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.

Category: Features

  • Jerome Abramovitch at the Montreal Tattoo Convention [Guest Column]

    Written by

    BME

    Jerome Abramovitch
    at the Montreal Tattoo Convention

    "Good art can not be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise."

    – Ezra Pound

    Those of you — especially the women reading this — that have been to tattoo conventions know how aggressive the photographers from tattoo magazines can be. Some of them, including some “big name” ones have a reputation for aggressive hounding of women for photos, bordering on both sexual harassment and simply insulting. Those that do agree to go to their room for photos find themselves pressured to take their top off to “better show the tattoo on their wrist”, and when they refuse, find themselves the brunt of insults and sometimes even threats from the photographer’s biker associates.

    Clearly BME has an interest in photographing at tattoo conventions, but we didn’t want to become part of a process that in my opinion engenders unhappiness in this community and produces at best snap-shots of tattoos that people could just as easily take at home with their digital camera. Enter Jerome Abramovitch.

    (As Jean Cocteau said, “an artist cannot talk about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture”, so that’s why I’m writing this introduction, not Jerome.)

    I first met Jerome in 1999 when he approached me not as a photographer, but as a performance artist who’d amputated his own finger as art, and held numerous official and unofficial world records for everything from the most play piercings in a session to being perhaps the most heavily voluntarily branded man in the world — some of you may have also seen him on the cover of the ModCon book, or doing his saline performances on various television shows. It was only later that I discovered what a talented photographer he was as well.

    At the 2003 Montreal Tattoo Convention in Quebec, Canada, we set Jerome up with a photo booth and he went at the convention as a true artist, with the aim of taking beautiful portraits of the people he encountered, not some cheap thinly-veiled pornography to run in discount magazines advertising “home tattoo kits”. I am very proud to present to you the results of his work — as you can see, his background is first and foremost in portraiture, so more so than snapshots of tattoos, you’ll notice that the focus is on the people. As he told me, “people who happen to have tattoos, but it’s about them, not about the ink on their skin.”

    Watch out for Jerome at future tattoo conventions and events shooting for BME. Until then, you can visit his website at chapter9photography.com where you can contact him about prints, portraiture, or just congratulate him on giving a much needed kick in the ass to the others out there shooting tattoo conventions by showing them a better way to do it. You can also find him on IAM as Jerome.

    Shannon Larratt
    September 11th, 2003


    Text copyright © 2003 BMEzine.com LLC, photos copyright © 2003 Jerome Abromovitch. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online September 11th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

  • An open letter to employers [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt


    An open letter to employers


    If you hire only those people you understand, the company will never get people better than you are. Always remember that you often find outstanding people among those you don't particularly like.

    – Soichiro Honda

    Some businesses with anti-body modification hiring practices and dresscodes allow their employees to petition for exceptions, and others allow regional managers to overrule these codes as they see fit. I’ve written the following open letter in order to help people tackle these issues, and also to try and help businesses understand how hiring “the modified” can actually be a good thing for their business rather than something bad (or neutral). If you’d like a printable version of this letter (or one that’s easy to copy and paste into a word processor), click here. I hope this helps someone.

    September 10, 2003

  • Suspensions & Me – Through the Modified Looking Glass

    Written by

    BME

    Suspensions & Me

    Man must rise above the Earth -- to the top of the atmosphere and beyond -- for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.

    – Socrates

  • Karen Romell is a Liar, a Sheep, and most of all, a Poor Excuse for a Journalist. [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt


    Karen Romell is a Liar, a Sheep, and most of all,
    a Poor Excuse for a Journalist.


    I am unable to understand how a man of honor could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust.

    – Charles Baudelaire

    “Journalist” — and I use the term loosely — Karen Romell is one more in a long line of authors filling the pages of the mainstream’s papers with lies and poor research masquerading as responsible journalism when they are in fact nothing more than shallowly hidden excuses to parade their personal prejudices and closed-mindedness in national and international forums. When I read

     
      

    About this column

    BME receives millions of hits daily and is ranked highly in the search engines. Body modification is a very popular and positive force in modern culture, yet still, a small, but very vocal and very hateful minority is able to use the mainstream press to slander this community. Enough is enough.

    From now on any reporter that slanders body modification with bias risks having their journalism analysed here and revealed as the deceptive bigotry it is. As a result, because of BME’s power-of-volume, any time anyone types that reporter’s name into a search engine, these exposés will be a prominant link.

    Karen Romell, enjoy your fame. Maybe next time you’ll consider telling the truth?

     

    these articles so clearly distorted by personal hatred and fear, so far as to be dramatically factually incorrect it makes me doubt the veracity of anything I read in a paper so unprofessional as to not even do basic fact-checking that would instantly reveal writers like Karen Romell as the fraud that she is.

    In late July of 2003, along with dozens of other interview requests (most of which were treated responsibly), I received the following note from Romell, asking for assistance in what she called a “research inquiry”:


    "Would you be willing to give me some insight/ engage in dialogue? I want info and insight that's deeply thought-out and is accessible to people who are thoughtful but who aren't into the scene themselves, and that would include me."

    I of course replied that I’d be glad to help, and directed her to the BME/News section of BME as well so she could get started. A few days later she emailed me eight question sets. If you’d like to see my full reply to her you can click here to see it, but from her questions it was clear that she was entering this with bias — her questions were not so much designed to research, but to find drop quotes to illustrate the assumptions that she’d already made prior to doing any research at all.

    A month later the article was published in the Vancouver Sun, with the headline “This year’s modification”, accompanied by a years-old stock photo of a piercer who’d specifically demanded not to be involved in the article in any way. The second headline, screaming across the top of the second page read, “Why do they do it? ‘They’re all sick freaks’”

    I think the easiest thing to do might be to break down this article start to finish, illustrating that it’s nothing but a collection of false assumptions, misquotes, and poor research… and when you strip away the lies, all you’re left with is the hatred and fear of a closed-minded and immature author: Karen Romell. What’s sad though, is in the process Romell appears to reveal the true source of her hatred for the individualism in body modification: her own pathetic inability to do so, and in recognizing her shortcomings, instead of trying to improve herself, she instead chooses to attack her betters. She writes,


    Just before my 18th birthday, I almost got a tattoo ... to declare that I was unique, individual, interesting. Thinking about that close call today induces one of those brow-mopping moments when you realize how close you came to altering your destiny in potentially regrettable ways. Had I followed through on that impulse, right now I'd be just another fortysomething gal with a rose on her shoulder. Not unique, and certainly not fashionable.

    The sad thing she didn’t realize at the time is that getting a tattoo doesn’t make you “unique”. You can’t just make yourself unique through a purchase — you are either capable of individual thought or you’re not. Certainly unique people do get tattoos as a symptom thereof, but her problem was that she was a “non-unique” person whose creativity ended at wanting “a rose on her shoulder”, which instead of being a mark of individuality, would have been a mark of a desperate person forever branded as a conformist. Her sadness at realizing this was her destiny shines through this article, and she takes out her anger on those who, instead of choosing the rose tattoo, instead chose custom tattoos and their own expression of self, rather than a mass-marketed one — she attempts to invalidate their successful acts of individuality by superimposing her own failed acts.

    She goes on to make derisive comments about anything body modification related, referring to it as “slumming” and “unwholesome”, and attempts to illustrate it with her poorly researched (and thus incorrect) drivel, beginning with referring to Pamela Anderson’s “Celtic-armband”, which is in reality a barbed wire tattoo that she got while starring in the movie Barb Wire — not particularly “Celtic”, and not particularly difficult to confirm given its pop culture prominance. She goes on to claim that “Australian aboriginals” induced “severe nosebleeds” as a ritual act — I have no idea where she got this idea, but it’s a delusion that even the most basic of research would have discredited.

    She then claims that of all human activities short of sexuality, nothing is more “fraught with cultural baggage” than body modification, a patently ludicrous statement — is she seriously suggesting that it’s a more charged issue than, say, religion? She also claims that body modification is a youth practice when in fact it thoroughly penetrates all demographics, and in the West was popularized first by older men and women and then adopted by the young. She goes on to claim that tongue splitting sources from “young adults … falling over themselves to up the ante” — a claim that’s also not backed up by any research or observation, given that in all of BME’s documentation (which the author had access to), tongue splitting is far less common in “young adults” than in mature individuals.

    In fact, according to BME’s research (which has been publicly released), tongue splitting is extremely rare in young adults and is all-but limited to older, more experienced modified people. Of the 134 people BME interviewed with split tongues, only one was under eighteen (they were seventeen). Not only that, but BME’s polling showed well over 700 people who said they desired the procedure in the future, with only about 10% of these being under the age of eighteen.

    She goes on to describe the procedure — punctuated by her interjection “Ick” — as being split using a tie-off method. She names no other methods even though she was informed that this method was uncommon and not recommended — it would be like saying that people get to work by electric wheelchair and not mentioning that most people are not handicapped and walk, drive, or take transit. She mentions (and misrepresents) Illinois’ recent tongue splitting legislation, and then goes on to claim that Tennessee is doing the same… At this point in the article (still on the first page), I began asking myself — is she just making this stuff up? While other states (Texas for example) have done so, Tennessee has proposed no such legislation, and again, even the most basic of fact checking would have confirmed this.

    After this lie, she asks,


    Why do they do it? (When I told people I was writing this article, the response of many wasn't even mild curiosity — it was "Well, they do it because they're sick freaks.")

    She offers no retort to this, and the paper even runs that slander as a headline. Little attempt is made to present anything other than a biased, one-sided opinion, even though she was given volumes of information answering this question by BME. I’d like to quote from the deceitful letter she wrote me when she was looking for information:


    "My intent isn't to do something superficial or sensational. I want to address the subject as intelligently and rigourously as I can, and obviously this includes communicating with people who are in the scene. My thesis isn't, 'Look at this, isn't it freaky'."

    She goes on in the article to say that any attempts to speak to the modified are “to say the least, challenging”, and that the prevailing stance is a “prickly up-yours” attitude — she both characterizes us as angry freaks, while degrading us as taking part in nothing more than “a banal birthday-party activity for bored teenagers”. After describing failed attempts to find “an elusive individual named ‘Six’” (presumably also known as the easy to find individual named “Syx”, who works at the studio “Anatomic Body” in Vancouver), she describes meeting Fogg, who she clearly has more sympathy for solely due to his age… but still, she reveals her underlying prejudices in her opening statement,


    "Fogg wasn't the Jim Rose Circus main-stage attraction I was expecting."

    Oh, so you don’t think we’re freaks?

    She goes on to describe the day as “blindingly bright” and mentions that this “blinding” light made Fogg squint — which seems rather obvious, yet she still seizes the opportunity to throw in a meaningless insult, writing, “he looks like a guy who doesn’t get a lot of UV.” Fogg tells her about his training by Fakir Musafar, who Romell describes as being to “the BM [body modification] culture what Carlos Castaneda was to peyote”. Romell seems to excel at dropping cultural references that she does not understand — given that Castaneda is largely considered to be a fraud and a con artist, this is a deeply insulting metaphor.

