Posted by: Lucie
On Body Politics, Modification and Identity
Warning: Trolls will be bahleeted! One of the basic assumptions of you having arrived on this site is that you can understand the concept of subjectivity. Thank-you.
NB: If you are squeamish, or have a problem with modifications - skip this post. Links are NSFW.
So for a while there have been these niggling little issues bothering me about how there is such restricted cross-over in the blogosphere between areas that I love dearly in their own ways. Allow me to expand: especially with regard to personal decisions such as the choice to modify your body - there seems no room for discussion. Comments threads descend into repeated exclamations of judgementality. There’s some kind of tangible sense of resentment towards a cultural critique coming within 10 yards of body modification. It’s ridiculous, but on the flipside there are some F.A. (Fat Acceptance) blogs out there that seem to over-critique everything to the point of which choosing to lose weight is equatable with succumbing to societal pressure and thus abhorrent. Admittedly that’s anecdotal because it would take me so long to find the specific posts I’ve read that on, and besides in this post I’m mainly focusing on discussing the Body Modification scene. I want to preface this by saying that I really don’t want this to read as some kind of brochure for all the horrors out there - modification is life-affirming, progressive, fun and not to mention a skill (that’s rare in a lot of studios) to be respected.
Modblog, for the uninitiated, stands for body modification blog - it’s a branch of the online epicenter of bod mod enthusiasts, BMEzine. Now there’s a bit of a convoluted and bloody recent history to BMEzine, no pun intended - but that’s a whole other post on it’s own. I’ve been a fan of Modblog for years, in a very big way. I’m actually modified myself - pierced, stretched and inked. Several acquaintances have been featured there, over the years. Moreover, I’m a huge believer in personal autonomy - you have to live in it, ergo you do what you want with it. Anyway, there you can read about pretty ground-breaking techniques in the field from all over the world: Eyeball tattooing; tongue splitting; scarification; suspension as well as the usual fare of tattoos and piercings. It features the best work of the best of the profession. By the way, it’s fair to say that 99.9% of the posts feature photographs of the modifications being discussed (originally I’d typed ‘the modifications in question’ - the irony!)
Occasionally it also features the worst. Let me explain what I mean when I say that, though. Some procedures are more dangerous than others, carry the risk of worse implications - or are just not suitable for an individual’s anatomy. Some are questionable in the socio-political context - nothing exists in a vacuum. Such as this occasion, when two young white girls decided to get the N-word tattooed inside their lips. Or this (WARNING - extreme), when a woman who had previously undergone a clitorectomy & labia removal had a hook inserted through her vaginal/anal wall.
The issues with this are two-fold: the event and it’s subsequent reception. I cannot imagine that many female readers of Modblog would experience withdrawal effects if disembodied, misogynistic content disappeared entirely, just as I do not want to see the stuff to begin with. An interview, hell, even a face to the ass would have made the whole thing more tolerable. With regards to the commenters, it is immediately apparent that numerous male readers became quite turned on by the whole thing (i.e. “That’s hot! I want to see her hang from that!” - in a butcher’s window?). Oh no wait, a later commenter - “this looks like a nice vagina…to hang in my butcher shop.” Others claimed the removal of the clitoris and labia gave the vagina a nice ‘clean’ look, which is probably quite telling.
Perhaps what was most troubling about this though, for me, was that although jumping to positive conclusions about this woman’s motivations for the procedure was accepted - any ounce of negativity was not. It’s not a case of a flood of women condemning the existence of the post, it was a case of a handfull of people expressing concerns. To which they received responses like this:
“I am really finding it hard to believe that so many people who visit this site are so distressed by this photo. I honestly thought this community would welcome any form of mod or alternative sexual play with open arms. I’m a bit disappointed.”
Now I think I missed the bit where we all decided that debate and questioning was no longer conducive to community spirit and thus should be frowned upon.
Imagine my disappointment, several days later, when this ‘begging for rape’ tattoo appeared.
Now there is a distinction to be made here - between poster and commenter, I wouldn’t say that Roo or Jordan or Rachel et al are necessarily sharing the views of some of the people that seems to comment there. But I would direct you to have a browse and discern for yourselves if most posts are intended to cause aforementioned dip-shits to descend into the same agressive, racist, sexist name-calling arguments that have been circulating for years. Whilst I can recognise a desire to push boundaries and give much needed publicity to ground-breaking procedures, this all smacks a bit of getting your spoon in to stir things up in lieu of actually having something to say.
