BME: Body Modification Ezine

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

Celebrating body modification culture since 1994.

Tag: Body Piercing

  • Poor quality work

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    As a general rule of thumb I tend to distrust the quality and safety of door-to-door piercers that service the “piercing party” market — which range from the friend that pierces other friends to the stranger that makes their income from this. That said, I’m sure there must be some solid ones… However, this isn’t one of them. If a piercer works shirtless, start to wonder, but when he works without gloves, leave.

    Speaking of commentary that will alienate the people who contributed the photos (I apologize for that), I find getting tattoos like the one on the right a little disturbing, even more so when they’re not just old tattoos, but current work by artists with a regular clientéle… For starters, it always surprises me when I see the general public get tattoos like this — there is so much good tattoo media out there these days that there’s no excuse for them not to be able to find a solid artist. In all seriousness, what is wrong with their vision that they can’t indentify aesthetic quality? I mean, everyone can identify a beautiful girl… why can’t they do the same for a tattoo?

    But what surprises me more is the artists. If they’ve ever picked up a tattoo magazine, ever been to a convention or visited the other studios in their area, surely they know their work is atrocious? Surely they know they’re scarring people for life… Is there not a moral obligation on some level to find a different job? Or do both they and the client simply not care what it looks like? Is simply getting a tattoo the goal, rather than going to the effort to make sure it’s a specific dream piece?

    Anyway, lest we get too hung up on bad tattoos, here’s one from Hawaii that I really like:

  • Bears have always liked piercing

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    (And as was pointed out to me after posting this, so do bulls).

  • End of the day posting

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Is it just my imagination, or does Skimask‘s partner in this party-gag trick look somewhat unsure about whether their involvment in it was a good idea or not? (Click for uncensored version).

    And I was thinking… since angels got invented by God a long, long, long, time ago (or so the story goes), is it reasonable that they might actually look like thuggish winged cavemen? I think the idea makes sense, and this tattoo agrees.

    I’m pretty sure someone will email me telling me what graphic novel this is from… Anyway, although my name is not Vazquez, living here in Mexico, this backpiece roughly sums up my plan for the remainder of the day. I’m the one on the left.

  • “Eye Boogie”

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    It’s not often these days that I get to post what I consider to be an entirely “new” piercing, but thanks to Ben Trigg at House of Color in Colorado Springs, I’ve got one for you today. I’ll post more on it later, but here’s what he calls an “eye boogie” (if I’m reading what I’m seeing right, it’s closer to a single-point pocketing or a transdermal than an eyelid piercing by the way)…

  • Need your 15 minutes of fame?

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    I’ve gotten a number of media requests lately, so I’m posting them all here. If I hear back that they’re filled, I’ll update this entry, although I don’t always hear back so if more than a week or two has passed, there’s probably no point in writing these folks. Oh, and if you write them, tell them that Shannon from BME told you about it.

    From: Sunny Foscue
    Subject: Fear Factor

    I am a Casting Director with NBC's "Fear Factor" and was wondering if youknew anyone for our upcoming "Freaks vs. Geeks" episode. The "Revenge of theTattooed Nerds" article was great, and I would love to get some of thosepeople on the show.

    We are looking for guy/girl "Nerd" Teams to compete against "Freak Teams". Iwould love to talk to you more about the show if you are interested inhelping me out. ... Anyone that you have I would love to interview. Theycan just send me their info along with a picture to my email and we will getthem set up. We are looking for super freaks!

    Thanks,

    Sunny Foscue
    [email protected]

    Twwly mentions she’s looking for a few guys to hook up with her enticing friends for this show as well. Here’s another one. It’s definitely a fun little gig, I can’t give you more details publicly but if you’re in the NYC area, drop them a line. This is for filming tomorrow night.

    From: [email protected]
    Subject: TV Show looking for one pierced person

    Major cable network TV show is looking for a heavily pierced person (maleor female) who appears 18 to 22 for a new show taping in midtown NYC.

    Individual must be available for the show taping on the evening ofWednesday, September 28. If this is you, please email a photo and contactinfo to: [email protected]

    Participants will be compensated

    Here’s an interesting project for a suspension group or suscon organizer…

    From: Jamie Friddle
    Subject: Other Americans

    I am researching eccentric communities and events in America for a pictorial essay titled Other Americans: underground . overground . off the grid. I am the team writer. We are in the middle of assembling a prototype for the book, as well as a proposal. You can read more about the project on our web site: www.otheramericans.com.