    When Fogg tells her that fashion is of course in the eye of the beholder (which given the fact that different cultures embrace different ideals should be fairly obvious), Romell describes his reply as “disingenuous”, implying that he’s somehow hiding the truth from her. After claiming that she “pressed him”, he “admitted” that he won’t do some procedures such as tongue splitting — you know what? I’m sure he doesn’t do breast implants either, and I suspect he also doesn’t sing opera. Does that somehow invalidate those acts? Of course not.

    Karen Romell goes on to tell her version of modern body modification history, a ridiculous tale without any merit or credibility. I have no idea if she just made it all up hoping no one would notice, or if she has horrible research skills, but again, basic fact-checking would have instantly debunked her story. She starts with Fakir Musafar, who she claimed “happened upon body modification in 1967″, and later wrote the book Modern Primitives. Of course, in the true version, Fakir was involved in body modification much earlier (Romell was directed by BME to photos from 1948 of Fakir with piercings) and Fakir is only interviewed in Modern Primitives along with many others — all Romell would have had to do to realize this is type the book into Amazon.com, which lists the actual author, V. Vale.

    She makes the claim that body modification was earlier the realm of circus and sideshow in the West, calling this culture “grotesque”. In actual fact, body modification started in the West as an aristocratic movement due to wealthy individuals interest in the new cultures being discovered in Polynesia and so on — tattoos were popular; even Winston Churchill’s mother had a dragon tattooed around her wrist. British royalty was said to have genital piercings, and nipple rings were not uncommon for Victorian women, and before them, Germanic royalty documented as far back as the 16th century.

    She then states that criminal groups co-opted body modification, taking over acts such as finger removal, establishing “the link between body modification and the shady, unsavory, and unhealthy.” Of course, again her statement has little relation to fact — finger amputation (yubitsume), practiced by the Japanese Yakuza far pre-dates any such interests from the body modification community. In fact, it dates back to a prior criminal culture, the Bakuto, in the 1700s. BME provided Romell with all of this information — apparently she chose to ignore it, instead opting to simply make stuff up, and for whatever reason the Vancouver Sun does not adequately fact check its articles.

    Next Karen Romell gives her ludicrous take on what she calls the “subterranean diaspora” of online body modification, which she characterizes as being “mindnumbing” and riddled with “feral human faces” and “creepy clowns”. She follows this by making a series of medical claims which have about as much validity as her historical claims, beginning with the statement that health professionals refer to extreme body modification as “appearance anomalies” — which is neither a technical term nor one that has appeared in any volume of papers. Again, basic research easily confirms this. She goes on to make the claim that there is “much discussion in psychological and psychiatric literature” of extreme body modification (which is of course patently false), and claims that it is “symptomatic of OCD and schizophrenia” — an offensive statement that she offers no evidence for, as there never have been studies drawing such a link.

    The fact that Karen Romell would fabricate claims of scientific research in order to perpetrate her hatred and fears is very sad, and it’s even sadder that a mainstream newspaper would fall prey to such an obvious deception. She implies that the modified do it to “get off on the pain” and says that studies have linked body modification to low self-esteem (when in fact the study she refers to makes the claim in reverse, suggesting that low self-esteem can draw people to body modification as a healing device, not that body modification is indicative of low self-esteem) — it’s a classic logical fallacy. She makes this error with a number of researchers, and then comes across Dr. Armando Favazza.

    Favazza’s statements are brushed off, even though he is careful to point out that the problems are only in “a very small number of people” and that for the vast majority body modification is a healthy and positive activity. She then quotes an experience from BME about a man describing the role that suspension and body modification have had in his life. Even though the story is uplifting and describes immense personal growth, Romell decides to quote only a few disparaging lines, and goes on to unfairly and hatefully characterize the author as an obese man unable to maintain a personal relationship, thus driven to these rituals.

    She then again claims that body modification, “particularly of the more extreme variety”, have been linked to “higher anxiety levels” and “psychopathy” such as “torturing the cat”, which, again, is simply made up on her part. She’s lying with these claims, and her occasional interjections that the links are “correlational, not casual” is no better than spending an hour misleading someone and occasionally whispering, “just so you know, I’m misrepresenting everything I’m saying.”

    Romell then describes her conversation with me as “icy” (not surprising given that she asked me a series of leading questions trying to get me to comment that “pain” and “shock value” were the norms — rather than actually trying to learn something to write an accurate article), writing,


    How about, how are you positioned vis-a-vis mainstream society? I assume you're not working at Starbucks. "Well," Larratt responded testily, "Starbucks won't hire people with piercings, so instead I formed my own IVR (interactive voice response) corporation. As a result, I've got a net worth in the millions and two porsches sitting in my driveway — those people at Starbucks who refuse to hire people like me can kiss my ass."

    Apparently working a minimum wage service job is something to strive for? I suppose it’s better than being a professional liar, right? It is interesting to note that she has added the word “ass” when I actually wrote “a**”. It is further interesting to note that, typical to her misrepresentation, she truncated my reply, removing perhaps the most important part, as follows,


    "I'd also like to point out that 60% of entrepreneurs are highschool dropouts. When you exclude people from a system, instead of becoming 'failures', many choose instead to create their own new system, and often this new system is superior to the mainstream one."

    She goes on to claim that “you drastically limit your employability if your tongue is divided in two”. Now, I can’t think of any jobs that I’d want that would require my tongue to be constantly outside of my mouth — which is the only way someone will notice a split tongue. Perhaps a writer of Romell’s caliber has to use her tongue a lot more visibly than most in order to keep her job, but tongue splitting is no more going to limit one’s employability than genital piercing.

    She goes to describe Eric (I guess she means Erik, but again, fact checking is just not her strong point) Sprague, as a man “obsessively pursuing his desire to become a human lizard” — again, is she just making stuff up? Does she do no research whatsoever? While this is a common misconception, Erik has published interview after interview and said on TV over and over that this simply is not the case.

    This is getting long, and I’ve only touched on the surface of Romell’s irresponsible and unprofessional journalism, but I think I’ll quickly fast foward to her conclusion, where she writes that,


    ...in 50 years time, [this generation of pierced and tattooed "fashionistas" will] all be as hopelessly demographically branded by virtue of their various piercings and tattoos ... as I would have been had I had that rose tattooed on my shoulder.

    She fails to realize (or perhaps fails to publicly admit) that there is an enormous distance from individual and unique forms of expression as compared with her desire to be “stamped” with a mass produced icon. She goes on to inaccurately (surprise, surprise) quote an I Love Lucy episode to attempt to illustrate her point.


    Given the way our culture works — a kind of warp-drive factory of ideas and trends that seems to speed up faster than the cream-puff conveyor belt on that classic I Love Lucy episode — body modification may lose its cool as quickly as platform shoes did.

    First of all, there never was an I Love Lucy episode with “cream-puffs” on a conveyor belt — I assume she’s thinking of Job Switching, the episode where Lucy and Ethel land jobs at Kramer’s Kandy Kitchen. Their job is not to make cream-puffs, but to package candies coming down a conveyor belt, and because they’re coming too fast they have to stuff them in their mouths. Given that this is one of Lucy’s favorite episodes and one of the most famous, it’s really just shoddy journalism to get basic facts like this wrong.

    In addition, platform shoes are a trend that lasted only a few years and had virtually no cultural penetration in relative terms. Body modification on the other hand has twenty to fifty years of mainstream modern history (at least), with tens of thousands of years of larger human history behind it. Not only that, but its saturation level is hugely higher than platform shoes, and it spans all demographics. To suggest body modification is going anywhere because of an observation on platform shoes is, for lack of a better word, moronic.

    Finally, she finishes her article by erroneously quoting me as saying,


    "Death to body modification, long live body modification!"

    Unfortunately I’ve simply never said that. It is true that the tagline on my personal email is (as many of you know), “Death to BME, Long live BME!” which obviously is a takeoff on “The king is dead, long live the king”, as a reference to BME’s roughly yearly redesigning and improvement of itself — and the need to consciously do so. It’s not as if it’s an unusual phrase. It has of course been used in Britain throughout the monarchy, and in America has been applied to all sorts of pop culture issues, most obviously Elvis.

    Ignoring the strange shift in meaning she’s added to it, saying that I said that quote would be no more accurate than transliterating “the Vancouver Sun is full of morons” into “Vancouver is full of morons”. While I am beginning to believe the first statement may be true, that does not pass any validity to the second. You know, I don’t mind when an unfriendly article is published, but I’ve got a big problem with it being done to mask ignorance and poor journalism.

    Karen Romell, and other reporters that use such shoddy journalism as an excuse to subvert big media into weapons of bigotry and stupidity should be ashamed of themselves, and the papers that allow it to happen need to seriously consider raising their professional standards.

    Sincerely,

    Shannon Larratt
    BME.com

  • Lizardman Q & A, Round II – Through the Modified Looking Glass

    Written by

    BME

    Lizardman Q & A
    Round II

    The soul, which to a reptile had been changed,
      Along the valley hissing takes to flight,
      And after him the other speaking sputters.

    – Dante’s Inferno, Canto XXV

    People seemed to enjoy the first Q & A — or at the very least they were inspired to come up with questions of their own. I got more than five times as many questions when I asked for submissions this time around. I went through and answered every one of them and then selected the ones I liked best at the moment — that moment being sometime late Sunday night wanting to finish up and watch Adult Swim on Cartoon Network (Aqua Teen Hunger Force!). If you asked a question and it isn’t here, don’t fear. I have it, and my response, saved for future use.

    Let the games begin!

    wldfire_1: What future modifications other than finishing the tattooing do you have planned in your transformation?

    Finishing the tattooing is currently my main priority and other than that, some additional stretching of my piercings is the only definite plan left to be completed at this point. That said, I have a number of things under consideration and being researched, and I am always looking for future possibilities as they become available.

    glider: When you sent me this email over four years ago (on the 11th of March, 1998), did you have any idea of the sheer immensity of what you’d help start?


    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    Subject: another tongue

    Don’t know if you knew but there will be another split tongue very soon. I will be taking Essie (of r.a.b.) in to Dr. Busino to have her tongue split on Friday morning. The ball keeps rolling and gathering momentum…

    Erik

    I didn’t have clue it would go as far as it has gone and continues to go. I was still very much joking about armies of forked tongued people then while happily getting to show others a way towards enacting their desires.

    Clearly you are a role model for children, being bright and articulate, as well as unique, engaging, and funny to them. Children tend to want to emulate their idols; having pursued a university education yourself, is this something you would recommend? Has being “the academic freak” been helpful?

    The last thing I want to be is anyone’s idol. Influence is acceptable but idol is too much. Being ‘the academic freak’ has had some advantages. Primarily it provides me with a ‘degree’ (pun intended) of credibility in the eyes of many people who might otherwise simply dismiss me as a nut, loser, or whatever. It also makes for a nice media hook.

    My own feelings towards academia or more specifically the educational system in the US are fairly mixed. I think it suffers from a lot of fundamental problems and that in many cases people are better off getting away from it as much as possible. I come from a family of educators and while I respect their efforts they often seem like Sisyphus.

    If someone were to ask me if they should go to college or beyond I would have to say that it depends very heavily on what they really want to do and how much of a burden it will be — student loans should not be taken lightly. On the other hand, if you get a free ride (I got a full academic scholarship for my BA; my decision to take loans for graduate school was a mistake), take it and enjoy the experience.