Furthermore and aside from all of that, traumatic as it is, I’d like to spend a bit of time talking about the generic gender/misogynistic representations you can find exhibited there. In the absence of real quantitative analysis of Modblog, let me offer you a discourse analysis from a student of Journalism 5 years in the making…
Women are: one or more of the following categories
- Cute (read:childlike)
- Submissive (more on that later)
- Emulating pornographic conventions
- Naked
- Thin
- Exotic
Men, I would say, are of the following two categories:
- Mid-late 20s, fun-loving drinkers & one more for good measure
- 40-50, heavily tattooed (these older representations are the minority, though)
Now usually, the men get to keep their clothes on. However, when they don’t, the ’sexy’ shots tend to be elegant B&Ws of backs, arses, etc. The full-frontal nudity is usually humourous or otherwise not sexualised. One of the central features in feminist discourse has revolved around the idea that women’s bodies are perceived of as community property i.e. answerable to the larger community soley by virtue of being female. Some easy examples of this idea would be: the way in which a pregnant woman might experience strangers laying their hands on her tummy; the need to appear sexualised; or those in the past who have deemed it necessary to touch my ears and poke fingers through them. This distinction between respecting male bodily autonomy whilst at the same time openly passing judgement on women became quite apparent to me back in February when an interview was posted with two individuals with lip plates (a very large stretched lip piercing). One, a guy, one, a girl. A pretty girl, GOD help us all. Anyway - you can probably guess that most of the discussion was centred on her (IAM: Duff) but if you enjoy reading sexist and agist comments then click here.
So to return to my original point: Is all of this 100% exempt from critique? You see, the issue is that comments over how pretty Duff was before she ruined herself, or how ‘hot’ it is to see a woman in pain - they’re not cultural criticism. They’re normality.
The anger seems to reach a peak when somebody enters the thread and says “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t speculate about this. And if we are, why not speculate in the opposite direction?”
I understand that any sort of subculture is going to reflect the rest of our societal values to some extent. But when was that ever an excuse? This is not about condemnation without recourse - I dream of a community that can discuss modification intelligently, one that is not devoted to eliciting knee-jerk reactions. But I’m too optimistic, I’d like that everywhere. The fact is that BMEzine & Modblog are the online communities for Body Modification. That’s just how it is. There are others, but they have nowhere near the membership or readership that BME does, having been founded 15 years ago. (Shit, 15 years?!)
So I guess the condensed version of this post would go something like this:
Monopoly = answerability.
8 Comments so far
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Thanks for this; I stopped reading BMEzine for the same reasons.
I view my piercings as an expression of my own bodily autonomy — sort of a “fuck off, I’ll do what I like with my body”. And that’s probably how people who aren’t into body mod see them. But I can’t go into body mod communities without being told what I should pierce or stretch or that it’s hot to see women in pain. It’s like the “I can do what I like to my body” philosophy only applies to men.
I’m close to stopping reading Modblog, it’s just the fact that there are occasionally some interesting things on there. Seems to be getting worse, though - dare I say it - since Shannon left. Like, the scary controversial stuff. He always was quite sexist but at least bum hooks and ‘begging for rape’ tattoos rarely appeared.
Definitely agree with you on the fact that women are designated certain roles, even within a supposed subversive culture. Kind of related: I once met up with someone in this town through IAM, which then led to meeting other IAM members and going to a suscon to photograph. Whoa. The macho competitiveness was insane. One guy hung from ONE knee, when his other ripped.
I just remember this lovely lady who’d only ever suspended once before (in a very intimate and caring environment) just being totally in shock at the atmosphere and finding it difficult to get off the floor.
Where’s the line between Body modification and self harm do you think?
I mean, isn’t it the same grey area as Fetishes or Sub/Dom? For example, Cock-fingering can’t just CAN’T be anything other than painful, and if one derives sexual pleasure from pain, surely the solution is to ask why and seek help?
OR take the guy that wanted to (and was, kind of) be killed and eaten in Germany? I would be interested in what a psychological profiling of a cross section of the S&M or body modification crowd would look like… I’m not against it per-se, I would just like to understand it, why people feel that the bodies they are born with isn’t enough, such that they seek to get pictures painted all over them, or objects put through and added to them etc etc - how different is this to breast augmentation or bulimia for example?
Or is one rooted in a sense of inadequacy (cosmetic surgery and eating disorders) whereas the other (body modification) is rooted in a sense of simple boredom with one’s ’standard’ body?
I’m interested to hear your point of view…
Maybe ‘Body Amelioration’ would be better…
@ Seth: Drawing comparisons between those who tattoo and those who are masochistic to the point of suicide (or wanting to be murdered), have body dysmorphia or undergo cosmetic surgery is not entirely fair. It over-generalises the nature of these things, and I think is derived from perceiving modification from an angle in which everything is somehow equivalent. An on-going and permanent, aesthetically conceived of and self-actualised modification is worlds away from a perspective that seeks death. I don’t pretend to understand in any adequate depth some of the issues you raised there, especially as I am somewhat skeptical of the psychiatry industry to begin with. Pain has something to do with it sometimes. But so does the power of regaining yourself, making yourself, refuting social control of your body and seeking amazing practitioners to make it even more beautiful. This is a lot of what it means to me, and yes, ‘Body Amelioration’ is a very good term I would say.
