BME Newsfeed for Feb 11, 2005

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Please note that links may expire. IAM members, please help out by submitting stories!

  • Missing Parts [Guest Column – Stepping Back]

    Written by

    BME

    Missing Parts

    “One sees clearly only with the heart.
    Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

    -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

    When your physical appearance changes against your will, like scarring or losing a limb, is it considered body modification? I’m not just talking about accidentally slicing your finger open while cutting a watermelon, or burning your arm on a stove rack, but rather, severe circumstances like what happened to Ella Earp-Lynch (IAM:ella), who was burned by a pot of boiling water at age four, or to Amina Munster (IAM:Amina Munster) who had her leg amputated and the tips of her fingers fall off as a consequence of nearly drowning before the age of two.

    Ella, who has scarring on nearly a third of her entire body, says that she absolutely considers what has happened to her as body modification. And why? “The disingenuous answer would be to say, ‘because my body is modified from the way it originally was, it’s different from the way it was at birth’.



    Amina and Ella

    But I can also say that I first started thinking of my scars as body modification when I began to see the beauty in them, and to feel that having them made me more, rather than less attractive.”

    These women interpret their experiences in very different ways. Ella showcases her modifications, and even highlights them with Dremel and scalpel scarification and branding. This decision was easy for her, and began when her friend, “a scarificationist, mentioned that he thought that the small scar on my left shoulder looked like a bird, specifically, like a Chinese phoenix, and said that he would like to try and “bring it out” with a technique he had been experimenting with using a Dremel tool to
    abrade the skin. This started me thinking, and I realized that herein lay the solution to my problem — I had always wanted further mods but had had a hard time figuring out how to incorporate tattoos with my extensive scars.”

    “Another part of what I like about my current project (of modifying/outlining my existing scars and eventually mirroring their outlines on the other side of my body with more conventional scarifications) is that I feel it reflects my attitude towards my scars more accurately to the average person, and makes it easier for them to see what I see.”

    Amina, on the other hand, hides her “modifications” both in real life and online, where she is an active and popular Suicide Girl.

    She debuted on SuicideGirls.com in late December 2002, and she has never shown her missing leg or fingers in any of her photos. She’s fairly heavily tattooed, has a gold tooth and breast implants, all of which she considers mods, but does not consider her “missing parts” body modification. She believes that in order to classify something as body modification, it needs to be an intentional act.

    Why the gray area? Intentional amputations happen, accidental amputations certainly happen more often — but when is it considered body modification? Is it simply in the eye of the beholder?

    I decided to interview Amina to find out what it is exactly that stops her from classifying the accidental changes to her body as “body modification.”


    Amina Munster
    BME:
    		 What happened to your leg and your fingers?

    AMINA:
    		 When I was seventeen month old I was left home with a babysitter because I had a fever. Instead of the babysitter watching over me and my five year old sister, she decided to call her friends and invite them over for a pool party. Believing that I could swim, I left the playroom, went outside, stacked up laundry baskets to climb over the pool gate and jumped in the spa that the babysitter had been heating up for her friends. The babysitter never found me, my next door neighbor heard my sister screaming at the spa. It was the neighbor who took me out of the water and called the paramedics.

    My leg was lost due to loss of circulation and oxygen. My right leg was amputated below the knee. My fingers were left to fall off by themselves. When I was sent home, the tips of my fingers were black and dead. The tips gradually fell off by themselves. Resulting from this accident I am missing a quarter of my right leg, the tips of all five fingers on my right hand and half of my right lung.
    BME:
    		 Did anything happen to the babysitter? Was she charged with any criminal acts?

    AMINA:
    		 My parent’s home owners insurance paid for the hospital bills and a hefty settlement. My parents decided not to sue anyone. When I turned eighteen, I was told by my parents that I had the option to sue anyone I wanted including my parents, the babysitter, the hospital, or the babysitter’s parents considering that she was seventeen at the time of the accident. I decided to not sue anyone; the accident happened so long ago, isn’t the expression let dead dogs lie?


    Amina’s black fingertips before they eventually fell off, and her amputated leg.

    BME:
    		 Why did you become a Suicide Girl?

    AMINA:
    		 Honestly, I have loved models and modeling since I can remember. I grew up looking at the Varga girls and 50’s style pin ups. Suicide Girls was like a breath of fresh air to me. I thought that it was amazing to find a place where girls were considered beautiful and had piercings and tattoos. I became a Suicide Girl just to try something different and I will never regret it.
    BME:
    		 Why did you decide not to show your leg or your fingers in your photographs?

    AMINA:
    		 When I had originally applied to Suicide Girls years ago I decided to keep the leg, or lack there of, a secret. I felt that SG would not accept me to be a model if they knew I was an amputee. Throughout the years it has gotten difficult to keep coming up with creative ways to cover my prosthetic leg, however, I still have not been able to shoot the mermaid set that I have dreamt about.
    BME:
    		 Who takes your photos for SG?

    AMINA:
    		 Currently all of the sets that I have up on Suicide Girls were shot by a friend and Missy, the owner of SG. However, recently I was able to shoot two sets with Steve Prue, who I greatly adore.
    BME:
    		 Did your photographers try to convince you to show your leg?

    AMINA:
    		 I have worked with many photographers and I have never felt pressured to show my leg. I did recently take a series of photos displaying the temporary prosthetic leg, but that was at my request. I love this leg because you can see the insides, it looks bionic.

    Her leg and fingers are always hidden in her pictures for Suicide Girls
    BME:
    		 Are you planning on showing the online public that you have amputations?