    Why haven’t you worked more aggressively to complete the tattooing on your face? I think if it was me, I’d have completed my face before anything else since that’s what the public sees.

    Oddly enough it’s the “being seen” aspect that has slowed it down at times. Knowing that I would be in public would often tend to motivate me to not work on my face so as not to be putting a healing tattoo on display and be unshaven due to the healing process. I have tried to have the work done in a pattern in public areas in order to be a bit less piecemeal in appearance. Also, for awhile I was thinking of not tattooing my scalp and going with dyed hair but ultimately I did and that created a whole new area that needed to be done.


    What made you decide on the bluish green, versus a bright yellow-green like the background of your IAM page?

    Thanks to my tattooing I have become acutely aware of color perception variances and the impact of lighting — especially in photography. I chose a darker green because I liked the shade. It often appears a bit bluish in photos. One of the more common comments I get when people see me in person is that I am greener than they expected.

    nootrope: Don’t you wish you were a blue lizard, man?

    Nope.

    Cork: Do you ever hope to authenticate your appearance by going into further details with the scales, making them more realistic, and less of just a simple representation?

    Potentially, but I will be happy to get just the basic two tone coverage completed and then work from there.

    juniper: What types of foods spark nostalgia for you? Songs? Images? Smells?

    I am not a particularly nostalgic person but I know that part of my fondness for soft pretzels comes from pleasant childhood associations — the same for gummi bears and James Bond movies.

    Chan: Which modification has been your favorite/most successful, aesthetically and spiritually?

    Spiritually? Someone didn’t read my last column. As for the rest? Tongue splitting.

    ServMe: Is there a certain lizard characteristic that you have decided not to pursue due to the danger involved, or because you wouldn’t like the outcome? In other words, will you try to reflect a lizard as much as possible, or only use those parts that are of interest to you?

    I am only dealing with what interests me. It is a reptilian motif but obviously stylized a great deal.

    Mars: Having walked around with you in London, it appears to me that people seem more accepting and less fearful of you than some one with maybe only 25% tattoo coverage and a few facial piercings. Why do you think that is?

    It’s all in the presentation. Today it is a bit easier to attribute it to things like recognition but things today aren’t much different than before I became the media whore I am now. I have always said that the key is how you present yourself. Nine times out of ten when people treat you like a jerk it is not because you have modifications, it is because you are acting like jerk — walking around with some chip on your shoulder and not giving them the chance to be decent to you.

    Another theory I have is that it is easier for people to look at my project as just that — a project. It has an obvious theme and that reflects a certain amount of consideration. Even though this is the case for many other people, it is not as obvious to the casual observer and so instead of thinking ‘creative person with an overall goal’ they think ‘punk’ or ‘thug’ who doesn’t give a damn.

    Goblin: Say you’re given the opportunity to be a guest speaker at an elementary school. Can you sum up what your presentation would cover?

    I should probably mention that my Mom is an elementary school teacher and I have friends with kids in this age group, so it isn’t horribly uncommon for me to visit an elementary school. To answer your question, there are lots of subjects I could address, but given free range to choose for myself I would very likely do something along the lines of appreciating differences. I used to teach swimming for three year olds and up, and kid’s classes at my old dojo. I really enjoy working with kids under the right circumstances and have received a good deal of praise for my work.

    shawn.spc: I really enjoyed you on X-files. So, here’s my question &mdas Next time you come to Philly, I want you to get naked and run through Chinatown on a rampage, Godzilla style. Will you do it?

    This is why I love Shawn — he’s a bastard (I wasn’t on the X-files).

    I’ll do it if you run in front of me naked screaming ‘here lizard’ like that Taco Bell dog. Oh yeah, you pay the legal costs too.

    saram: What words of advice would you have for someone interested in attempting a full-body transformation through body modification?

    Get the rest of your life together first because the transformation will consume you otherwise. Plan, consider, revise, repeat. Find support before you begin. Think twice. Have a life besides the transformation project, in as much as it can take over your life at times the project itself is not a life or a solution.

    jasonthe29th: How do you think you would feel mentally if you did not have the modifications you have today and how would your everyday life be different.

    I think I would be able to find other ways to channel my ideas and drives since my modifications are not compulsive behaviors themselves but rather expressions of myself… Much like a painter who could no longer paint might turn to sculpting or composing. It is one thing to deny a particular method and another to deny the motivation. Probably the most significant change for me in daily life would be the lack of head turning, staring, and so on. Then again, I might get that anyway for doing something else that was bizarre!

    Athena: What is the biggest way your philosophical background affects your outlook on life, both as a modified man and as “just Erik”?

    I take philosophy very literally — love of wisdom. Wisdom for me is the practical interpretation and application of knowledge and experience. The experience of life, while an end in and of itself to me, can be further enhanced through the practice of philosophy.

    volatile: When will you be done? How will you know?

    I don’t know when, but when I am, I will know. I suspect it will be much like knowing when to walk away from a painting or a drawing.

    Sparkle And Fade: What did you dress up as for Halloween as a child?

    Something different every year. The one that stands out in my memory right now is Q-bert (with a big homemade paper-mache head).

    Vanilla: If you weren’t “The Lizardman” what do you believe you would be doing right now (employment and career wise)?

    I would probably still be trying to make it as an artist or performer of some sort even without the transformation. If that wasn’t making it, I would likely have gone back to night shifts at a warehouse — that gave me time and resources to do whatever I wanted.

    bullgod2481: If you could, would you take anything back/change anything/done anything different?

    Nothing significant.

    wave: Read any good books lately? What’s on your want-to-read list?

    I’m much less of a bookworm than I used to be — much of what I read now is reference or of a much shorter form (magazine articles, online essays, and so on). The books on my ‘to get to’ list are mainly instructional. The last thing I read (re-read actually) for pure pleasure was Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.

    lacerazor: What’s your middle name?

    Michael.

    quinnnchick: Will the Chicago Cubs win the World Series in our lifetime?

    I wouldn’t mind seeing baseball abolished, thus negating this question. I don’t like the game.

    anokfreak: What are your feelings towards, or opinions about people with very little modifications? For example the average person on the street with an eyebrow, or navel?

    I wrote a whole column about them last month. You can’t really judge someone by the amount or type of modification they choose — develop hunches maybe, at best. It takes far more information and interaction for me to hold any real convictions or opinions about them.

    Goat: If you were a rich man, would you biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy biddy bum?

    Probably not — but then again, maybe once just to see.

    RenoSucks: This has nothing to do with the green, the tongue, or anything else really. I’d just like to know if you’re content with your life…maybe even happy?

    I’d say I’m happy. And, quite frankly, that is what matters.

    Meghan: When did you stop wearing underwear on a regular basis?

    Between 1992 and 1993.

    Nullius: Have you read the part in Dante’s Inferno (Canto XXV) where people are turned into reptiles and vice versa? When I read it I thought of you.

    I’ve read it but more or less forgotten about that part. Just goes to show how classic I am. Heh.

    Tammy: How do you feel when you see yourself on television? Do you even bother to watch the shows when they come on?

    I generally watch to see how the finished product came out — you really can’t tell at all during the filming. I am hypercritical of myself in such situations and often more pre-occupied with how ‘useful’ I think the piece was than thinking about being on TV as something cool. Any nitwit can get on TV (most do — just watch your local news, RealTV, whatever) but to have it actually mean something in terms of being entertaining or informative is a challenge.

    glider (again… heh): Along those lines, how do you feel being presented alongside furries? And how do furries respond to you?

    I have no problem being presented alongside them. I just don’t want myself or them misrepresented for our respective ideas and beliefs. Most furries I have met have been very enthusiastic about my work and incredibly nice.

    moof: Do you still want to finish your PhD at some point?

    Not really. I don’t need or particularly desire someone else to ‘certify’ my work in that way. I’d take an honorary degree (I’ll take pretty much anything free) or I’d at least seriously consider finishing if they waived the costs.

    Flat Stanley: Why is your girlfriend so damn cute?

    ‘Cause I know how to pick’em!

    Char the magicalest gnome: Why is my cat looking at me like I’m food?

    You are food.

    Fidget: At what age do you think it’s appropriate to let kids start major body modifications; the ones that are not easily reversible like standard lobe piercings?

    The real answer is that it varies from individual to individual. The socially practical answer is to set an arbitrary age which will be good enough for most. In order to avoid unnecessary hassles, I suggest people wait till at least eighteen but I have met a lot of people who weren’t close to ready in my opinion at thirty and some that were ahead of the game at fourteen.

    Anomis: How do you feel about binary gender identification? Do you feel people can be both, none or a third gender?

    To me gender is simply a matter of classification for convenience based on genetic make up — XX verus XY (versus XYY, etc). Anything beyond that is relative BS (that’s bullshit, not Bachelor of Science). The identification you are describing, I think, is not identifying with gender but with ascribed gender roles and possibly genital structure. To that I say — act as you want and change around your genitals as much as you like, and science will allow for. People can be whatever they want since it’s people that make up these things in the first place. To indelicately rip off Zen Buddism,

    Q: Who makes the grass green?

    A: You do.

    robert: What inspired you to become what you are today?

    Everything I have experienced up to this point. Seriously, I think looking for causation and singular causation in particular is very often a fruitless and often harmful process.

    sheduma: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

    A woodchuck would chuck all the wood that woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. I love that rhyme.

    Also, how can I get my puppy to stop farting at night?

    Butt plug? Or maybe a change in diet.

    Pabloferreira: So far I’ve only heard about full body transformations similar to yours in the US. I know that there are some individuals who do take their body modifications pretty far in other regions but so far nothing like you or the Enigma. Do you know if there are similar individuals outside North America?

    There are people outside of North America doing extreme modifications and extensive transformations. I think the main reason you may not being seeing them is that the US is pretty much the media spotlight of the world. We, collectively, send out our stories all over the world but intake very few others and even then we re-package them as our own. It is just far easier to get high level (world wide) coverage in the States.

    eliz: What are your favorite season, favorite food, favorite TV show, favorite movie, and favorite book?

    Depends on geography but most places it will be fall, pizza, The Simpsons, it varies with mood, and The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.

    rwwarren_01: Who is your favorite musician, band, or musical group?

    It’s dependent on mood, but I can almost always listen to anything by Rob Zombie, Tori Amos, Depeche Mode, Ministry, or Bach — and The Overture of 1812.




    Erik Sprague

    because the world NEEDS freaks…

    Former doctoral candidate and philosophy degree holder Erik Sprague, the Lizardman (iam), is known around the world for his amazing transformation from man to lizard as well as his modern sideshow performance art. Need I say more?

    Copyright © 2003 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published August 26th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

  • Lucifire – Queen of “Grotesque Burlesque” [Guest Column]

    Written by

    BME

    Lucifire
    Queen of “Grotesque Burlesque”
    by Danielle Clark

    "Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form."

    – Stephen Nachmanovitch

    Sideshows play an important part in body modification culture. They not only give the “common folk” a way to interact with the modified in a positive manner but they also allow people to expand their definition of what a person is and how humans should be able to act. However, they seem to be dominated by males: Tim Cridland (The Torture King), Eric Sprague (The Lizardman), Paul Lawrence (The Enigma), Joseph Hermann (Mr. Lifto), and so on. Today we introduce to you someone you likely haven’t heard of before; a multi-talented sideshow performer, a singer, a fire breathing, scissor masturbating, blood letting, crotch grinding and incredibly captivating female performer — Lucifire.

