First of all, I want to be very clear that in this entry I'm not questioning any technical merits of this procedure. To be bluntly honest, this is a relatively safe procedure. I see no fault in how it was performed, and being realistic, it's likely safer than a cartilage piercing.
Not everyone gets body modifications to “improve” themselves in an obvious sort of way. Sometimes people choose instead to “damage” their appearance — to purposefully create an injury* rather than to create a work of body art (in the traditional context of the word). Amputation most obviously falls into this category, as do some forms of self-cutting. To cite a couple of other examples I can remember:
- The “enforcer” for a high-end law firm who chose to have fairly brutal scars placed across his face in order to appear more “frightening” to the people he had to “deal with”.
- The video game fanatic that sought a ragged full face scar because it was what his favorite electronic character had.
- The man who fell in love with an amputee, and cut off his own limb in order to more closely understand his muse's problems and help him with them.
Those are all real examples; you may know who I'm talking about even… I definitely am not questioning the reasoning, because in each of these cases the people were happier afterwards, and, given that my own reasons must seem kooky to many, I'm in no place to question anyone's internal drives. None of us are (let me show you my glass house, please don't throw rocks).
But… That doesn't mean that someone can't get screwed by the system, and that may well mean the practitioner unfortunately. Steve recently submitted the photos below (and again let me emphasize that I'm not questioning this girl, nor am I doubting Steve's competence on this in any way):
She wanted it to look like someone (Mike Tyson perhaps?) had taken a bite out of her ear. I think that look was certainly achieved. But lets say her parents FREAK OUT.
(dramatization) Becky is unstable. You should have known that. Come on! What normal person wants their ear bitten off? Obviously she was unstable, and you ignored that to make $350. Guess what — now we're suing you for 1.2 million dollars!
Yes, it can and does happen, even with adult kids. The kicker is that the client can maintain their sanity throughout a trial such as above and still have the practitioner potentially lose… and if the client changes their mind, it's a guarantee'd loss.
All it takes is a lawyer convincingly saying “you should have known this person was potentially unstable because of their request, and provided adequate screening.”
And I think we all know that if you get a mainstream jury together, even if they support our right to do things like this, they will question it. And, since pretty much zero practitioners offer psychiatric screening (only some of the old-school cutters do, because they understand they have to to protect themselves), it's quite likely an open-and-shut loss for the body modification community.
When doctors do procedures on people who they think are unstable, they will usually ask them to get approval from a therapist or second doctor to cover their asses. It's very easy to sue someone — even if it eventually gets thrown out of court, it can still cost crippling amounts of money.
Just be careful…
* Chicks dig scars.