    AMINA:
    		 Right now I am wearing a temporary prosthetic leg. My other leg is currently getting airbrushed at the Hart and Huntington Tattoo studio in the Palms Hotel and Casino, they have an A&E show called “Inked” that covers the daily activities of the tattoo shop. My leg and I will be featured on that show. I honestly do not know what the artist is airbrushing on the leg other than a big Virgin Mary on the calf. After I have received the completed leg and have finished filming for ‘Inked’ I will be shooting a set for Suicide Girls exposing the airbrushed prosthesis. It will be the first time that it will be shown on Suicide Girls that I am an amputee. Should be interesting.
    BME:
    		 Is the airbrushing just for the photo shoot or will the paint stay on the leg permanently?

    AMINA:
    		 The leg is getting airbrushed to look like traditional tattoo work. The paint will permanently stay on the leg and I think I may mount it in a glass box when I am no longer able to wear it. I’ve had plans for many months now to expose the leg on Suicide Girls, I just thought it would be cool to show it looking tattooed. The artist and I both decided on traditional art work, very Sailor Jerry…but with no swallows or flames. I left the majority up to him.
    BME:
    		 Do you have any fears about the people’s reactions?

    AMINA:
    		 To tell you the truth, the general public on SG may not know about my prosthesis, but it is certainly not a secret. Rumors fly over that website all the time, people like to talk. Even many girls whom I consider to be good friends still feel the need to tell members or anyone interested in SG that I am an amputee. It is truly funny that when peoples own lives stop being interesting that they choose to talk about someone else.

    When it is finally shown to the SG community that I am an amputee, I really expect for most people to be shocked. I hope that it will show them that people with missing parts are beautiful too. I really don’t expect outrage, but I’m sure I will get the occasional ‘that’s gross’ comment.

    It’s very hard to offend me, as I’ve heard it all before.
    BME:
    		 So far, what has been the feedback on your presence on SG?

    AMINA:
    		 I have met many girls off of SG who are now some of my best friends. I even met one of my tattoo artists off of SG, he agreed to tattoo me in exchange for three of my baby prosthetics. Naturally I am considerably popular on Suicide Girls due to my many tattoos and the fact that I show my boobies. But I am unsure if
    that will all change when my amputations are exposed.
    BME:
    		 What brought you to
    BME?

    AMINA:
    		 A friend and fellow Suicide Girl, Twwly told me about BME, I checked it out and fell in love.
    BME:
    		 How long have you been tattooed?

    AMINA:
    		 My first tattoo, if I remember correctly, would have to be the Winnie the Pooh outline on the inside of my left ankle. This tattoo was done when I was 15 in my bedroom by my first boyfriend. Of course at such a young age we did not have a tattoo machine and instead used a safety pin. This tattoo has been left untouched all these years as a reminder of my first love.

    Since then I have been tattooed by many talented artists including Eric Maaske, Tim Kern, Tim Hendricks, Jim Miner and Chummy. I started getting real artwork by established artists when I was seventeen. I walked into Classic Tattoo in Fullerton, CA with my court papers proving that I was an emancipated teen and Eric Maaske agreed to work on me. My first tattoo on my arm was a pirate girl with a peg leg, some think it to be a self portrait.
    BME:
    		 Is it actually a self-portrait?
    AMINA:
    		 Technically it isn’t, but I did have her peg leg be on the right side to match mine.

    Chest Piece by Tim Kern
    BME:
    		 Does being an amputee impact your decision to get tattoos? Do you have any tattoos relating to your amputations?
    AMINA:
    		 The only tattoo that I currently have directly relating to my amputations is the Pirate girl by Eric Maaske on my right arm. But I do have future plans for more. When I began getting tattoos on my arm I placed all of them on my left arm thinking that it would take attention away from the right side of my body. It would be a sham if I didn’t admit that. It worked, and when I shook hands with someone they would be so preoccupied with the tattoos covering my left arm that they wouldn’t notice the missing fingers on the hand that they were shaking. Since then I have moved on to tattoo my left arm and chest, and I am no longer trying to cover up my disability with tattoos.

    I have found that other people with ‘missing parts’ tried to do the same, so it is not uncommon.
    BME:
    		 Do you consider your amputations as “body modification” as they weren’t intentional?

    AMINA:
    		 Since my missing parts were not intentional I do not consider them ‘body modification.’

    I think modification would have to do with the direct and intentional act of modifying something. Ha, I didn’t intentionally modify my leg, it just kind of fell off. I would, however, consider my white gold tooth as a modification. Although I did not intentionally knock it out, I did choose to replace it with white gold and not a replica of the latter, and unlike most people, I do consider my breast implants to be a modification.
    BME:
    		 How did you loose your tooth?
    AMINA:
    		 I blame losing that fucker on the leg. I have such bad balance. I was very intoxicated in San Francisco back in April of 2004 I drank some liquor that I will refer to as ‘the devil’ at the Budda Bar. As soon as last call hit, I traveled out onto the street and attempted to walk off of a curb. My attempt was ill fated. I fell flat on my face busting my lip and eye, and knocking out my front #10 tooth at the gum line.

    BME:
    		 Why did you choose to replace it with white gold?

    AMINA:
    		 The second that I was informed by three different dentists that the tooth replacement was going to set me back a whopping $3,000 bucks I knew that I wasn’t going to get a replica of what I had just knocked out. It turns out that if you knock out just one tooth at the gum line that you have no other alternative than to get a single dental implant, so I got the white gold as a treat to myself. Plus I find frontal gold teeth on men very, very sexy; I just don’t know more than one guy who has them. Bring on the men with gold teeth!
    BME:
    		 Any specific or unique reason why you wanted breast implants?