    Working primarily out of the UK, Luci has taken the sideshow world by storm. She offers a fresh look into the darkly entertaining modified stage performer all wrapped up in a stunning package. She offers what can only be described as “Grotesque Burlesque” — a show guaranteed to tantalize.

    Danielle/BME: Can you give a little background on you, where you grew up, and your family life?

    Lucifire — fire breathing.Lucifire: I grew up in the middle of Scotland, out in the sticks. We moved around a fair bit when I was a kid, we lived in Dundee, then in an artist’s commune in a fishing village on the west coast of Scotland, then a few other places before settling in Carron Valley. It was seven miles to the nearest bus stop and my next-door neighbour on one side was a half a mile away. I guess I had too much time to myself. I didn’t mix much with kids my own age because there weren’t many around. I spent a lot of time in the company of adults and animals. My parents were both very artistic and well educated and encouraged me to be creative and freethinking. I was always the quiet one at the back of the class with my nose buried in a book, a shy retiring wallflower that drew weird pictures and wrote strange stories.

    My parents split up when I was five but I’ve always stayed in touch with my dad. I absolutely adore him and respect him as an artist and a human being. I don’t know anyone else with as much integrity. He lives in the Caribbean now with his girlfriend of fifteen years and I love going to see them. He plays music there and helps locals to record their own music.

    My mum remarried and her new husband was wonderful too. He treated my half sister (his daughter) and me totally equally and fairly, with a lot of love. I think he wished he had a son though; he bought me my first motorbike when I was twelve and never treated me as a girl. I spent a lot of happy times with him in the garage. Nowadays I spend a lot of happy times with him in the pub.

    I see a lot of my sister and although my mum and I don’t see much of each other we get on well. All of my family is very proud of me and support me in what I do.

    Danielle/BME: You had an interesting childhood, very open and with great creative influences in your parents and stepparent — in what ways did they help to influence and encourage you to the way you are today and the career path you ultimately chose?

    Lucifire: My dad was a community artist, setting up music and arts projects for kids, pensioners, the unemployed and anyone else that was interested. I’ve always been so amazed how my dad seems to know how to build anything. He has a wonderful combination of artistic and mathematical abilities. He bought me a keyboard and a computer when I was very young and taught me a lot about art and science and how they can combine. He showed me how to do graphics on a computer when I was a kid in the early eighties; as well as showing me how to build sculptures and taking me on his band’s gigs. I clearly remember being at gigs and hiding under the piano while he played and dodging his feet as he stomped, keeping time. When I first learned to breathe fire I told him proudly but he said, “Yeah, I used to do that but I can’t anymore because of my beard”. What an anticlimax, I thought he was going to be shocked or amazed. He’s a real big kid at heart. My dad and I both had Mohican haircuts at the same time, and I shaved my head for the first time around at his house with his clippers.

    My mother was a photographer that used to dress me up in silly outfits and take pictures. She helped me make lots of amazing fancy dress costumes. Also, because we lived in isolation she would stay up until the middle of the night talking to me about art, politics and humanity.

    My step-dad is how I described above.

    However, both my parents being artists, they encouraged me not to go into the arts professionally. They could see I had an aptitude for science and encouraged that instead. They wanted me to get a stable career and not have to struggle the way they did. When I finally changed direction and they could see my mind was made up they were totally supportive.

    Danielle/BME: It seems that most sideshow performers are well-educated and often quite worldly and willing to experiment and explore different venues. What education have you undertaken and in what areas?

    Lucifire: I was always top of my class in school, to such an extent that I was always the unpopular “geek” or brainy swot. I didn’t really study much and even deliberately did worse in some tests in an attempt to make more friends. I wanted to study veterinary medicine so I studied sciences, math, English and Latin at school and upon passing with flying colours was accepted on to a vet med course on condition that I take a year out first (as they thought I was too young).

    During my year out I started studying art and dance and was smitten. However I also left home and needed a job so I used my science background to get a chemistry job where I was sent on day release to study a national certificate in chemistry. I left that job when I was accepted to do a foundation dance course in Dundee. After that I had to leave Scotland to pursue dance training at the best institute the UK had to offer (in my opinion at the time) completing a contemporary dance degree at London Contemporary Dance School. Since then I’ve done several bits n’ pieces, including a B-Tec in fireworks and one in pyrotechnics. Oh, and I am a First Aid Medic and qualified Padi Rescue Diver.

    Danielle/BME: You are truly well educated for the field you’ve finally chosen. What did you do career-wise before starting to perform?

    Lucifire: Well, there was the previously mentioned flirtation with role of research chemist, working for United Distillers. I got to spend every day tinkering with vials of alcohol wearing a white lab coat with my thigh length stiletto boots peeking out the bottom. Hell, I was still a teenager and it made the day more exciting. Before that I even did a YTS (remember them?) at the local museum for a couple of months. I worked in a shop in Camden lacing customers into corsets while I was a student and busked breathing fire on the streets of London.

    Danielle/BME: You have had quite a varied work history; though all with an underlying theme it seems. Is there something that people are generally surprised to hear that you have done in your past for instance that you had worked as a research chemist for a time to help fund your way through dance school?

    Lucifire: The research chemist is always a bit surprising, but even more surprising I think is that I presented a GSCE chemistry programme for schools. They wanted a presenter that could breathe fire (the programmes were about elements and the periodic table) and when they realised I knew my shit they hired me instantly. Was kinda fun, mostly because I get to think about these teenage kids watching me on the TV at school talking about the periodic table and wondering if they can tell about my secret evil double life. In reality, kid’s TV presenting is probably more of a secret double life than my “normal” one which I hide from no one.

    Danielle/BME: You’ve since branched out of “normal” careers and settled into being a sideshow performer and general stage artist. Some of the work you do on stage with your “Grotesque Burlesque” features involves body modification. What was your first exposure to body modification in the personal and entertainment sense?

    Lucifire: Well that depends on what you count as body modification. I insisted that I get my ears pierced when I was five. My mum had a total of about nine piercings in her ears and I wanted some. After a nose piercing and countless ear piercings my first proper piercing was a tongue piercing about ten years ago, after I saw a friend’s tongue piercing. I’d never even heard of it before. After that I was hooked. As far as entertainment goes, I think the first body mod show I saw was Genitorturers at torture garden, probably about the same time. I’m not even sure how long I’ve been using piercing etc in my own shows, several years at least.

    Danielle/BME: What body modifications do you currently have?

    Lucifire: Stock take: piercings: three in my left ear, five in my right ear, one in my nose, a top lip frenulum thingy (which has been there for at least six years by the way), a 4ga tongue bar, a left nipple piercing and two in my right, a navel piercing, two clit hood piercings and one in the clit itself (I’ve have had several more done but taken out for aesthetic or practical reasons).

    I have a scarification of my Lucifire logo on my pubic area — done a few times but I don’t keloid as well as I’d like. That was done by Dave at Tusk Tattoo. He is a very talented artist and a wonderful person. I have countless work or fun related burns and scars.

    I have no ink! I have had an inkless tattoo done by Katzen the Tiger Lady on a day off on tour but it has disappeared now… lasted a good few months though. I have a drawing of a beautiful octopus tattoo that I’m going to have done very soon…inkless again, done by Dave from Tusk (again). Ink is just not my thing but I quite enjoyed the feeling and the ritual of being tattooed.

    Compared to a lot of my friends and colleagues I really am quite mod-free.

    Danielle/BME: Though I’m sure it has been a long time, do you recall what your first exposure to performance art, in a similar fashion to what you do, was?

    Lucifire: I saw a lot of weird theatre performance stuff when I was studying dance but the first full on performance art piece I really remember seeing was a show by Franko B (see our previous column) about eight years ago in London, in a little space upstairs on Tottenham court road. I remember thinking it was an amazing idea but too slow paced for my own taste. I love Franko’s stuff though but I always want to speed him up. What really got to me was seeing someone bleed slowly in front of me. Blood represents life force to me; it is quite intense to see someone’s life leaking away into a puddle on the floor.

    Danielle/BME: That is quite a powerful image. You use a lot of blood in your own acts; I can definitely see the parallel. What made you want to meld the two (body modification and performance art) for your personal acts?

    Lucifire: I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I’m not afraid of blood and I love its symbolism. I love making shows, especially shows that affect people deeply and strongly. There’s no better praise than a few fainters or vomiters, which means that the combination of reality overload and theatrical elaboration has done its job. I love the adrenaline of performance — couple that with doing scary stuff on stage and you get a double hit… yee-ha!

    Danielle/BME: You regularly engage in acts such as play piercing, bloodletting, and the like on stage — do you also enjoy these activities privately or are they only for the show?

    Lucifire: I do these things on stage because I have a fascination for them. Blood is a powerful symbol and I like to use it on stage and although I’ve done a fair bit in my personal life, I’m such an exhibitionist that it seems a shame to not share it with an audience. My first suspension was done privately but I did my first public one recently.

    Danielle/BME: While doing these more extreme acts such as play piercing, masturbation with scissors, bloodletting, and general blood play are you ever concerned about cross contamination?

    Lucifire: I’m absolutely terrified of cross contamination. I always go to extreme lengths to ensure that any real blood used in a show is carefully contained and that no cross contamination occurs. This is especially hard when you have to make it not dictate or spoil the form of a show or it’s narrative. The end result makes it worthwhile though.

    All equipment is sterile and we always perform completely sober and straight. The lunacy you see on stage is all natural. Despite all that I still get myself tested regularly. You can’t be too careful. The bugger is that I can’t give blood anymore; they won’t take your blood if you’ve been pierced within the past six months, and I really have no problem with giving some away. Actually I thought about becoming a phlebotomist (person that takes blood) myself, to hone my blood taking skills.

     

    Masturbating with Scissors and Blootletting

     

    Danielle/BME: You have a world of experience in so many different areas. You are not just a stage performer but also an artist as well. You are in a band, you do photography, and you are naturally a model for your own website and your new project Scarlet Mews. Regarding art and art forms, you recently asked at your online journal, “What is the difference between art, erotica and pornography?” How do you yourself define the differences?

    Lucifire: Well, that’s a big ole can of worms. Although there are legal definitions, generally I think it’s quite subjective. British law defines pornography as an erect penis or open vulva. Generally I’d agree with that. I think it also mentions something about “designed specifically to cause sexual arousal”. If there’s more than just that intention then it’s possibly crossing into erotica or art.

    For myself I see pornography as being quite obvious, direct and often not very beautiful. My idea of erotica is something less direct where suggestion and sensuality and beauty are the overriding concerns. I would see art as being more concerned with the message or medium rather than arousal. It’s all very muddy and one person’s art may be someone else’s pornography. I think erotica lies somewhere in the middle. I would be happy to show and discuss art or erotica with my parents; I would feel uncomfortable doing the same with pornography.

    Danielle/BME: Your current look could be described as both artistic and erotic. You used to have quite a different look from what you have now. What triggered the dramatic transformation to über-femme and how has it changed how your audiences receive you?

    Lucifire: I didn’t see my transformation as all that dramatic, it happened over a period of time. When I was younger I was a raging killer feminist. I had a lot to prove about female strength, independence and ability. Tank Girl was my teen idol, along with Ripley from Alien.