    I am writing you because I'm interested in profiling one of the suspension/ritual cons. We think the body modification community is unique and, though not solely American, it is worth investigating for inclusion in our book. The final project will have 12-15 groups ranging from "way of life" subcultures to extreme sports.

    Can you recommend a couple of suscons that occur annually? One of the subtexts of the book is that while old-school forms of community are slowly disintegrating, other forms of community, largely based on passions, are emerging.

    Best,

    Jamie Friddle, Writer
    [email protected]
    Other Americans
    www.otheramericans.com

    And one last one:

    From: [email protected]
    Subject: NYTimes writer looking for college students who got tat soon after getting to school and really freaked their parents out at Thanksgiving

    Hey. I’m a NYTimes reporter writing a story on the conflict that tends to ensue between parents and “children” at freshman Thanksgiving break. For what it’s worth, I’ve got three tats and I used to have a naval piercing until my kid was born a few years ago. I remember all too vividly the shit that happened when I came home with my first tattoo — a black dahlia on my shoulder — at 18. I figure some current students have got to have some Thanksgiving horror stories.

    [email protected].

    Thanks
    N

    Good luck, and if you end up doing one of these projects, drop me a line!

  • Real horrorshow via Kivaka

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    So, a customer comes into my friend Kivaka‘s studio and shows him her extremely irritated daith piercing, which you can see in the picture below. It had been doing OK, but she’d wanted to change the jewelry or something, and couldn’t figure out how — her friend spent a couple hours trying to get the bead off and banged her cartilage around quite a bit in the process.

    Turns out she’d forgotten — or was never told — that her piercer had used a fixed bead ring (presumably to eliminate the possibility of dropping a little bead down her ear canal), and they were trying to literally tear apart a permanently fused piece of metal, leaving her with what could easily keloid and scar her forever!

    Lesson’s learned? First, know what jewelry is being used on you. Second, if you have a problem with a piercing and it’s not obvious how to solve it, don’t ask your buddy to try and solve it with force. Go see a competent piercer instead!

    That said, emphasis on the word “competent”. There are a lot of bad piercers out there, and Kivaka finds himself cleaning up a lot of other people’s messes, as do most good artists. For example, the person below came in to get her navel jewelry swapped. Notice that the marks from the clamps from when the piercing was initially done are still there:

    Now, it’s not unusual for clamps that have been put on a little tight to leave a mark for an hour or two (not that that’s a good thing). But this person hadn’t just been pierced. The jewelry was initially put in place a year earlier — this imprint is permanent! What kind of sadistic piercer puts clamps on their customers so tight that the marks become hard scar tissue and last forever?

  • When in doubt, post a boob shot

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

  • You need a reason?

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Razorwrists writes, ‘If you’ve ever asked “Why?”, here is your answer.’

  • Nose King?

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    I really think that Pierced is probably the undisputed king of extreme nose work. Not only does he have a massive inch-plus septum piercing, but also 000ga nostrils (which he can wear a huge nasallang barbell through), and now he’s added an incredibly high 4ga nasallang as well.

    Check out his page for more.

    Oh, and if you’re wondering, he’s a software engineer and his piercings are self-done.

  • Nostrils and Hooks

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt

    Two more videos for you this morning. At the top is a short clip of Alison getting her nostril pierced (and shedding a tear in the process) at Astral Werks in Richmond, VA, and at the bottom are some suspensions from Martin; a suicide, a knee suspension, and a superwoman. Music in the first clip is Introducing Happiness by the Rheostatics, and in the second is I’ll Go Crazy performed by the World Famous Blue Jays (it’s a James Brown cover).

    [Javascript required to view Flash movie, please turn it on and refresh this page]


    DivX download link for BME members: Extreme2 or Full members

    [Javascript required to view Flash movie, please turn it on and refresh this page]


    DivX download link for BME members: Extreme2 or Full members

    Got a video I can post here? Email it or a download link to me [email protected] and be sure to tell me it’s for posting on ModBlog, and any information you’d like included (your name or contact info, who’s doing what in the video, the context, whatever).

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