    AMINA:
    		 Not to be too blunt, but I love boobies and I love breast implants. Add that to the fact that I was as flat as a twelve year old boy. I got them June 4th of 1999, and still no regrets.

    Unintentional vs the Intentional
    BME:
    		 What kind of feedback have you gotten from IAM members?

    AMINA:
    		 I have had nothing but pleasant encounters with fellow BME members. I do get a lot of questions about how I lost my leg and fingers, but that’s just natural curiosity. I guess I should have an explanation somewhere on my page, but I don’t want my missing parts to define who I am. I don’t want someone to visit my page and just see information about my leg, there is much more to me than that.
    BME:
    		 Do you find real life people more accepting than online people, or vice versa?

    AMINA:
    		 The only place that I have shown my prosthesis online is on BME. Since I usually wear pants and never have my leg exposed in real life, I do not really know what the general public’s reactions would be. Other than some people noticing that I may be limping a little one particular day, it is rare that any one would ever think that I have one leg. I have never had a problem finding lovers, most men just don’t care. Although I do have that ‘Deuce Bigelow’ fear of not telling a man beforehand that my leg is a prosthesis and then watching it fall off in his hands. Now that I think about it, my friends and I have played many jokes similar to that one on unsuspecting targets.
    BME:
    		 Why do you keep it a secret?
    AMINA:
    		 If you’ve done something for so many years it just becomes routine. I would be delusional if I ever thought that my lack of a right leg could ever be considered a secret. My story seems to be something that people like to tell at cocktail parties. More often than not, when I meet someone that knows anyone that I do, they already know of my amputations. I kept it a secret on Suicide Girls possibility to be accepted or just to be one of the girls. Instead of Amina the amputee, I am just Amina. I wear pants daily because it is simply less of a hassle. Although online I could write a story and paste it on my profile that will hinder repetitive questions, I cannot walk around daily with the story taped to my chest. I will be showing it soon on Suicide Girls because I can no longer remember any reason to keep it hidden. It is what I am and ultimately makes me who I am.
    BME:
    		 What do you think of people who intentionally amputate their fingers or other body parts?

    AMINA:
    		 I will not ever say that it is disgusting or gross or that I do not understand it. Since I was a child I have wanted to amputate one of my toes, not because I would like how it looks but for more aesthetic purposes. I’ve always hated that my toes touch, as everybody’s toes do. I just always figured that by eliminating that one toe between my middle toe and my pinkie toe that the problem would be resolved. So I myself have considered voluntary amputation. I’m sure most people do it for different reasons, like cutting the bad parts out or eliminating something you prefer to be without. I know someone that voluntarily amputated a body part and to this day I still do not know the reasons that person had. But it was their choice, not a common or accepted choice, but a choice that person is very happy with.

    If I had two legs would I prefer to have one amputated? No, never. I would never wish that upon someone who did not wish it upon themselves. Why? Simply because it is a hard existence. Not just because of the jokes, ridicule, stares or innocent questions, as that could not possibly be any less of
    a concern for me. But the physical technicalities are so hard and unending.

    I’ve had to learn to walk fourteen times in my life, my prosthesis cost up to $20,000, and if I decided to drop some weight for health reasons, I have to get another leg. The shape of the stump changes with every couple pounds I lose. Since May of 2002 I have lost twenty-one pounds. However, I have only had two legs in that time. Some days my leg will be black and blue from walking, some days I can’t walk. Sometimes I wish that I could walk for more than eight minutes without giving my leg a rest. My knee is half the size as my other knee due to atrophy, very similar to the Chinese women who wrap their feet, and my knee never had the chance to grow beyond a juvenile’s size. Sometimes I envision my bone growing through the end of my stump as it did twice when I was younger. Also, because I am currently without health insurance, and if it were not for my Prosthetist being a good friend of mine, I’m sure that right now I would be without a prosthesis.

    I have heard the saying “God only gives you what he thinks you can handle” many times. And if I believed in God I think I could find some peace in that.

    * * *

    Certainly, if I break a fingernail or get a bruise on my leg, I would not consider it body modification nor body art. I guess, ultimately, it’s up to the people who have unintentionally injured their bodies to classify any changes as “body modification” or not. Regardless of whether it’s by choice or accident, these girls’ bodies are different than what they’re supposed to be. Everything after that is left up to interpretation. Who really needs the labels anyway?

    – Gillian Hyde
    typealice

    Gillian Hyde (iam:typealice) is a vagabond, though her roots run deep into Nova Scotian soil. She’s lived and worked on three continents since 2001, and has never lived anywhere for longer than eight months since the age of 16. She loves fonts, puns, being barefoot, and office supplies. “Calm” to her is the roar of the ocean.

    Online presentation copyright © 2005 BMEzine.com LLC. Picture of Ella by Warren Baird. Front page picture of Amina taken by Steve Prue. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online February 9th, 2005 by BMEzine.com LLC from La Paz, Mexico.

  • Lizardman Q&A #9 [The Lizardman]

    Written by

    BME

    Lizardman Q&A #9

    Number nine… number nine… number nine… number nine… number nine

    It never ends.

    Since it was a Shannon inspired question that made me do it this month, let’s start with him.

    If you were called on to do a USO show in Iraq, would you go, and since I assume you would), what kind of show would you like to do?

    If the USO wanted a show from me, I would do it in a heartbeat. I think something like that is a great opportunity and I would simply do my regular show. The reason being, that regardless of anything ideological or political that I may feel about this particular conflict or war in general, the USO stage is not the time or place for it. My only interest would be to give as much entertainment as possible to people who are in danger for their lives. Preaching at people who are actively being shot at is misdirected effort and by the same token I would not go for cheap ‘pops’ by saluting everyone and making propaganda style jokes about the other side. I would simply do my show and hope that I could be good enough to make someone in such a horrific situation laugh or smile for a moment.