    Over the years I would sometimes get into fancy dress as a “girl” just for a laugh. I did it more and more and got to like it. I was also getting quite heavily into the swing scene and loved the fashion. I had less to prove about my own strength and found it was even more subversive to look like an “über-femme” but do really hardcore things. It messes with people’s heads but is also more accessible.Luci

    “Straight” audiences will accept you easier if you look sweet n’ pretty but they find it harder to reconcile what you look like with what you do. It’s easy to understand and dismiss a butch girl doing butch or scary stuff; I love confusing them and breaking their preconceptions. If I can make someone question their stereotypes I’ve done a great job.

    I looked like a baby Tank Girl for years and years. I had a shaved head with 2 little red horns, wore ripped tight shorts n’ braces, little bra tops and big bike boots. Most of my clothes came from army surplus stores.

    Nowadays most of my clothing comes from vintage shops or I make myself from vintage patterns. I have shoulder length hair that is usually set in 40′s styles with rollers. I find it highly amusing that I am so granny-like, stocking up on setting lotion and gin. My hair is still bright fire red though and I still have my piercings. I am not trying to step back in time, just drag the 40′s and 50′s kicking and screaming into my world.

    Danielle/BME: You seem to incorporate an element of sexuality into all facets of your art, from your onstage performances to the photographic sessions you in which you are the subject. Why is this?

    Lucifire: I am fascinated by sexuality, gender, and what is deemed acceptable or arousing. I admit I’ve traded heavily on sex in my career for a couple of reasons; I am a very sexual person and can’t think of a more exciting and universal subject matter — it is easier to get into people’s heads and have them accept what you are doing if they find you sexually attractive. It messes with their heads when you are both sexy and repulsive at the same time, hence my term “Grotesque Burlesque”.

    Sex is a great leveler in life. Almost everyone wants it, although I’ve discovered not many people are obsessed with it as I am. It’s been a big problem in my love life, finding someone or some two/three with an appetite to match mine.

    Danielle/BME: Scarlet Mews is a new project of yours. What influenced you to get into producing erotica for the sake of art and erotica (as opposed to being erotic in your performance)?

    Lucifire: I think this is just my most recent exploration into sexuality. I’ve reached a point where I feel comfortable in accepting my obsession with sex and have found a way to not only make it a business, but a business that allows me to flex a lot of creative muscles at the same time. Scarlet Mews will not just be a bunch of dirty pictures, but artfully and cleverly designed photo and video shoots as well as short stories and poetry. It encompasses all the arts (except music, at this stage I’ll save that for my band). I’m always looking for new projects; this is my current one.

    Danielle/BME: I’m looking forward to seeing it advance. From the photos that are there of you, and those at your personal site one can easily see that you are in phenomenal physical shape; naturally this is necessary for your work. Do you do any special training to stay in top condition?

    Lucifire: I go through phases of exercising. I trained as a dancer full time for several years so that got me into good shape then, the constant lugging of heavy cases and bags of kit (steel plates and power tools are pretty heavy you know), over the years I’ve done kickboxing, capoiera, yoga and lots of gym training, even the odd ballet class just to keep myself on top of things. At the moment pretty much all my training is sexcercise, there just aren’t enough hours in the day!

    Danielle/BME: I hear that in itself can be phenomenal exercise. I can imagine that some of your stage work requires you to have a calm and clear mind. Do you engage in any form of meditation or centering activities to help you to focus better both in your personal life and in your performances?

    Lucifire: The nearest I get to meditation is writing lists, I do that almost religiously and it makes me feel relaxed and that everything is under control.

    Danielle/BME: I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who does that. It definitely helps to ease one’s worries. You’ve done a variety of different acts both on and off the stage; what’s the scariest thing you have done during a performance?

    Lucifire: Every new show is terrifying, especially when there are other people in the show and we need to co-ordinate. Every time I try a stunt for the first time it’s scary but that usually passes quickly. Singing on stage the first few times was probably more terrifying for me than any stunt. The thing that still scares me is sticking a needle into my vein in my arm and draining it. It’s the psychological thing of messing with veins that’s scary, I’ve had a bad haematoma from it before and it scared me, thinking I was going to get collapsed veins or something. Stupid I know, junkies do it all the time and they’re not always in top mental form. I think it’s a mental barrier.

    Another scary thing is when you come off stage and you have no idea what you just did because you were so transported by the moment, sometimes I can hardly even speak. This is particularly scary when you have injuries and you don’t know how or when. These are special occasions and I treasure them — these are the shows that keep me going, the reason I started and the reason I continue.

    Danielle/BME: You must have quite a few stories to tell.

    Lucifire: I remember one time being on tour with Killing Joke and suddenly being aware of where I was and what I was doing. I was at an outdoor rock festival in Belgium I think, the sun was shining and it was nearing the end of their set and I’d climbed up the lighting truss at the side of the stage with a mouthful of fuel and a lit torch, I was painted bright blue and wearing just a small loincloth, thirty feet up in the air hanging upside down from just the back of one knee, breathing fire. I was suddenly shocked by the fact I was there and how stupidly dangerous it was… for so many reasons. I loved that tour.

    Danielle/BME: That sounds amazing. Though not quite exactly the same there are other artists who do similar work; Steve-O (see our interview with Steve-O from earlier this year), Eric Sprague (The Lizardman), and Tim Cridland (The Torture King) being just a few of those. Are you familiar with them and what do you think of the work that they do?

    Lucifire: I’ve never seen any of the above mentioned live but I’ve seen them all on TV and met Lizardman briefly and Tim. I think Tim does amazing stunts. His Sufi training and his dedication has enabled him to do the most incredible piercing shows… not just piercing the skin but right through the middle of limbs.

    Danielle/BME: It’s amazing stuff. Considering all you’ve seen and done thus far is there much that you are still curious about that you have seen and want to try?

    Lucifire: Bungee jumping, parachuting, having kids, running my new website, bigger shows… everything I haven’t done yet.

    Danielle/BME: What performances have you seen that you admire, but that you yourself would be hesitant to do?

    Lucifire: Sword swallowing (I tried but didn’t like it, too much gagging), contortion such as Daniel Browning Smith (the Rubber Boy — because he’s an amazing performer, but also I just couldn’t ever physically do what he does), Tom Comet’s shows where he catches a bowling ball on his face, balances a running lawnmower on his upper lip and juggles chainsaws. Tim Cridland’s piercing shows.

    Danielle/BME: At the time I sent this interview to you, you hadn’t yet experienced flesh-hook suspension. Now that you have what do you think about it and how has it changed you?

    Lucifire: I did a suspension on a day off during the first “modern primitives” tour. John Kamikaze was doing a two-hook suspension every night in the show and was joking around with some of the other guys about them doing it. I wasn’t going to let an opportunity like that go by so I got him to string me up on a day off. It was just for fun, only a couple of friends were there and I used eight hooks instead of two, since I was just a beginner. I stayed up for about half an hour and it was a really amazing experience, feeling the waves of pain wash over me. It doesn’t so much hurt, as throb and pulse in waves. Hard to describe and very intense, not something I’d want to do everyday but I knew I’d definitely do it again.

    Danielle/BME: That sounds familiar, most people who do suspensions can’t quite describe the sensations afterwards but they pretty much always want to give it another go. You did another suspension recently — however this time you decided to do it publicly. How was that for you?

    Suspension.Lucifire: The one I did recently was at the Metal Hammer Awards where I did an upright suspension from six-hooks, once more by Dave Tusk (can you guess yet?). It was all over a bit too quick — I didn’t want to come down. I did a “strung-up pin-up”. I was dressed in a sumptuous sequined burlesque outfit, dripping in diamantes, corseted and wearing glittering high heels. The suspension rig was decked out in white flowers and as the hooks were put in I posed sweetly and sang “I’ve got you under my skin”. The problem I have with a lot of “body art” acts, is that they take too long and lose their impact on the crowd and become self indulgent. It’s hard to find a way of presenting it quickly and powerfully. Allen Falkner of TSD is a master of that but his style is his own and would not work for me so I’m trying to develop this new strung up pin up style.

    Danielle/BME: That sounds amazing — you can definitely put on an eye-catching show. Considering some of the other acts you do on stage I can’t see a flesh suspension as being your most “out there” and controversial act, however Miss Bathory, Rosemary’s Baby, and the Siamese Twins definitely come to mind. What would you consider your most controversial act?

    Lucifire: I don’t consider anything I do as being very “out there”, every thing has come into existence through an organic process; it all makes perfect sense to me because I know the background.

    Miss Bathory was very disturbing for the audience though. Xena’s (The Warrior Princess) stuntwoman was in the front row and passed out in the first five-minutes — that was a real compliment. A lot of our friends were so disturbed by it they had to leave halfway, and others wanted to “rescue” us. I think that was because, as well as all the blood play, the Floating in a tank of blood.characters were all very disturbed women.

    Rosemary’s baby was just a tribute to a film, although quite a gory and fun one.

    As for the Siamese twins, I adore them. I love the characters and I love the show. Whenever I see them on video I still laugh out loud. That’s quite something when you created them and know them inside out. The show is so funny that it doesn’t seem harmful to me at all. Although I am not a “born freak” I feel the show was made very sympathetically, and I’ve worked in the Freakshow business for long enough to respect others’ conditions. It was not only a show about freaks and how we perceive them, but a metaphor for living with an incompatible other half, whether that is a sibling, lover, or your own darker side. That’s if you can be bothered to think about it, otherwise it’s just a grotesque comedy.

    Then again, masturbating a girl with a pair of scissors on stage until her eyes bleed I guess could be seen as a little “out there”!

    Danielle/BME: I could definitely see that as being considered a little bizarre. With all of these acts you play with the very real risk of extreme physical deformity, injury, and death. I assume that you are relatively at peace with the idea of death. Despite that, you must have some tangible fears?

    Lucifire: Regrets, finding out that I missed out on something, being old and wishing I had the courage to follow my dreams.

    Danielle/BME: I think many people share those fears. Despite how they may look, your performances aren’t about causing you pain — how would you define the acts that you do and why you do them?

    Lucifire: I do what I do to entertain and to ask questions. I don’t have all the answers. That’s why I ask them. I want to show people new things and new ways of thinking; I want to point out the wonder of the human body and what it can do, and of course because it gives me a buzz.

    Danielle/BME: If you can’t enjoy it there’s no point in doing it. When your performance time is up, do you have a retirement plan or another career you will pursue?

    Lucifire: I’ll think of something, and it will be the right thing because it will result out of who I have become. I will not be the same person in ten years time, so how can I decide what that person will do?

    Danielle/BME: That’s a good point. I’m sure twenty years ago you didn’t see yourself where you are now. Eventually, as morbid as this is, you will die — do you have any special requests for when that happens?

    Lucifire: When I die I want to be cremated and have my ashes put into a firework so I can be exploded over the sky. I think that would be very in keeping with my life and everyone close to me adores fireworks and explosives, I think it would be a fitting end.

    Danielle/BME: What do you want people to say about you when you die?

    Lucifire: That I had a good life and I was a good person.

