I'm working on a new article right now, but I got “warmed up” for writing by doing this little interview… It's kind of like doing stretches before you run a marathon I think. Dunno if it's of any interest to anyone. Probably not, but hey, this is my diary page, so I can insert it here for my own records if I want!
How did you first get into body modification? How many years have you been “modifying” your body? Why do you do it?
It's been almost twenty years now I suppose, although I don't think I realized it at the time because I didn't know there was such a thing as “body modification” in any cultural sense of the word. When I was a kid, I remember biting holes through my lip and feeding through “rings” of electrical wire (which I never shared with anyone at the time), and constantly drawing tattoos on myself. My father had a panther tattoo on his arm that he'd won in a wrestling competition (he was, among other things, Western Canadian Greco-Roman champion), but I never got the impression that anyone else in the family admired it — but he certainly did, and I'm sure that there was an influence there.
When I was in my mid teens, my girlfriend at the time went on vacation to San Francisco (as a point of trivia, her father was a friend of Anton LaVey's as he'd been the zoo official in charge of taking away his lions). When she got back she told me stories of having met young people with pierced tongues and other things that seemed totally outlandish to me at the time. Even though I understand now I'd been acting on the same impulses, I swore I'd never do such a thing myself.
But, of course, I did continue down that path and loved every minute of it. It's been massively rewarding to me and I don't regret any of it. As far as why, I probably don't have an answer that's meaningful, but I can tell you that it's made me very happy… I hope that's good enough!
What do you think is the biggest problem with society's take on body modification?
The mainstream — let's say 80% of people — are, for lack of a better way of putting it, stupid. They'll believe what they're told to believe, and they'll hate who they're told to hate… Because people interested in body modification are of course the minority, they are automatically the outsider: the “bad guy”.
What I mean is that the problem that people have with body modification is not so much a problem with body modification itself, but a problem with anything that exists outside of their range of acceptable norms. Most people have a great deal of difficulty accepting other people's personal decisions if they are different than their own. As such they'll eagerly listen to any self-proclaimed expert that props up their bigotry, but immediately discount any verifiable facts that denounce their lies.
What would you say is the biggest misconception people outside of the modification community have about body modifications?
The biggest misconception that people have about body modification is that it's a symptom of a problem. Body modification is usually something that psychologically healthy people do to enhance their lives. Sometimes troubled people do use body modification to hurt themselves more, but this is no more representative of “what body modification is” than drunk driving is representative of what it means to own a car.
Why did you first decide to start up BME?
I've always enjoyed communicating — as long as I can remember I've published my own comics, zines, music, art, and so on. In 1994, BME was just my homepage on the newest medium, the WWW. It had pictures of my mods on it, along with a note that said “if you'd like to send in your pictures, I'll post them here as well”. At the time I didn't even have a computer that was able to publish the site and had to visit my friend Saira's house to use her scanner!
Anyway, people started sending in their photos and stories. Piercing studios helped out as well… It was a very exciting time to be running BME because everything was so new — piercing and the Internet exploded at the same time, so every month things doubled in size, and new innovations were coming in non-stop.
How big of an impact do you think BME and its community of IAM has made on mainstream society's take on modifications?
Honestly I have no idea. It's really quite impossible for me to tell… The only way I can gauge BME's influence is in the ideas it's spread — techniques first showed by BME are commonplace around the world, and most of the “second generation” of piercings were named by BME and those names are accepted as “official”. So definitely the impact is world wide and surprisingly universal. Other than that there's really no way for me to tell what the scope of the influence is.
Looking around at the other larger “body modification” sites on the net, I see very little that isn't either designed to promote a specific studio or isn't a thinly veiled attempt to sell jewelry or make money in some way. BME — and IAM — never came into existence as a business venture. BME exists because myself and hundreds of thousands of people around the world “needed” it, and cared about its goals enough to bring them to fruition.
It's my hope that BME does a fair job of equally — and responsibly — representing all forms of body modification, and works hard to create a world where people who choose this path can do so without others using it as an excuse to hurt them. Body modification is a glorious thing and people should be encouraged to indulge in it…