The thing is this: Everybody practices body modification. Without exception. But the majority of it is glossed over as hegemonic normalcy within the relevant culture. I’m talking about the clothes we electively wear, the choice to cut fingernails or grow them long, paint them, go work out at the gym, etc etc.
Do you and I somehow share very similar values just because we both choose to dress in the mornings (well, most mornings!) and style our hair? And it expands outwards up until the point of voluntary amputations, suspensions, etc. Yogic meditation sometimes ivolves modification, even. (The snipping of tongue web in order to flip it backwards inside the throat and control breathing).
But re: breast augmentation - The links between cosmetic surgery and other elective forms of body modification have been hotly contested over on Modblog in the past, I’ve found it very interesting. I remember one post a while ago in which a woman had quite obviously under-gone breast surgery and was consequently villified by some (for ’selling out’ to conventionality) whilst others applauded and defended her right to shape her own identity.
The fact is that the identity issue is very difficult to unpack and I don’t think anyone has managed it adequately yet (to my knowledge). I’m really not inclined to make blanket statements regarding reasoning behind the choices people make, I can only talk for myself. And even at that, I’ve found it to be more of a big sprawling minefield of connections and motivations, rather than any one linear causal link that I can direct you to. The best I could say is that I think modification is the tool by which people manifest, rather than a symptom of something being wrong.
To give you a more rounded and articulate impression than I’ve managed, I can recommend some authors to look up: Fakir Musafar, Lukas Zpira , Shannon Larratt , and ManWoman amongst others.
Another good place to look is the BME article archive (this will probably deal with some interesting points you raised) - and in particular the Publisher’s Ring . This is a very interesting interview with a voluntary amputee (a sub-group that also comes into criticism from mainstream modifiers). Other than that, you could keep an eye on
Modblog , bearing in mind all of the issues I raised in the above post.
Wow, long comment!
“The thing is this: Everybody practices body modification. Without exception. But the majority of it is glossed over as hegemonic normalcy within the relevant culture. I’m talking about the clothes we electively wear, the choice to cut fingernails or grow them long, paint them, go work out at the gym, etc etc.”
Most of these examples are not body modification though are they? They are curtailing our bodies’ natural growth (hair, nails etc) and clothes have nothing to do with it at all - a tattoo is pretty much permanent, as is a pair of Flesh-tunnel earings…
I think these examples vs. the examples you provide above precisely demarcate the line between identifying yourself with a cultural niche (like ‘Emo’ or ‘Goth’) and crossing that point of no-return such as having your partner’s name tattooed on your arm or scarification, or your tongue split! I think the distinction I mention has something to do with when a desire to individuate yourself and proclaim your uniqueness (which, let’s face it, we all are!) becomes an obsession where you want and probably need, to go as far as you possibly can with something… hence why I made the comparison with fetishes - as that too seems to become almost a competition with yourself and your clique over time, where it ceases to be a sense of identity (Punk/Mod/Skater etc) and instead becomes a process of one-upmanship where things have to get more and more extreme in order to keep delivering the same emotional return… do you see what I mean? i.e there doesn’t seem to be an ‘end point’ where you think “Yeah, I’m a prototypical Punk or whatever” - and are happy to belong within that cultural niche, instead the process is something like “Well fisting used to do it for me, but then it got boring so I tried feet instead, then that became old-hat as well so now I’m going to try Voltaire’s Angry Glove…”
Good response though… I agree with a lot of what you wrote…
Most of these examples are not body modification though are they? They are curtailing our bodies’ natural growth (hair, nails etc) and clothes have nothing to do with it at all - a tattoo is pretty much permanent, as is a pair of Flesh-tunnel earings…
The long-term effect of those examples is irrelevant as they still prove that people modify on a daily basis. They just might have to do more maintenance than I do, as I don’t have to draw my ink on every morning
But yes they are all examples of exerting conscious influence over how our bodies look and feel. Is a permanent hair dye to be considered a modification but not a temporary one? Also, clothes modify the visibility of the body and so fall into the same category. The interview I posted a link to above also explores the idea of curtailing natural growth, as for that guy having two hands was excessive.
that too seems to become almost a competition with yourself and your clique over time, where it ceases to be a sense of identity (Punk/Mod/Skater etc) and instead becomes a process of one-upmanship where things have to get more and more extreme in order to keep delivering the same emotional return… do you see what I mean?
Most definitely, as I mentioned to Fran I’ve experienced that culture of one-upmanship and I don’t care for it at all. Never understood it, it negates the whole point of individualisation. I agree that there are people who are trying to align themselves with sub-cultures, I guess I just really resent that implication because it seems associated with very reductionistic thinking and evidently doesn’t cover the more interesting aspects of identity created through modification - such as those who don’t fit into categories. The full picture is insanely confusing.
Agreed! (on all points)
Job done