    Danielle/BME: I can’t see them saying otherwise. You have been great to get to know and I definitely wish you the best in your future endeavors. Thank you so much for taking the time to complete this interview with me. For the reading audience as a recap, what types of events do you entertain at and how can an interested person book you for an event or get ahold of you?

    Lucifire: I do a lot of shows at fetish events, gay clubs, artsy or alternative cabarets, tattoo conventions and private parties. Anyone interested in booking me can contact me at [email protected].

    Lucifire.com

    Note that Lucifire does not limit herself to the UK or Scotland, she has performed all around the world. Find out more about her at her personal website Lucifire.com, her online livejournal, or her newest site Scarlet Mews.


    Luci was interviewed by Danielle Clark (iam:Vanilla) through a series of e-mail correspondence. All photos are copyright protected and owned by Lucifire.

    Copyright © 2003 Danielle Clark and BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online August 20th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

  • Contemporary Blood Letting [Guest Column]

    Written by

    BME

    Contemporary Blood Letting
    by Jason Oliver

    As part of an ongoing investigation into private rituals and public spaces, this article will consider the growing interest in Live Art in which the artists use their own bodies as the site of inquiry. Social taboos such as bloodletting, self-flagellation and body modification will be considered, alongside the objections to this particular practice.

    Live Art has its history in the performance art practice of the 1970′s. Informed by the work of such artists as the Viennese Aktionists, Coum Transmissions and Chris Burden, the artists who engage in this particular practice choose to use their own bodies, pushing the boundaries of social taboo. Creating more of an interrogation than a dialogue, the spectator is forced into making choices about questions of identity and difference and the nature of mortality.

    In order to negotiate these particular practices has proved problematic, as the performances now only exist in a fragmentary way within photographs and videos. Of course, this documentation is not the performance itself. A photograph or video is a snapshot of time and cannot be totally representative. In an age of mass information overload, where we have become de-conditioned to atrocities committed in the name of politics, global terrorism and famine, the ‘news’ documentation played back on radio and television does not tell the real story. We are conditioned to objectify violations of the body and remove ourselves from immersion in such actions and feelings. The curators (journalists and TV news presenters) of this spectacle manipulate our points of view, numbing us to the reality of events happening in distant countries to ‘the other’.

    The use of blood within Live Art forces the viewer into re-considering their own bodily vulnerability and to question issues of gender roles. As Live Artists use their own bodies as a site for inquiry, there is an immediacy of similarity between the viewers and viewed, which does not require any academic training to understand. As such, immediate actions onto the body have generated a discourse that reaches beyond the confines of the Fine Art arena. Press interest has created a reputation for these artists that places them as ‘the other’ onto which we can project our own fears about bodily invasion and destruction, where we can directly experience such violent actions by attending a performance, not constructed and removed from reality in the manner television forces us to.

    Artists such as Franko B and Ron Athey provoke such a discourse, but one that is fuelled by reputation rather than experience. A sense of control, which could easily lapse into chaos, is the constant concern of such direct actions onto the body. With the disneyfication of difference so prevalent within Western culture, these artists are seeking to re-address the balance and re-affirm their own identities, using taboos such as blood, nakedness and socially sanctioned ‘self-harm’ to explore their own bodies. Traditional Fine Art notions of ‘the space’ and ‘the body’ become ‘this space’ and ‘this body’.


    Ron Athey’s practice is informed by his years of heroin addiction, a fundamentalist pentecostal upbringing, his mother being an institutionalised schizophrenic and ultimately his diagnosis of HIV fifteen years ago. His performances seek to negotiate his relationship to these events, creating a theatre of spectacle in which the viewer is implicated. His use of religious tableau to address these issues further enhances notions of social taboo and stigma. Disussing the idea of theatre and performance as cathartic methods of expression, Athey states,


    "Like the plague, the theatre is the time of evil, the triumph of dark powers that are nourished by a power even more profound until extinction...The theatre like the plague, is in the image of this carnage and this essential separation. It releases conflicts, disengages powers, liberates possibilities, and if these possibilities and these powers are dark, it is the fault not of the plague nor of the theatre, but of life".

    (Exposures, 2002, pg 6)

    In “Four Scenes from a Harsh Life” he inserts 30 hypodermic needles into his arm, referencing his time as an intravenous drug user. He then, with the help of his ‘medical’ staff, inserts a crown of ‘thorns’ (hypodermic needles again), enacting Christ’s death. As he collapses on the floor, his assistants cover him with a white shroud and he is carried to the centre of the stage. After a short while he is cleansed with water and is ‘resurrected’.

    During “Nurses’ Penance,” he re-creates the institutional terror of a hospital setting, with a patient brutalized by huge drag-queen nurses with sewn-together lips. In another piece he’s writhing naked, on one end of a double-headed dildo. His richest source for material, though, is the church. Most of his pieces have religious names like ‘Martyrs and Saints’ and ‘Deliverance’, along with characters like St. Sebastian, who’s martyred with a literal crown of thorns that causes blood to rain onto his face and the floor. Much of his work is driven by a sense of martyrdom and, arguably, a self-hate instilled on him from childhood.

    Athey attracted international attention in 1994, after a Minneapolis performance in which he sliced into the back of a fellow performance artist, placed strips of paper towel over the wounds and then hoisted the bloodied strips of paper towel, via pulley, over the heads of the audience. Though no blood dripped down onto the audience, and though the performer who was cut was HIV negative, Athey’s own HIV positive status led one audience member to claim that the crowd had been spattered with HIV-positive blood.

    Within these performances, the spectator is forced into a position of passive voyeurism. The audience act as conduits for this dialogue that is critical to Athey’s performances. Whilst Athey maintains the power, the audience are left helpless as he metamorphoses himself, through methods of live body modification. Although Athey presents himself to us as an artist, he is also allowing us to observe a process of healing and catharsis. Though Athey does not use documentation in a way that is representative (ie he doesn’t exhibit this work in a gallery), videos of his work provide us with a snapshot of the experience of his performances. His use of theatre to present the ‘real’, adds further signifiers to his work. Referencing notions of catholic ritual and linking this to the idea of Christ as drug taker (although by inference) he opens up a discourse on the nature of religion and its use of ritual.


    The use of blood in Franko B’s performances operates as a different signifier. Franko B is not HIV+ and he uses blood as an affirmation of life. His short pieces involve cutting, scarification and other apparent S/M practices. The direct use of his body in these performances removes any notions of ‘representation’. In order to fully experience Franko B, one has to be present as part of a complete visual, physical and emotional immersion in the work.

    His performances such as ‘I Miss You’, when he walks down a canvas in a room set up like a fashion show, with photographers situated at one end, to heighten the sense of voyeurism, seek to implicate the viewer further. ‘Oh Lover Boy’ sites Franko as an ‘artists model’. To quote from Gray Watsons interview with Franko B,


    "Oh Lover Boy is going to be a performance piece where again, the body is presented: it's there on the table. It is there for you to take, in a way, either to draw or to look at...the set-up is going to be almost like a life-drawing class but there is also a clinical side, where it is like you are looking at a body. But it is not passive; it is not a dead body, in a way it's giving life by bleeding. And he's looking at you".

    (Gray Watson, 2000)

    Franko’s performances reference his childhood being brought up by the Red Cross. Using a diatribe of medical equipment such a syringes, drip stands and wheel chairs, Franko re-enforces notions of healing, but also control, amidst the perceived chaos of his performances. He can only perform three times a year because of the amount of healing that needs to take place after his performances.

    Franko’s other work, (which is regularly exhibited, unlike Ron Athey’s documentation) consists of collages and installations. His collage work, references his ‘real’ experiences, and documents his whole life. This again raises issues of vulnerability, as he is leaving nothing to the imagination. Flyers from his performances and pictures of ‘boys I went out with’ (Gray Watson, 2000) mingle with images of religious artefacts and blood stained sheets from his performances.

    Issues of power arise here, as the viewer is implicated in the performance by default. Franko appears as helpless and vulnerable, but also has power over his audience. If Franko performed in the street, the context would be different and issues of legality would be raised. This issue of contextualisation also raises issues of safety and notions of control and chaos.

    Both Ron Athey and Franko B have ‘medical’ helpers during their performances. They act as signifiers within the performance, to connote to the viewer notions of control and safety. This safety angle is always printed on the flyers, to reassure the viewer. There is a paradox here, as the people that are supposed to ‘help’ during Franko B’s performance, also cut him with a razor during ‘Oh Lover Boy’. The medical helpers are in fact trained body-piercers, with basic anatomy training. As soon as this fact has been established during the performance, these signifiers change.

    Both Athey and Franko B as gay men question the nature of masculinity. At their performances, it is the men who recoil against the walls of the venue, normally in foetal positions, returning to maternal signifiers as if about to be castrated. The spilling of blood, whatever the connotation intended by the artist, has the effect of rendering the audience impotent, either to their own bodies or to the performance itself. They cannot help the performers, even though they feel their natural reaction is to do so.

    There is also a sense that the performers are acting ‘privately’ and the viewer is intruding into a sacred shamanic ritual. Shamanism is normally associated with women, blood letting during menstruation being an important part of ‘walking with the spirits’. Although, shamans tend to operate outside the confines of accepted social practice, they act as a conduit to ‘other-worldly’ access and are relied upon by the rest of the tribe to maintain a sense of unity. Within the framework of Live Art, the performers provide this access so that the viewers themselves can reach the dark underworld of the shaman. Within Western culture, it appears that men are not supposed to reveal their feelings, let alone share any intimate details about themselves with the outside world. By the direct action onto their bodies and the use of blood, Franko and Athey challenge this notion.

    The letting of blood is seen as ‘unclean’. This mythology probably originated in the Old Testament where it is seen that,


    "She is to be 'put apart for her uncleanness' for seven days".

    (Lev. 18:19)

    “Any man who lies with her during this time is also unclean for seven days, anyone who touches her is unclean till the evening, and everything that she sitteth upon shall be unclean”.

    (Lev. 15:19-24)

    Throughout the history of art we have encountered images of blood from the earliest cave paintings through centuries of biblical images and through to war films such as Apocalypse Now. It both fascinates us and repulses us. It has come to represent both the sacred and profane. Live Artists use this dichotomy as a way of personal transformation. At the performances there is a sense of sacredness that transcends orthodox religious methods. This could explain why the Christian Church is opposed to such direct actions onto the body. It appals them that something non-religious can actually achieve the same transcendental experience that religion is supposed to offer. In Judaeo-Christian cultures, blood ‘sacrifice’ cannot be culturally sanctioned because of notions of idolatry, where the artist are using their own bodies to ‘redeem’ themselves as opposed to appeals to God.

    In his book ‘Violence and the Sacred’, Rene Girards’ theory of sacrifice states,


    "The physical metamorphoses of spilt blood can stand for the double nature of violence...Blood serves to illustrate that the same substance can stain or cleanse, contaminate or purify, drive men to fury and murder or appease their anger and restore them to life"

    (Girard, 1972)

    The process of purification that the artists are trying to achieve can sometimes fail, not providing the audience with the signifier of life that blood performances seek to inform the viewer about. The aforementioned performance by Ron Athey called ‘Martyrs and Saints’ which used supposed HIV blood being heaved across the heads of the audience on a pulley system created an outcry. This could be because the blood was seen as ‘polluted’, making the ‘artist an unacceptable surrogate sacrificial victim for a healthy community’ (Dawn Perlmutter, 2000). In a sense, the signifier contained within the blood changed its meaning and the ritual which was meant to be a demonstration of transcendence through bodily mutilation failed. The distance between the observer and observed was very wide and the artists role as shaman became disjointed, hence the public outcry. The success of such actions is dependent on the audience feeling close to the Live Artists performance.