    How do you deal with overly aggressive fans that start to border on stalkers, or try to put emotional demands on you?

    Fortunately, I haven’t had too much of this thus far but when it does happen it can really shake you up. What I mostly get are people who seem to mistake general politeness and kindness on my part as an establishment of a deep friendship that somehow obligates me to them. Sadly, this seems to arise out of many people just not being used to having someone show any interest or simple decency towards them. I do my best to try and explain that just because I will listen and make some simple effort to help you (like providing information) that doesn’t make us best friends, I do the same for most everyone. I really am a misanthrope but I am optimistic enough that I try and golden rule my way through most situations in hopes of reciprocity.

    And to get it out of the way since someone always asks:
    “What are the spiritual elements of your modifications”

    Repetition is one of the cornerstones of marketing and education (think about that), so it can’t hurt to say it again:


    The Lizardman is an atheist who firmly believes that any and all spirituality is a mental construct at best and ultimately a crutch which must be discarded as false and limiting!!!!!

    There is nothing spiritual about me or my modifications nor can there be.

    As a person who makes their living based in part on the mystique and fantasy of their persona, do you ever worry that being “too real” or “too accessible” could negatively affect your career? Do you ever feel that maybe you should “act more like a celebrity”?

    Oh to act more like a “celebrity” — and get away with it. Isn’t that the dream? If being “real” or “accessible” is what puts someone off, then is losing them really much of a loss? I do try to act like some celebrities, but I am selective about it. I look at people like Kerry King and some of the others I have worked with and see them as good models for handling people with respect and openness regardless of any celebrity status.

    Is your wife going to be a Lizard Woman? Cuz that would rock.

    My wife (IAM:Meghan) is not going to be Lizard Woman. She does have her own very interesting theme going though, all based around urban legends.

    This may have been asked before but: Even though you started these modifications for yourself was there ever a point in time where you got such negative feedback that you questioned going any further with the transformation?

    I had plenty of moments of doubt early on, which is why I took so long to get going with it but once I got started each piece made it more and more right. I have never gotten any feedback that made me question doing it; it was only ever a matter of getting past my own reservations. I am the only one that can make me worry or regret and in terms of my modifications I am past that. The wonderful thing about doing something for yourself is that while you can consider other people’s opinions, they are mostly irrelevant.

    Did you ever receive a “special treatment” when crossing international borders (at airport controls etc). If so, were the security guards interested in getting to know you or did they perceive you as some kind of weirdo, that might be a security risk?

    You seem to say it in a bad way but I do get special treatment now and then but almost always in a nice way. I am a very obvious non threat to most security personnel and as such I often pass by fairly easily. They are often curious though and will ask me lots of questions, even going so far as to take me out of lines and such to do so — but often this means I get expedited through the rest of the process, which is an advantage. Many security personnel remember me, especially at airports due to my frequent travel and I get greeted politely and treated better than average — which can often annoy the straight-laced businessman fumbling with his shoes while being patted down since I just stroll by.

    How do you want your children educated?

    Will they have body mods?

    Are you scared of Israel because what they show on TV and do you think that one day you will come here?

    I don’t want children, so I don’t want them educated. The children may be the future but today belongs to me!! (The Simpsons)… Since they will have no bodies, modification is non-applicable.

    Israel doesn’t scare me in the least. I would gladly go there given the opportunity. Seeing some of the historical sites of the Middle East and walking on the great wall remain two of my very few unfulfilled travel ambitions.

    I have the Treo 650. You have the 600.
    How will you handle your wife eventually leaving you because I have the better phone?

    PS: You was STILL the bomb on xfiles, yo!

    My wife will actually mock you even more so than she does me. You having the 650 actually helps me divert attention from what she sees as my gadget fetish and overindulgence in technology. If there is one thing I can count on, it is Meghan not leaving me for anyone with a phone that isn’t some sleek tiny silver flip model that is only a phone, instead of the promethean gift which is TREO.

    And yeah, I was damn good on X-files. Did you see how well I played the role of ThEnigma? Wardrobe did fantastic with the color change.

    If you were getting your tongue split now, would you still go to Dr. Busino?
    I’m sure that you get lots of messages asking about where one can go for a tongue splitting. Do you suggest doctors, or people in the community?

    Historical revision questions are hard because lots of the option now only exist because of what was made known to be possible as a result of Busino and others. If I was just a person now looking to get my tongue split I would likely still go to a doctor but if I was me with the people I know I might opt for a cutter due to personal trust and knowledge of their work. I always recommend doctors first because they are better trained and equipped for emergencies (at least any doctor I would trust) and it helps avoid legal issues and potential community fallout in the event of problems.

    If you could start over with another transformation theme, even if it involved mods that currently don’t exist or are unsafe but potentially possible, what would you choose and what would it involve?

    The only other theme that has really stayed with me as something that would have been great to do is the full body maze tattoo, but really I don’t have any interest in a different theme just improving on this design as I can.

    Are there any hobbies that you’d like to do but can’t or that you do but not to the level that you’d like to because you simply don’t have enough time to dedicate to them?

    Plenty, although most are probably due more to laziness than true lack of time. It’s almost always lack of effort rather than time. I would really like to be better at computer programming. My juggling could use plenty of advancing beyond the simple three object patterns I can do now. I’d like to be a better unicyclist. And there is always the dream of professional pc gaming, but my skills are not on that level – yet.

