Category Lifestyle

Point #71: Help Save Sailor Sid! – Paul King

May 31, 2015 Comments Off read In Memorium, Issue 71, Lifestyle

Paul King
Committee Chairperson & APP Treasurer

Over Memorial Day Weekend, the Leather Archives & Museum (LA&M), with cooperation from the Association of Professional Piercer’s Body Piercing Archive (APP, BPA) launched a month-long fundraising campaign for the preservation of piercing pioneer Sailor Sid’s archive.

Through our joined efforts, the project will achieve:
1. Creation of an online exhibit. This project will put an immense amount of “paper only” photographs, films and documents online, available for research and casual use.
2. Preservation and conservation of important history. The Sailor Sid collection at the LA&M is currently in a fragile physical state. Many hours of carefully removing photographs from harmful photo pages and cataloging papers will be required to keep this collection available for generations to come.
3. Digitization. Photographs, films, letters to and from Sailor Sid and other records will be digitized using archival quality scanners. The project will also allow for reel films to be sent to digital facilities to make them available online.

Recognizing the urgency for saving this fragile historical piercing collection, the APP’s Board of Directors has committed to assisting LA&M in this common cause. This support includes a generous matching grant of up to $5,000. While the archival work, digitization, and exhibit creation will be conducted by the LA&M, the amazing resources in Sailor Sid’s collection will benefit leather and piercing aficionados alike. By joining forces, the LA&M and APP are both excited to see this collection come to life as well as be protected for future generations.

Sailor Sid—photo courtesy of Leather Archives and Museum

About Sailor Sid…

Sid Diller, better known as “Sailor Sid,” got his first tattoos and piercings while serving in the Coast Guard during World War II. Famous for his extensive genital piercings (reportedly over 100 in the penis and scrotum), Sid worked predominantly on gay men, mainly from his Silver Anchor studio in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Sailor Sid did it all: Prince Alberts, ampallangs and apadravyas, frenums, lorums, and any other part of the male anatomy. When Sailor Sid passed away in 1990, his collection of personal papers and effects related to his piercing career were entrusted to Jim Ward, founder of the original piercing studio, Gauntlet. Ward donated the collection to LA&M in 1997, where it has remained in climatecontrolled storage ever since, largely inaccessible due to lack of processing resources.

The collection itself is extraordinary in its scope. Sid kept meticulous records of his piercing work, documenting his procedures with hundreds of Polaroid photos, many identified with time, place, and subject neatly typed on labels. In a testament to Sid’s seemingly endless creativity, these pictures are stored in hand-made “binders,” crafted by Sid out of wood, string, bolts, and wingnuts. In addition to the photographs, the collection includes pages of his personal correspondence (Sid was a tireless letter-writer), various magazine and newspaper clippings on the history of piercing from publications as diverse as The New York Times, National Geographic, and Fetish Times, piercing instructions, 8mm films from his travels, floppy disks, slides, and even comic strips he saved.

But the collection is in urgent need of protection. Based on a cursory inspection of the collection, it has already become clear that there are some pressing preservation concerns due to its age:
• Homemade photo albums are an impressive display of ingenuity, but they aren’t the best option for long-term storage and preservation.
• Yellowing newspaper articles and correspondences need to be photocopied
• Photographs need to be transferred to archival quality sleeves
• Digitization of the 8mm films is an increasing concern due to their delicate condition.
• Importantly, the collection remains unprocessed and uncatalogued. The accessibility of the collection is extremely limited.

Info about the LA&M:
The Mission of the Leather Archives & Museum is: “The compilation, preservation and maintenance of leather lifestyle and related lifestyles [including but not limited to the Gay and Lesbian communities], history, archives and memorabilia for historical, educational and research purposes.”

The Leather Archives & Museum is a library, museum and archives pertaining to leather, fetishism, sadomasochism, and alternative sexual culture and practices.