    The antagonism towards Live Art does not detract from the fact that Live Art is a growing method of expression. It could be seen as an attempt to disrupt societal and personal boundaries through methods of physical sacrifice and as a process of purification. Although sometimes the ritual, as in Athey’s case, can fail, it is still a ritual which people observe. With the growth of interest in body piercing and tattooing due largely to information being disseminated via the internet, what was once the reserve of underground S/M clubs has now become an overground method of artistic practice. There is an obvious need for people to get back in touch with their own bodies as the site of inquiry, as is evidenced by the recent series of events at the Tate Modern, running over the course of a weekend at the end of March this year called ‘Live Culture’. This exhibition brought together Live Artists from various schools, to inform, perform and debate. Depending on audience interest, the movement will continue to undermine social convention and will move away from the purely aesthetic and personal transformation on the part of the artists, into the realms of communal transformation.

    Jason Oliver
    May 2003

    References

    Bibliography

    • Danto, Arthur C (1986). The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art. Columbia University Press: New York.
    • Eliade, M (1987). The Encyclopedia of Religion. Macmillan Publishing Co: New York.
    • Stuart, H (1997). Representation, Cultural Represenations and Signifying Practices. Bath Press Colourbooks: Glasgow.
    • Keidan, L, Morgan, S and Sinclair, S. (1998). Franko B. Black Dog Publishing: London.
    • V, Manuel, Watson, G and Wilson, S. (2001). Franko B – Oh Lover Boy. Black Dog Publishing: London.
    • V,Vale and Juno, A. (1989). Modern Primitives, An Investigation of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual: Re/Search Publications: San Francisco, CA.
    • Wollheim, R. (1980). Art And Its Objects. University Press: Cambridge.


    Jason Oliver is currently working on his BA (Hons) Graphic Fine Art course in London, UK. His main areas of concern are ritual, body modification, and performances linking the two. He is researching social taboos and the general public’s response to direct actions onto the body and has a special interest in the use of blood, both in art and in ‘tribal’ rituals and how it acts as different signifiers depending on cultural context.

    He is an active opponent to cultural appropriation of body ritual, finding it both undermining and patronising but instead explores the role that modification plays to himself personally, without cultural references, by pushing his body into new areas of experience, with documentation being a pre-requisite.

    This article was written as a precursor to his thesis, currently entitled ‘The Body as Transformative Object’. You can find Jason on IAM as coldcell.

    Copyright © 2003 Jason Oliver and BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online August 20th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

  • Who is Jim Ward? [Running The Gauntlet – By Jim Ward]

    Written by

    BME


    1: Who Is Jim Ward?

    A recent MTV documentary called me “the granddaddy of thae modern piercing movement”, in case you were wondering who I am. Maybe that gives me sufficient credentials to write a bit every now and then about the history of modern piercing and how it has evolved into what it’s become today. After all I helped create a lot of that history.

    Even if you never heard my name before, maybe you’ve heard of the business I started back in 1975 called Gauntlet. That business provided an outlet and a means for me to make the world aware of the wonders of piercing.

    In the months to come I’d like to tell you something about your roots. The modern piercing movement didn’t just suddenly happen. It evolved, and part of that evolution started with me. Not that you’re interested in my whole life story, but a little background to put it all in perspective wouldn’t be out of place.

    I was born in the bleakness that is Western Oklahoma six months before Pearl Harbor. Looking back on it much of my childhood was just as barren and desolate as the landscape.

    I couldn’t wait to escape. In the back yard of one place we lived, there was a beat up old trailer with wooden slat sides and flat tires that had long ceased to be roadworthy. I remember often climbing up to the top and looking out at the distant two-lane highway and longing to follow that road anywhere just so long as it was away from the desolation of small-town life.

    My parents were childhood sweethearts who eloped and secretly married shortly after they graduated from high school. The year I was born they both turned 21, perhaps a bit young to undertake the responsibilities of a family. Seldom was the rod — more often the belt — spared. They thought this would build character and assure that I wasn’t spoiled. Instead it resulted in a fearful, timid child indoctrinated with Presbyterian guilt. Years later in therapy I remembered being told, “We punish you because we love you.” Translation: punishment equals love. Not difficult to understand how S/M became rooted in my psyche!

    Fifth grade was my last school year in Oklahoma. My teacher was Miss Newman, a horse-faced old maid so uptight she considered “fanny” a dirty word. What I remember most vividly from that year was an incident involving one of my classmates. His name was James and he was an impish kid with a knack for getting into mischief. He and several others were in the boys’ restroom during recess one day. After finishing at the urinal he turned and demonstrated for the rest of us how his penis got bigger and harder when he stroked it. Whether or not he had any clue what that was all about I’ve no idea. I was simultaneously appalled and fascinated. Something told me this was naughty and sinful and that I should pray for him.

    My family moved to Colorado just in time for me to hit puberty at age eleven. Growing up in a very religious household where the subject of sex was hardly ever discussed left me totally unprepared for what was happening in my body. My mind kept flashing back to that day in the boys’ room when James had played with himself. Inevitably I had to try it myself. It felt so good I didn’t want to stop. Suddenly and unexpectedly the most incredible sensation swept over me, and, with an uncontrollable spasm, white fluid shot from my penis. Don’t ask me why, but I called that white stuff cultured piss. In retrospect it seems amazing that the whole experience didn’t freak me out. Perhaps the guilt and shame and the fear of discovery were more powerful, so powerful, in fact, that I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone.

    Once the intense, guilty pleasure of masturbation had been discovered, nothing, despite my greatest efforts, could stop me from doing it for very long. Prayer didn’t help. Memorizing and reciting bible verses didn’t help. Not quite understanding why, I began to develop crushes on some of my classmates, the young men who worked as church youth counselors, and on the newly appointed youth minister. Before his conversion, one of the counselors apparently had been something of a bad boy and had gotten into trouble. He had a tattoo on one forearm, and I found myself strangely attracted to him. I wanted desperately to be close to all these guys, to please them, to be noticed by them, to…? There was an undefined longing for something for which I had no name. It was agony.

     
    Charles Atlas (click the picture to see some of his comic book ads).


    Do comic books still contain those ads for Charles Atlas where the cartoon bully kicks sand in the face of the “97-pound weakling” only to get his comeuppance later when said weakling becomes a buff bodybuilder? The ads usually included a large photo of some muscle-bound hunk. In spite of the fact that I lacked any knowledge of the mechanics of sex, I frequently locked myself in the bathroom or the basement and jacked off looking at those photos and fantasizing myself naked and bound and forced in some vague way to please my tormentor.

    In time the burden I was carrying became unbearable, and I finally sought counsel from the church youth minister. The moment was painfully awkward, and I don’t remember how I expressed what was troubling me and I don’t recall everything that was said. I do remember Rev. Bill telling me there were three kinds of sexual expression: between a man and woman, between two men (for some reason he didn’t think to include two women), and masturbation. His mention of male/female sex elicited no response. It’s possible mention of the male/male thing made me pale or blush. I don’t know, but it probably wasn’t difficult to see how uncomfortable I was when he got around to masturbation. His counsel was low-key, and frankly I don’t recall much about it. He did take the time at least to enlighten me on the basics of sexual intercourse.

     
    Rev. Bill in church (c. 1958). The first man I ever had a sexual encounter with.


    Soon after this talk with the youth minister I had one of my first sexual experiences with another person, Rev. Bill. One night we found ourselves sitting in the darkened church talking about something. Rev. Bill put his hand on my leg and slowly moved to unzip my fly, reach inside my pants, and begin to play with me. I was nervous and found it difficult to get erect, but I didn’t want him to stop. I reached over and began to fondle him. This mutual masturbation continued for a little while until he excused himself and said he had to go to the bathroom. A few minutes later he returned and it was clear that the encounter was over. We had one other such experience the following summer at church camp.

    I lost contact with Rev. Bill. His proclivities eventually got him into trouble. He ended up marrying a woman some said was old enough to be his mother — I don’t recall if he ever had a child — and moved to a church in the Seattle area. Some years later I learned he had died of AIDS.

    As my high school years were drawing to a close, I became increasingly hostile to the religion of my family. My best friend, with whom I had done some sexual experimentation, was an Episcopalian. I began going to church with him and eventually became a member.

    The Episcopal Church was in a little tourist town called Manitou Springs. Across the street from it was a very nice little gift shop that didn’t sell the usual tacky souvenirs. Instead it was a place to find beautiful local crafts plus fine china, glassware and the like. John, the owner, was quick to spot a young gay man, and discovering my lack of experience, set about introducing me into the local gay community, such as it was in 1959. I worked for John that summer and was taken under the wing of a kindly older gentleman named Frank who introduced me to the various expressions of gay sex, at least the non-kinky variety. I was beginning to discover myself.

     
    Frank in his Knights of Columbus regalia (c. 1959). He brought me out.

    For several years after high school graduation I bounced back and forth from one school to another trying to find a vocation, but was so emotionally fucked up I couldn’t stick with anything. The mid-to-late 60s found me in New York working in various design-related jobs. Two things were noteworthy about this period, for they would have a significant bearing upon the establishing of Gauntlet. First, I took a number of classes in jewelry making. Second, I discovered the world of gay S/M and piercing.

    From the onset of puberty my masturbatory fantasies always involved S/M. When I jacked off I would frequently experiment with various kinds of bondage. I also discovered that intense nipple work was a big turn on and began experimenting with all kinds of clamps.

    The year was 1967, and I was living in Brooklyn Heights in an ancient brownstone apartment building at the foot of Joralemon Street known to the local gays as Vaseline Flats because of the sexual orientation of many residents. From my bathroom window I could look down on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the East River.

    A few blocks away on Montague Street, two gay guys, Steve and Marc, had opened a small bookstore. A friendship developed. As we became better acquainted, they disclosed that they were members of the New York Motor Bike Club, a group of gay men into leather and S/M. Here was my opportunity to explore that side of my personality that I had kept secret for so long. I felt much like I did when I discovered I was gay and that I wasn’t alone. There were others who shared the same drives and longings.

    In the mid-60s the gay S/M scene was nothing like it is today. Things were far from codified. No one had ever heard of safe words. It wasn’t even clear whether wearing ones keys on the left meant you were a top or a bottom and vice versa. On the East Coast it was said it meant you were a top, but if you were from the West Coast it meant you were a bottom. The bandana color code was still several years in the future. Just how much actual S/M was going on is hard for me to say. In my own experience what passed for S/M was mostly rough sex with a little role playing and bondage thrown in on occasion.

     
    Here I am (c. 1967) at the New York Motorbike Clubhouse in my new outfit.


    The “leather boutique” where you could outfit yourself and your toy collection was also some time away. One afternoon I took the subway to Delancy Street, one of New York’s Jewish neighborhoods. This was hardly the place I would have expected to find a motorcycle jacket, but someone from the motorbike club had given me the address of a tiny clothing store where I could find one at an extremely low price. A very orthodox looking merchant waited on me and helped me find a jacket that fit.