    I am sure people have or have tried to touch you without asking permission but has anyone ever caught you in the wrong mood and things got ugly.

    The worst I can think of is me shouting at someone in a mall. Things rarely get any uglier than me getting loud as most people will back down at the sight of an angry Lizardman. If I recall right, someone grabbed at my arm while I was eating and I responded with something along the lines of a very loud, “Do not fucking touch me.”

    Do you really think you can beat me in a freak off?

    I mean seriously, I’d freak you under the table.

    seriously.

    Are you still here? Seriously.

    I hear you do good work under tables though…

    Orbax is Canadian for wet/dry vac.

    Seriously.

    Why do you still use AOL? I’m not too into computers, but even I know AOL sucks… Why do you continue to stick with it? FREAK THE WORLD!!

    In the mid to late 90’s AOL was the game in town — especially for people who traveled and wanted to be able to dial up from anywhere. Having established addresses there years ago, it is still used by many traveling performers and corollary professionals (tour managers, etc). AOL sucks and as a user I know it sucks much more than most. But all I use it for is mail and since they have recently opened up their servers so I can use other programs to access it, I hardly ever run their software. That said, I am currently looking at other options and will likely make a gradual transition to a new address over the course of this year. This is not something I or anyone else who lots of business takes lightly since I still remember how many missed and delayed messages happened when I last switched addresses.

    warum warum ist die banane krumm?

    Um… yeah. Perhaps I should have babelfished this one..

    If you chose not to be `The Lizardman` what would you of been…was there an alternate species that was viable..or would of been something like Mr. Sprague, attorney at law?

    Most likely possibilities would have been educator, something I did do. Or a more traditional media artist.

    When you die, what do you want done with your body : burial, cremation, embalming, mummification?

    Burial or other rites are done for the living not the dead. I don’t much care but I will try and leave funds so as not to burden loved ones with expenses. Might be nice to die knowing that my ashes or remains baked into a cream pie would be thrown into the face of someone appropriate though.

  • Have Mursi! Lip Plates Have Reached the West

    Written by

    Jordan Ginsberg

    “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
    – Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul

    Things have a funny way of inserting themselves into our culture. Ideas, ways of doing things, processes that might have seemed foreign, bizarre, or implausible at one point in history invariably find their ways into our lives; it happens every day. Vaccinations. Hot dogs. Guitars with distortion. Reality Television.

    But hey, we adapt. We evolve. We roll with the punches.

    Hell, google is a verb now. A verb! Those are important!

    But we’re speaking on too grand a scale. Before global change takes place, these little steps occur within each one of us on a microcosmic level. We take our observations, we draw our conclusions, and we make our decisions — though sometimes, not even consciously.

    “I had no idea that I ever would have taken my lip this far,” says Jesse. “My parents weren’t too fond of piercings, but I remember saying a long time ago, when my brother first started stretching his ears, that the first piercing they let me have I would stretch it so big that I could stick my fingers through it — and possibly my fist! I didn’t even know that was possible back then!” Things have a way of working out. While a fist-sized hole may be a ways off yet, he’s currently sporting an impressive 3/4″ labret with custom-made Teflon jewelry by Karl Lorenz.

    Jesse goes on: “I figured stretching my lip wouldn’t be that bad; one day in class I went from 14 gauge to 8 gauge [with a taper] and then a 6 gauge. It didn’t feel too great, but that was the first time.” Since then, he has abandoned tapers (“I didn’t like the feeling or the weight,” he says) and now relies on good old-fashioned lube and elbow grease for stretching purposes. What’s remarkable about Jesse’s lip is not the size, though — while large, there are certainly bigger ones in the community — but rather the manner in which he presents it: He is among the first in Western culture to wear his lip piercing down, in much the same way that tribal peoples out of Africa and South America have done — in other words, as a lip plate.


    Upsy
    Downsy

    The current applications of this style are more an amalgam of several tribal styles than anything else; the hugely-stretched lips of Ethiopia’s Mursi tribe and the outwardly-projected piercings of Brazil’s Suya are often combined. However, due to the similarities in the original styles it’s near-impossible to narrow down the tribe that these Western examples have most fashioned themselves after.

    “The Suya/Mursi thing isn’t all that important,” explains Swirly (and yes, that is his real name), “Loads of African [and other] tribes wear big lip plates — those are just the prime examples, the most recognized if you will.”

    With a labret at just under one inch in diameter, Swirly has one of the larger lips out there — the product of 30 months of persistent stretching — and, as with Jesse, this gives him the ability to wear the jewelry in it down. It’s not something that’s done all the time, though; Swirly maintains that he likes to constantly alternate his jewelry but that his lip will usually flop down on its own when relaxed, while Jesse explains that he’ll wear his lip down on occasion to ease the muscles in the area and to give his teeth and gums a break from the pressure of the jewelry. Both agree that the lip plate style is more soothing, and it certainly seems that when lip piercings get to a certain point, it’s almost the more natural choice.

    However, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and a large, heavy piercing in the middle of one’s face is, of course, not without its drawbacks and challenges. The problems Swirly has encountered, he says, have much to do with the weight: “Running up and down stairs is quite hazardous. Speaking takes some getting used to at first. Drinking leaves you rather moist for a while until you learn to drink past your plug. That sort of thing.” Beyond everyday hurdles though, he has also experienced physical issues related to the stretching, including his lower jaw actually changing shape and his teeth beginning to arch backwards as opposed to the normal “U”-shape of the lower jaw.