The museum is located in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood on the far north side of the city. The 10,000 sq. foot facility houses a collection containing original erotic art from artists as diverse as muralist Dom Orejudos (who worked under the name Etienne), Robert Bishop, Tom of Finland, and Robert Mapplethorpe and artifacts from individuals, groups, sex clubs and events, such as The Mineshaft in NYC, Fakir Musafar, and San Francisco’s legendary Catacombs, just to name a few. Other features of the museum include:
• Eight exhibition galleries
• The 164-seat Etienne auditorium
• The Leather SINS Screening Room
• A 600 sq. foot reading library to house the research collections (published books, magazines, scholarly publications, films and electronic resources)
• A 1,425 sq. foot climate controlled storage space for archival contents (unpublished papers and records from notable activists, artists, businesses, and organizations)

Sailor Sid Diller—photo courtesy of Leather Archives and Museum

The institution was founded in the early 1990’s with the motto, “Located in Chicago and serving the world”. Today, LA&M’s programs continue to uphold this dictum by making collections available outside of Chicago through social networking, digitization, traveling exhibitions, and loaned exhibitions. Social media also plays an integral role in LA&M’s outreach, with a combined audience of over 20,000 followers though its presence on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, Pinterest, FetLife, and YouTube, or through the website www.leatherarchives.org.

LA&M’s Jakob VanLammeren (Archivist/Collections Librarian) holds a Master’s in Library and Information Science with a focus in Archives from Dominican Uni-versity. Since being hired full-time in July 2013, Jakob —has established priorities, completed the arranging and describing, and/or managed the completion for over a dozen collections; developed, revised and created written procedures for archival processing and work plans; created catalog records, provided ongoing supervision and management of volunteers and interns, and given tours and presentations to student groups and/or organizations.

— article co-authored by Leather Archives & Museum and Body Piercing Archive

Sailor Sid Diller—photo courtesy of Charles Gatewood

Point #70: Announcement of Body Piercing Archive

April 9, 2015 1 Comment read Issue 70, Lifestyle, News

ANNOUNCING THE APP BODY PIERCING ARCHIVE

Paul King
Committee Chairperson and APP Treasurer

Anyone who has sat in on one of my classes knows my passion for recovering and preserving our community’s history. Historic Western attitudes of pathology and shame led to the loss of much of our history. I am filled with honor and excitement to publicly announcement the Association of Professional Piercer’s newest committee, the Body Piercing Archive (BPA). The formation of the Body Piercing Archive was authorized by the Association of Professional Piercers’ Board of Directors in June 2014. We have been working behind the scenes on establishing a committed team of workers, an organizational structure, and some preliminary goals.

Mission Statement:

“The mission of the Body Piercing Archive is to select, collect, document, preserve, exhibit, and interpret the personal, social, and material evolving histories of Body Piercing to ensure these artifacts are available to present and successive generations.”

For those familiar with archival collections, the goals laid out in this mission statement are daunting, requiring a commitment of time, training, and resources. We are proceeding methodically by rolling out the archive as manageable and contained projects.

Our first major short-term projects will be the organizing and cataloging of the APP’s corporate internal records as well as developing two public exhibits during the APP 2015 conference. In honoring the APP’s 20th anniversary, we will display the last 20 years’ development of our conference, outreach, and education. In addition, we will honor the passing of a piercing pioneer, Raelyn Gallina, with a memorial exhibit.

At this time, we are actively seeking loaned or donated items of importance pertaining to the APP’s history as well as Raelyn Gallina’s personal life and piercing career. Please contact us if you have any images, material items, ephemera, correspondences, and/or stories that you feel may be of interest to the BPA.

Some archives place a greater emphasis and dedication of resources to preserving and protecting objects at the expense of creating access to historical knowledge. Preservation will certainly be an important element of our efforts; however, early on we decided we wanted to focus our initial attention on projects that allow for community usage. Someday, the BPA committee and APP Board of Directors may consider a permanent facility; however, this is not a realistic goal today. For now, we will busy ourselves with getting a digital online archive developed for and promoted to the body piercing community, including professionals, researchers, and the general public. If the inaugural exhibitions of 2015 are well received, we will continue each year with new display themes as part of the annual conference experience.