    My next stop was a Western wear store where I purchased a pair of Levi’s, a pair of Wellington boots, and a black cowboy hat. Having grown up in orthopedic shoes I expected the boots to be uncomfortable, but to my amazement they weren’t. With my purchases in hand I could hardly wait to get back to my apartment. I immediately took off all my clothes, put on the boots and jacket, and jacked off in front of a mirror, the feel and smell of the leather fueling my lust. It felt like a rite of passage. I was finally becoming myself.

    About this time I read a magazine article about a man who had made an extensive sea voyage. To mark the occasion he had had his ear pierced. Reading this article triggered something in my psyche. I simply had to have an ear pierced. It didn’t matter that it was 1967, and most men didn’t wear earrings. This was just something I had to do.

     
    A fellow NYMBC member, Ron did me the honor of piercing my ear.

    The New York Motorbike Clubhouse was a storefront near the foot of Christopher Street, a short distance from the docks and the leather bars. With Steve and Marc’s sponsorship, I joined NYMBC and made friends with a number of the members. One of them was a man named Ron. Ron had been a merchant seaman and had the tattoos to go with the profession. Even his earlobes were tattooed with stars, in the middle of which were piercings. His tattoos and pierced ears turned me on, and led us to share some sexual exploits. We ended up as good buddies. It was natural that when I made the decision to have an ear pierced, I asked Ron to do it. One weekend we got together and Ron pierced my ear with a large sewing needle. With a bit of maneuvering he was finally able to insert a small gold ear stud through the piercing. It was done.

    At the time I was working in a decorator showroom that sold tacky pictures and statuary to interior designers. Naturally I was concerned that my pierced ear would not be acceptable to my employer. Still I had to leave something in the piercing for at least six weeks until it was sufficiently healed to be able to leave it out through the work day. Every morning before I left for work I would carefully clean the piercing and put a Band-Aid over it. If anyone asked I could always say I cut myself shaving. No one ever asked. At the end of six weeks I would take the stud out before going to work and insert it again when I got home. The piercing healed and is with me today.

    For several years nipple play was something that I found highly erotic. I’ve no idea how it even came about, but at some point I began fantasizing about piercing my nipples and wearing gold rings in them. It was a fantasy that never ceased to turn me on, but I was afraid to actually admit it to anyone. One Saturday afternoon I even attempted to pierce my own nipples.

    An ex-lover of mine was a watchmaker. He had a small tool box filled with various materials that he used in his trade. Among them was a small roll of thin gold wire. I snipped a few inches of it and from it fashioned a couple of small gold rings about 3/8″ in diameter. Although I filed the ends so there would be no burrs or rough edges, they still had no closure and were way too thin for the job. At the time I had no way of knowing this was important.

    That fateful Saturday afternoon I took the gold rings, the cork from a bottle of wine, and a push pin and soaked them in a small dish of alcohol. After cleaning my nipples with some of the alcohol, I pressed the cork against one side, the point of the push pin on the other, and taking a deep breath forced the pin through and into the cork. It hurt, but not that badly. By this time I was sweating and feeling a bit light-headed. After lying down for a few minutes, I recovered enough to proceed. It would be necessary to remove the pin to insert the ring. When I did, the wound began to bleed a little, but fortunately not enough to be a problem. The difficult part was trying to maneuver the round ring through the straight hole. This took several harrowing minutes, but I finally succeeded. All that remained was to do the other nipple. Somehow I managed. It was a testimony to my determination that I finished. But soon afterward I freaked out a bit at what I had done and removed the rings. By the following morning, were it not for the pleasurable tenderness, I would not have known what had happened the previous day.

     
    Fernando, a legend in the NY leather scene, was the first man I ever saw with pierced nipples.


    But the fantasy of pierced nipples would not go away. Finally after a few weeks I gathered up my determination and my trusty makeshift tools and repeated the ordeal. This time I left the rings in place, though I was very closeted about having them and carefully removed them before going to bed with anyone. After sex I would get dressed, go to the bathroom, and reinsert the rings.

    At this point in my life I had never seen or heard of anyone with pierced nipples even in the pages of National Geographic. That was soon to change. One weekend night I went to the Village to hang out at the NYMBC. Standing shirtless by the bar was a hunk of a man. Even in the subdued light there was no missing the glint of gold on his muscular chest. His nipples were pierced. I learned that his name was Fernando and that he was something of a local legend. Though I was never fortunate enough to enjoy the intimate pleasure of his company, he at least let me know that once again I was not alone.

    Next: From New York to Hollywood

    Jim Ward is is one of the cofounders of body piercing as a public phenomena in his role both as owner of the original piercing studio Gauntlet and the original body modification magazine PFIQ, both long before BME staff had even entered highschool. He currently works as a designer in Calfornia where he lives with his partner.

    Copyright © 2003 BMEzine.com LLC. Requests to publish full, edited, or shortened versions must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published August 17th, 2003 by BMEzine.com LLC in Tweed, Ontario, Canada

  • Body Modification’s Role In The Coming Human-Robot Apocalypse [The Publisher’s Ring]

    Written by

    Shannon Larratt


    Body Modification’s Role In The
    Coming Human-Robot Apocalypse


    As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better result than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

    – Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber Manifesto

    The world as we know it — the world dominated by homo sapiens — is quickly coming to an end. We may well be the last generation of “true humans” that live out natural lives, and I believe that it is essential that we embrace body modification in order not only to safely and positively prepare ourselves for transition into our next evolutionary step, but also to survive that step. We’re not just watching human evolution — we’re about to watch a battle for survival between human and non-human entities in what you’ve heard me talking about for years in my online journal: the coming human-robot apocalypse.

    Laugh it up, puny humans, but I’m not kidding. Hear me out before you assume this is just crazy old Shannon on another conspiratorial rant.

    Introduction

    We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes. Many people who know about the dangers still seem strangely silent. When pressed, they trot out the 'this is nothing new' riposte — as if awareness of what could happen is response enough. I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.

    – Bill Joy, Sun Microsystems

  • Body Modification vs. Spirituality – Through the Modified Looking Glass

    Written by

    BME

    Body Modification vs. Spirituality

    We are not engaged in a complicated joke disguised as a new religion. We are engaged in a new religion disguised as a complicated joke.

    – Malaclypse the Younger

     

    This column will be a little different. In terms of style, it is even more so than usual a collection of thoughts and reactions. It is very much a sort of revealing of the process and analysis which runs through my consciousness as it relates to the topics within. I present it hopefully as ‘food for thought’ because that is the sort of food which, while it cannot support life, can make living far more interesting.

    I am not a religious person. I am not a spiritual person. I do not worship. I do not believe that I have a soul or spirit. I do not feel that my mind and body are in any significant way distinct from one another. I have simply decided, after research and experimentation — still ongoing of course — that the way in which I currently choose to view and functionally interact with the world does not require these things.

     

    In addition, also from the BME Megasurvey, almost 90% of respondents are not a member of any religious groups involved in body modification. That leaves 10% that either have been or hope to be, although only half that number are actually currently involved in such a group.

    These results left me a little bit surprised, and pleasantly so. I suppose because like many others I have been sold, to a large extent, the media version of body modification a la the modern primitive or seeker bent. I also often hear — or read on BME — about people connecting their modifications to a faith or spiritual outlook. Then again, many times it seems that the choice of terms (‘spiritual’) is very much based upon a broad and almost meaningless pop usage. Spirit derives from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath and thus breath of life. The Greek term would be psyche, standing for the principle of animation or life. These notions are most often developed in conjunction with a doctrine of soul. Broadly applied it could be related to anything regarding the experience of living, but it would generally presuppose a commitment to the idea of spirit or soul as “substance”. This idea is fundamental to many religious doctrines but also presents a host of problems so great that many thinkers have conceded dualism to be effectively bankrupt and instead try to focus on developing a notion of soul and spirit that is not separate to the body. Given the context in which the term is often placed I have to wonder if something like ‘life affirming’ might not be a less baggage-laden and equally accurate term for many to apply to their experiences.

    Dualism of the mind-body, body-soul, or even mind-body-soul is to me very much like the notion of a flat earth. It has some strong intuitive appeals but eventually it fails my needs and requires unacceptable complications of explanation. I have no objections, however, to others believing in a flat earth or anything else that may suit them. When I hear ‘mind-body’ I think of it in the same relationship as, say, ‘liver-body’.

    God, gods, Buddha, Allah, Vishnu, bigfoot, UFOs, leprechauns, and the Trix Rabbit — believe in whatever you would like. However, do not expect me to share your beliefs or accept your implication that my experience of life is any less vibrant or fulfilling for not sharing them. The idea that you can make qualitative judgments of other people’s experiences for them is both arrogant and absurd. While you are at it, you can attempt to convince me that the taste I detestfully experience when I eat spinach is one that is wonderful to me.

    That which inspires religious or spiritual fervor in others is not missing in my life. I simply experience things through a different lens. To me such things are not evidence of the glory of a greater being or giving me contact with some universal, unifying force. They are, however, glorious life affirming experiences which further impress upon me the wonders which I can come to know.

    I do not seek transcendence of body. I seek to revel in body. To me it is a marvelous and nearly unlimited thing and I am far more interested in developing it, pushing it, driving it, and ultimately exploring its full potential. I sometimes wonder if those who seek transcendence are not in some way afraid what their bodies are capable of doing, and of themselves. Is their transcendence another way of explaining experience or fleeing from the vastness of experience which is possible?

    In fact, transcendence is meaningless to me. In my view of myself as a whole there is no going beyond. All is contained within. This does not mean I have any more or less than those of different views but that I explain the experiences differently. For example, I have many times experienced by induction and spontaneously all of the sensations often described as OBE (out-of-body-experience), both before and after developing my current views. I would say now that OBE is a misnomer. Of course, I don’t agree with the definition of body that is inherent in that description to begin with.

    Body modification and ritual are a very large and important part of how I choose to learn about and explore my world. I have a great deal of respect for those people and cultures that have come before and continue on around me in these varied practices. They can teach me a great deal and lead me to a great many possibilities. However, I am at all times on guard to try to be aware of and separate out the necessary from the personal and cultural artifacts. Body modification describes a set of procedures and practices. They need not be religious or spiritual but can be and are often used as such. This means that the religious or spiritual component is one that is added by the individual or group as a function of their beliefs. Your experience with body modification is your own and need not involve the religious or spiritual beliefs of others. At least as careful, perhaps more so for many, as one is in choosing what foods they consume, so should one be with the ideas and beliefs one intakes.

    PS. As soon as possible, for general mental nutrition, obtain and read the essay Religion for the Hell of it by Robert Anton Wilson. You can also find it re-printed in his book Coincidance. Among other things it contains the essential solution to an effective Church of Body Modification — even for us non-religious, non-spiritual types.
    Erik Sprague

     

    because the world NEEDS freaks…

    Former doctoral candidate and philosophy degree holder Erik Sprague, the Lizardman (iam), is known around the world for his amazing transformation from man to lizard as well as his modern sideshow performance art. Need I say more?

    Copyright © 2003 BMEZINE.COM. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published August 14th, 2003 by BMEZINE.COM in Tweed, Ontario, Canada.

     

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