    Swirly’s Teeth Begin To Arch Backwards As His Jaw Changes Shape

    In a culture where the mainstream is still in its infancy as far as its support and acceptance of more heavily and visibly modified people, when the envelope is pushed as it is being pushed right now, it can seem that there’s almost a “one step forward, two steps back” effect taking place. Forging ahead and breaking new ground before the current path has been steadied and secured will almost invariably result in backlash of some sort, but at the same time — it’s also almost always worth it. It’s obviously not always the case, but hard and heavy can be far more effective than passivity and subtlety on occasion, and if bludgeoning the public for the sake of progress is the only recourse, so be it. “The public’s response to my lip is generally a long stream of profanity.” Swirly claims. “So what do I do? I pop out the plug and stick my split tongue through the hole to add to the shock! And then I’ll get ‘There’s something very wrong with you’ or ‘Why would you do that?’ But really, my response is if you don’t like it, don’t look at it.”

    “Everyone stares,” Jesse adds. “It’s not something you see every day. Few actually build up the courage to ask about it though, except for ‘Is it really that big?’ or ‘Did that hurt?’, but I do get compliments now and then — usually from the older crowd! My dad always tells them to stop encouraging me though, and we all laugh about it. But definitely more stares than comments for me.”


    Bart Gets His Lip “Disked” In Africa

    Regardless of acceptance, the public’s interest has been piqued, and that of course is the first step. “There’s no telling what the next generation will do,” says Jesse. “A lot of younger people have confronted me about my lip, and I’ve helped lots of people with questions about lip stretching — a lot of them say they would do it if they could, but it’s a small case of fear holding them back, which is understandable.” But will hugely stretched lips, especially in this style, reach the popularity and acceptance level of, say, stretched ears?

    “The difference between big ears and big lips is the fact that big ears don’t really affect everyday activities like eating, drinking, speaking, and so on,” Swirly offers. And that is important to consider; while stretched ears may have seemed too freaky for anybody’s good at one point, having exposed “wet” tissue is entirely different than large dangling lobes. But people love to complain, and often find something not to like about things that they either don’t understand or feel a warped sense of ownership about, such as a small contingent’s claims of cultural misappropriation against Western suspension practices and really, much of body modification in general. Though, because this “new” lip plating is so directly inspired by tribal and indigenous practices, will accusations of cultural misappropriation and theft be a concern?

    “I’d turn around and ask them why stretching my lip is any different from the small tattoo they have — you know, ‘because it’s cool’,” says Swirly. “Because tattooing wasn’t originally a Western ‘thing’ either, so surely tattooing anything non-tribal oriented in the true sense of the word is also ‘cultural misappropriation’, and the same goes for piercing. There’s barely anything we do these days [regarding body modification] that hasn’t been done before by tribesmen, and it has all become progressively more acceptable, so why should my lip be any different?”

    Jesse isn’t phased by naysayers. For him, the entire process has been a tremendous learning experience. “You could consider it a rite of passage,” he says, “considering that I made it through high school with my lip stretched and passed all of the judgment — I mean, when it came down to it, all I really had for a while was myself. People are forced to mature when put in high-pressure positions from others.”

    Jesse, Swirly, and a few others have truly taken the next step. It is people such as them that add creativity into the body modification equation; anybody can jab him — or herself with a needle, but that doesn’t make it art. At a time when piercing seemed to be at a lull of sorts while scarification and implant technology flourished, a movement like this truly brands those involved as pioneers. Did they invent the idea? Hardly. That’s not what this is about. The gravity of the situation lies in the fact that this form of body decoration may be among the first of its kind in Western civilization, and this is very important to acknowledge. It’s this kind of lateral thinking and willingness to experiment and branch out that, in the end, will make all of us look good. Will the anthropology and sociology textbooks 200 years from now be more concerned with the impact that Nick and Jessica’s Variety Hour had on society, or will they be examining the major paradigm shifts and cultural revolutions that came out of communities such as ours?

    There was a time when an eyebrow piercing was about as edgy as one could get. There was a time when people in this community could not get behind large-gauge lobe piercings. This may seem very different right now, but things have a way of reaching a sense of normalcy and acceptance.

    Now that I think about it, maybe the future generations won’t read about things like this in textbooks; they’ll just google it instead.

    Now that still sounds weird to me.

    Please consider buying a membership to BME so we can continue bringing you articles like this one.



  • BME Newsfeed for Feb 1, 2005

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Please note that links may expire. IAM members, please help out by submitting stories!

  • Do Piercing Guns Suck? BME REVIEWS THE STUDEX SYSTEM 75 [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt



    Do Piercing Guns Suck?


    BME REVIEWS THE STUDEX SYSTEM 75™


    "A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind"


    – Henry Ward Beecher

    As you probably know, BME doesn’t generally cover piercing guns. It’s not because of safety issues (see BME/Risks) – BME discusses many activities that are equally or even more dangerous and ill-advised. It’s a cultural issue. Piercing gun “culture”, if you can call it that, is distinct from BME’s focus on atypical body modification and is not particularly relevant to our core mission. However, piercing gun manufacturers like Studex are slowly starting to create tools that are capable of untrained piercing of not just ears and noses, but many other body parts as well. When navel piercing guns start being used at mall kiosks, how will piercers in fully equipped studios be affected?

    Earlier designs of piercing guns were simple spring-loaded devices into which an ear piercing stud and backing could be loaded, held around the ear lobe, and then fired through.


    studex system 75 promotional materials
    “Piercing as easy as 1-2-3”
    …or so the brochure claims.

    Not only was the system physically inadequate for anything but basic ear piercing, but the plastic gun was effectively impossible to keep sterile or even clean properly, and the system was linked to the spread of hepatitis and other diseases, as well as damage to cartilage resulting in infection and collapse of the ear’s structure. While these apparently primitive and destructive systems are still a dominant force in the industry, recently a number of companies have released “cartridge based” piercing systems which attempt to address the majority of these problems.

