What Have You Done to Your Body?

[Bleak&Icy]

Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Bantham

I am far too indecisive to choose a tattoo are far too picky to allow someone to have a go at realizing my vision of the finished product. I also prefer to remain plain and refrain from calling attention to my person.

I agree with Flaubert: "Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your [art] work." But during my late teens I made a last-ditch effort at rebellion from the stifling monotony of my suburban existence.

By the time I was nineteen my addictive personality disorder was beginning to manifest itself, and to the disgust of my family I had acquired thirteen or fourteen piercings, primarily in my face: eyebrow, septum, tragus, labret, nostril, ect. One night my father invited me to his house for dinner, and when I arrived he took me into the living room and said: "Sit down. We need to talk. I have three things I need to tell you." This was all very ominous. "The first thing I need to tell you," he said, "is that I'm getting married." I was appalled. Another marriage to another gold-digging whore. Another family forced upon me. I could hardly wait for the next bombshell. "I want you to be best man at my wedding," he said. It was grotesque! "You expect me to make a speech and all that?" I asked, but he cut me off and delivered the final piece of news. He told me that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, and that it was very serious. After I had asked what all this meant he looked at me and said: "By the way, I want you to take all that #### out of your face. You'll spoil the wedding photos. My wife and her family are all embarrassed by you."

I went home distraught, my head spinning: Another new family, disease, death, shame, ceremony... I locked myself in my room, sat in front of my typewriter, and an hour later I had produced the first true poem of my life. I sent it out the following day, with absolute certainty that I had found a vein of gold. One week later I received a cheque for seventy-five dollars from a leading literary journal.

I wanted to defy my father, tell him to go to hell... but the news of his disease, and his new marriage, crushed out my pathetic attempts at rebellion. I went to my beloved piercing studio in King Street, Newtown, (the capital of goth-town in Sydney). The dreadlocked dude behind the counter said: "What can we do for you today?" I felt sick. "Removal," I told him. "All of them."

I delivered the god-damned speech at my father's sham wedding, said how happy I was that he was marrying another gold-digging whore, my face naked of all the jewellery that I loved.

I have just the one piercing left, in my ear. I often think about getting a tattoo, but I echo the thoughts of our good Dr. B.: I am too indecisive; no personal event seems significant enough to commemorate it permanently in ink; and I am a perfectionist--how could I trust someone to realise my personal vision?

[Mr. D.]

Thanks for the great tale,Bleak & Icy. I just have the usually scars from an accident prone childhood and a reasonably active adulthood. Luckily, no bullet wound scars or anything like that.I was thinking that maybe we shouldn't worry about what we've done with our own bodies. To me, the real problem is other peoples' bodies. I mean, you can't keep them in your living room. What if you have company? What if the landlord drops by? And, if you keep them in the trunk of your car they stink up the whole thing. Even after they mumify they bump and rattle if you take a turn to quickly. So, to me, whay we do to other peoples' bodies is much more of a concern.

[Sam]

Wow, some heavy stories ITT. Mine is mundane by comparison, but I'll tell it anyway.

As a teenager, my dad told me I could do pretty much whatever I wanted, as long as I maintained good grades. Only three things were forbidden: pierced ears (body piercing had not come into vogue, so it was just ears he was worried about), tattoos, and drugs. You can guess where this is going...

I started exploring alternative states of consciousness at 15, and also got my first earring. The drugs weren't all that evident yet, but the earring was. My dad told me to take it out, and I said no. That was my first act of open, prolonged parental defiance, and set the stage for the rest of my adolescence.

I progressed to substances harder than beer and pot, and received the second stamp on my game card of parental disappointment.

It took me until I was 18 to get my first tattoo, an ankh on my upper right arm. My girlfriend gave it to me with a sewing needle and india ink. It looked bad - really bad - but I felt cool. Hey, the trifecta.

Later, I got the ankh covered up by a better ankh at a real tattoo parlor. It looked better. Late still, I added a stylized sun around it. Along the way, I also added two more earrings, all three in my left ear. (Back then in my area, an earring in your right ear had a special significance, and it would not have been appropriate for me to have anything there.)

I stopped wearing the earrings sometime in my 20s. Like some other folks on here, I took to a more subdued visual style. No more funny haircuts or jewelry of any sort, lots of inconspicuous dark earth tones. When I am out and about, I prefer to blend in rather than stand out. The ankh is only visible to others when I wear a tank top, which is to say, never.

On my 35th birthday, I got a second tattoo: Felix the Cat juggling three mice, on my right shoulder. Again, not visible to anyone else (except my wife). The tattoos have significance for me, and I don't regret either of them.

I also cut my first girlfriend's name into my arm with a razor blade when I was 16. Later, I put a nice gash on my left forearm. I did this to write something in blood - it seemed like a good idea at the time. I still have that scar, but the name has faded to a series of indistinct white lines.

That is about it... As time has gone on, I have become less social, and I still dress as inconspicuously as I can. Other than a Timex watch and my wedding ring, I am unadorned as far as the outside world is concerned. As an adult, I operate in stealth mode as best I can.

[Karnos]

Quote Originally Posted by Julian Karswell

I have no objections to body piercings per se but think there's something oddly disturbing about tongue-piercings.

I had a brief affair with a girl in Barcelona and she had a tongue piercing. She was a good kisser, despite having that thing in between us both. Eventually she dropped it after much coaxing. She also had a very captivating, very mystic looking tattoo on her back. It looked very elegant in her, I must say.

But there is nothing in my body, other than quite a few scars that I've obtained through accidents, if that counts for anything.

[MorganScorpion]

I have a beautiful scorpion tattoo on my right upper arm.

[Spotbowserfido2]

I had my flanks shaved earlier today. What remains is a kind of elongated spotted Mohawk running from my head to my tail. No poodle stuff for me!

[darknessdoubled]

I have no piercings and wear no jewelry (except for a silver wedding band on the appropriate finger) but I do have four tattoos, all of which I really love - and I will most likely not get any additional. Anyway, here's one of mine, located on the upper portion of my left arm. The image is adapted from Max Ernst's collage novel, Une Semaine De Bonté. I'm happy with it. This photo was taken back when it was freshly done, though it still looks great today.

[DoktorH]

no tattoos/piercings, no wedding band. 30 years of sedentary lifestyle and fondness for unhealthy foods have certainly left their marks, as have a few years I spent chain-smoking. I have since quit the cigarettes and started eating healthier/exercising over the past year, and I am seeing mild improvements to my health from that.

I agree with everyone who suggested that an absence of piercings/tattoos is the new abnormal. I see a lot of people at my office comparing piercings and tattoos and I don't understand the appeal.

For clothes, I used to stick to black/grey t-shirts and black slacks, but over the past year I've accumulated a number of hawaiian shirts. I always liked hawaiian shirts, but never owned them, and I finally got around to fixing that.

[EemeliJ]

It's not about what I have done, it's what my cats have done, especially to my hands. Their paws can be particularly sharp at times.

[MadsPLP]

I have grown a moustache (to improve my soccer performances).