BME covers two main subject areas: permanent and semi-permanent body modification (piercing, tattoos, surgery, binding, and so on) with a focus on the atypical (thus the limited emphasis on things like cosmetic surgery), as well as transformative body ritual (play piercing, suspension, ball dancing, etc.) with an emphasis on the invasive or penetrative, in both the “spiritual” and “psycho-sexual” realms. As such, there are many subject areas that are peripheral, but not directly covered by BME — obvious examples include sideshow culture, body painting, tribal history, hair (dreadlocks being an excellent example) and fashion, and so on.
Recently a number of people have been extremely upset at me for removing the henna section from BME, accusing me as marginalizing it as “meaningless fashion” by not including it. Ignoring how incredibly insulting such a statement is to the very valid art and culture of hair and fashion (which both certainly predate henna, and have a wider cultural range) and so on, it's simply not a relevant complaint. Do I think henna has a rich cultural history and do I get that it's important to people? Sure. But so do a lot of other things, and the fact that those things aren't directly BME subject matter and therefore aren't included doesn't mean I'm belittling them.
Now, if someone wanted to write an article, guest column, or even BME/Risks or glossary entry about how henna (or dreadlocks, body painting, drum circles, sideshow history, or any of the other myriad of interconnected subjects) relates to and crosses over with BME subject matter, I think it would make for a fascinating read and I'd gladly print it if it's well written — but that doesn't mean that entire galleries are going to be created and grown on the subject matter. After all, just because BME intervied Steve-O doesn't mean that I'm going to set up a gallery and encourage people to send in photos of all of his shows, or start posting reviews of all the Jackass-inspired shows.
Those of you who are in tears that you've been somehow personally disgraced by henna or body paint not being a gallery on BME any more shouldn't get so freaked out and miserable about it (one particularly irate person even had the gall to accuse that I hadn't included it because I'd never seen henna as well done as theirs, whatever that goofy statement was trying to imply). I would strongly urge a bit more maturity and objectiveness on the matter. If you feel I'm wrong, and think that henna is actually permanent body modification, present an argument, but don't try and argue that something not BME subject matter must be posted because it's important to you — that's just silly!