    Cartridge based systems improve on the spring-loaded guns in two main ways. First, they tend to use a “pusher” system which forces the piercing stud through the tissue by squeezing a handle which drives the stud, rather than aggressively firing it with spring action. In theory this causes less trauma to the tissue (no more shattered cartilage), as well as reducing the potential for blood spray which could contaminate the gun. Second, the cartridge which contains the stud as well as some of the gun’s mechanism is disposable, immensely reducing the potential for transfer of microbes from client to client even if the mechanism is exposed to the client’s fluids.

    Rachel and I were able to meet with Ken Gardner, Studex’s Canadian distributor, who was kind enough to offer us their latest product for review – the “System 75(TM)”. While he did later characterize us as”tattooed from asshole to head” and with “ears big enough to put a tennis ball through”, he was likable and helpful, defended us against their main branch’s fears, and we walked away with a bag full of product for review as well as some literature on the devices.




    A two gun System (TM) kit from Studex including a marking pen,
    cleaning solution and wipes, two plastic guns, and a sample cartridge.

    I was surprised Ken was so helpful – Studex’s reputation is far less friendly, largely due to lawyer Fred Safford’s notoriety for threatening anyone involved in body piercing who speaks out negatively against piercing guns. Even though medical journals have documented and published numerous articles showing everything from Hepatitis transferred by ear piercing studs, to physical damage to the ear, it can be very difficult to speak publicly about these surprisingly common problems – many professionals inside the industry urged me not to write this article for fear of BME being hit with a nuisance suit. In any case, Ken assured me that these problems had not only been addressed in the new System 75™ design, but that according to Fred, the doctors had universally recanted their claims about even the older style guns (which Studex continues to market today). Ken didn’t have the information on these studies, but Fred offered to send me information about these doctors’ retractions. Below is the entirety of the letter which I received from Fred:


    This wasn’t particularly convincing (and implied the risk remained in the older style guns they continued to market alongside the System 75), so I did a few searches through MEDLINE and other services. Hundreds of articles discussing the risks of piercing guns and warnings to avoid them were returned, and I wasn’t able to find a single one describing either benefits over studio piercing or mentioning a retraction of previous claims. A great many focused on dermatitis and metal allergies due to the apparently low grade of materials used in some of the jewelry, but many others were directly related to complications due to the design of the gun or the stud itself.

    Complications included marked increases of hepatitis infections among people with piercings done with a piercing gun, several with apparent direct links (where they were able to pinpoint the point of infection directly, rather than circumstantially), as well as problems such as embedded earrings, viremia and liver disease resulting from infections contracted from piercing guns, pseudomonas aeruginosa and other acute psudomonas chrondritis secondary to ear piercing, ear deformity, pseudolymphoma, sarcoidal tissue reactions, auricular chondritis, toxic shock syndrome, perichondrial abscesses, post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis, cytotoxicity due to corrosion of the jewelry, and a wide variety of other complications. I was able to find studies from the 1970′s up until today, and during most of that period, no significant changes were made by the ear piercing industry to correct the problem. However, now that piercing studios have significantly threatened their market dominance, they’ve finally been forced to respond – apparently not for ethical reasons or because of caring about their customers, but for survival. Thus the System 75™ from Studex and other analogous products from other companies such as Inverness have hit the market. However, even knowing these risks (and presumably acknowledging them by addressing them with the new designs), they have not taken earlier designs off the market.

    In all fairness, it must be noted that a great deal of care has gone into the design of the System 75™, which really does represent an enormous leap over the older guns (which the above mentioned studies primarily refer to) which were easier to link to serious health problems.



    The “pusher” system is the only part of the     System 75(TM) which is used more than once; all other components are disposable. In theory none of this plastic body ever comes in contact with the customer.



    The cartridges come in sealed sterile packaging, which can presumably be handled freely without putting the contents at risk.



    Opening the package does not involve touching the cartridge or jewelry, which is at the opposite end of the package from the part that is peeled off.



    The cartridge is then picked up using the gun. The part that is exposed when the packaging is peeled open is the part that interfaces with the gun, so the easiest way to use the unit is also the safest.


    The packaging is then discarded, leaving the jewelry exposed. Unlike some of the other systems on the market, it is very easy to see where the jewelry point is and the system is simple to co-ordinate and line up with one’s marks.



    The trigger is depressed, pushing the jewelry through the tissue and latching the stud into its backing. The gun’s design does not allow crushing the tissue, and different length studs are available for different sized lobes. When the trigger is released, the part of the cartridge that held the stud opens like a flower and releases the jewelry.

    After piercing, every part of the gun that came in contact with the client – the cartridge – is discarded. Unlike a spring loaded system which is almost entirely reused between clients, the perfect-world potential for contamination using the System 75(TM) as directed is extremely minimal. Even if the pusher unit itself became contaminated – which to me seems inevitable – the odds of transferring that contamination between clients seems very, very low. A large number of designs of jewelry are available in these sterile packs, so there should be no need to switch the jewelry after piercing as was sometimes done in the past.



    Above right you can see the child-sized “practice ear” with recommended placements. In the past, upper ear placements were strongly frowned upon due to the damage that could be done to cartilage by forcibly firing a dull stud through it, but the slow-push method in the new systems is thought to address this. In order to try it out we had a little “piercing gun party” and added studs to myself and a number of friends. Ear placements were simple and largely uneventful.

    The only problem we had is that the cartridge’s release system (the part that’s supposed to open up and let go of the jewelry after the piercing) failed on a few of our test piercings, resulting in us needing to use our hands to physically force it open to release – which of course instantly eliminated most of the benefits of the new system and put both the operator and the client at unnecessary risk. A number of the cartridges actually fell apart entirely as we were using them. Because of this it seems important that anyone using this gun wear gloves in case they need to handle the jewelry or tissue directly.

    The interesting thing about the System 75(TM) though, and the real reason I’m reviewing it, is that it’s designed to bridge gun technology into much more than just ear or nose piercing – it’s designed to be able to pierce nipples, navels, eyebrows, and more. When I talked to Studex, this was not yet approved in the US or in most of Canada, but Ken told me that in Quebec, parts of Europe, and most of all Japan, the gun was being used for full-on body piercing. Even the US-distributed catalog, which is primarily ear oriented, shows jewelry that while labeled as being for “ear piercing” appears to be more appropriate for body piercing due to its length and gauge (although some of it is tagged as being “Europe only”).



    Ken was able to provide us with a number of the Japanese developed body piercing cartridges. They appeared to be 14 gauge, and came as both straight and curved barbells. The basic idea was the same as the ear piercing studs, although much more physical contact was needed to use them. The cartridge sits on its side in the packaging, requiring one to take it out by hand, rather than handling it exclusively with the pusher. In addition, after forcing the stud through the tissue being pierced, the bead has to be screwed on. Many of the benefits of the System 75(TM) were lost.




    This is one of the body piercing gun barbells.

    As you can see, it is not very sharp, and contains a very steep bevel, making piercing both painful and difficult. This is additionally complicated by external threading which tears up the piercing as it passes through the freshly made hole.

    Still, we attempted several piercings using this system. The first and somewhat bizarre problem we discovered, on our navel piercing attempt, was that the curved barbell was facing out in a concave fashion. This meant that it was being held in the exact opposite way required to do this or any other piercing, and was extremely difficult to coordinate – but BME photographer and guinea pig Phil Barbosa bravely allowed us to attempt it anyway. Using all of her strength, Rachel forced the stud into his belly as he grimaced in pain. The dull point managed to penetrate the first layer of skin, and then eventually ground to a halt as the external threading tore up Phil’s navel and wouldn’t allow us to get it all the way through no matter how hard any of us squeezed the unit’s handle, which eventually fell apart in protest. Extracting the stud wasn’t very fun either, as we had to pull the threading back through the fresh injury.



    Every cartridge we used for body piercing disintegrated during use, and while the rate of failure was much lower when we used the smaller gauge ear studs, it was still unacceptably high. Also in this photo are one of the standard ear piercing studs with a butterfly backing, as well as a barbell bead, and a nostril piercing stud (about 14ga, but flaring out to 12ga to hold it in place).

    We did a second test piercing on Badur through his hand web. It took an incredible amount of force to drive the stud through – probably about the same as it would take to drive a nail into soft wood using only your hand, was excessively painful, and the unit failed to release the stud, causing it to be partially pulled back into the wound and forcing us to dismantle the unit by hand to abort the piercing. People stopped volunteering so we tried piercing pieces of cloth, which also broke the cartridges. Finally we tried simply piercing the air, and continued to have the same failures. While it might be possible to modify it, I do not believe that this element of the System 75(TM) is a mature product yet, and I am somewhat disturbed that there are people using it on unsuspecting clients.

    Even if the issue of the cartridges falling apart can be addressed or somehow explained away as a freak batch, I’m not convinced that performing commercial body piercings (rather than small gauge ear piercings) is a viable option with this design. It might be possible to build a unit that used a cutting bevel to place the jewelry, but even with that fix, it would be difficult to address the contamination issues in a way that made them sufficiently “idiot-proof” to be used by largely untrained staff. In addition, once the design reaches this level of complexity, it seems to me that it would be less complicated – and far less expensive – to simply use a traditional piercing studio.

    In terms of ear piercing, if the System 75(TM) had not fallen apart so consistently in my testing I’d actually be giving it a thumbs up – in theory it is a well designed unit that really does address nearly every one of the physical problems that existed with earlier spring-loaded ear piercing systems. However, at least the units that I was given to test were not reliable and forced us to use our hands directly in enough cases to offset these corrections. If Studex is able to fix the release system then this is a safe unit for small gauge ear piercing, including cartilage piercing, in my opinion, although one must consider that the people using the guns are relatively untrained, have minimal access to contamination control devices and chemicals, and the possibility for misuse resulting in injury is very real. Studex also sells a smaller system of a similar design for single-use home piercing – the Medisept(TM) – and of the guns they make I’d select that one over the others.

    In conclusion, Studex’s System 75(TM) does make significant improvements over traditional piercing gun systems, although I find it distasteful that these systems do not appear to have been developed until recently (and still have not been made exclusive), given that the problems have been documented and understood since at least the seventies. Additionally, given the failure rates we experienced, I can not in good conscience recommend them, especially since piercing studios equipped with contamination control knowledge and supplies – and autoclaves – offer ear piercing services within a few dollars of the same price. That said, if you’re going to get pierced with a gun and you don’t want to do it yourself, this is the right system to choose and offers immense advantages over a primitive spring loaded non-cartridge system. Finally, piercers have nothing to worry about in terms of the navel or nipple market being captured by this device or a similar one, as it is neither safe nor functional for general body piercing at this point, at least in our testing.


    Shannon Larratt
    BME.com


    System 75, Medisept, and Studex are trademarks of STUDEX, Inc.
    Thank you to Bagatelle Marketing for providing product samples and information.

  • BME Newsfeed for Jan 22, 2005

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

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