Additionally, part of our medium-range goals is to form and build alliances with established archives that already have or are committed to receive collections of our history. We will be announcing some exciting collaborative developments very soon!

The Body Piercing Archive committee would like to give a special thank you to Barry Blanchard and Tod Almighty for their service and support. The richness and diversity of the history of body piercing can only be preserved and shared with community participation.

Contact information:

Please direct all general inquiries to:

Body Piercing Archive: archive@safepiercing.org
Future website: www.bodypiercingarchive.org

Current Committee members:

Paul R. King – Committee Chair & APP Treasurer
Brian Skellie – Committee Member & APP President
Matte Erickson – Committee Member
Becky Dill – Committee Member
Kendra Berndt – Committee Member & The Point Co-Editor

Point #70: Evolution of Our Industry from a Piercer’s Perspective

April 7, 2015 Comments Off read Editorial, Features, Issue 70, Lifestyle, Social Media & Safe Piercing

by Luis Garcia

Though it might not seem it to some, our industry is a fairly new one. One of the things I find so amazing about body piercing is how much it has changed and evolved over the last 20 years. When I look back, I thought it would be an amusing trip down memory lane (and a good read) to recount how I’ve seen body piercing evolve as an industry, and how our clients and trends have evolved with it.

I began piercing in the early ’90s, in fact as of December 20, 2015 it will be 25 years. At that time, very few people got pierced. You would see nostril piercings or helix piercings, navel piercings, maybe the occasional tragus or tongue piercing, but little else was prominent. Heavier piercings were generally relegated to the gay leather and fetish communities, punk rockers, and other subcultures. Keep in mind this was in the very early days of public internet use, so people had to find out about piercings from magazines or from seeing people on the street. Sure, cities like New York, San Francisco, and LA had more prominent subcultures for body piercing, but most other cities had more of a “proto” subculture when it came to body piercing. Even I had trouble getting pierced before then, having many of my piercings done during goth industrial nights at local clubs in the late ‘80s, or at leather parties I had snuck into.

At that time clients were almost all enthusiasts, and were always insanely grateful to have someone to help them get the piercings they wanted. They took aftercare seriously and listened to what you told them to use. There was little worry about conflicting information, because there were few people giving out this information.

Most of us still pierced with clamps. Body jewelry was fairly expensive to purchase wholesale, and it was limited compared to what we can get today. Internal threading below 14 gauge was hard to come by, and there weren’t as many lengths and diameter options.

Paul King preparing to pierce Alicia Silverstone’s navel in the Aerosmith video “Cryin’”

The first big changes I remember came with two big public media navel piercings. The first was when Rachel from Season 3 of the Real World got her navel pierced on the show. The second was when Alicia Silverstone “got her navel pierced” (it was a stunt navel) in Aerosmith’s “Cryin’” video (by our lovely treasurer Paul King!), both in 1993. This very visible jump into the mainstream media started body piercing’s slow crawl into the limelight we see it in today. I immediately saw a jump in business and a growing interest in body piercing.

It was around this time that I also found usenet newsgroups and the group rec.arts.bodyart. For you young folks, usenet newsgroups were a bare bones way to communicate and interact on the early internet, similar to what Facebook does now, but closer to how reddit works. Rec.arts.bodyart was the first place I found to share and gain information and knowledge about body piercing without having to travel to a convention. Even so, things were pretty limited, and bandwidth was much lower than what we are used to today. There was no easy uploading of photos, very few people could afford digital cameras, and even scanners were still fairly pricey, so it was mostly all text-based posts back and forth. This was also when I found out about the APP, nabbing any of the few newsletters that were available.

In 1994, the first, and what I would consider the most important and influential body art website launched, Body Modification Ezine, or BME, and it was glorious. Now we (both piercers and enthusiasts) had a place at our fingertips that we could submit images and look at what everyone was doing all over the world. No more waiting for quarterly publications like Body Play and PFIQ, or the tiny bit of info you could get from tattoo magazines.

As more and more people gained cheap and easy access to the internet, BME grew. They added live chat functionality, a section for clients to share their experiences, a question of the day section, an extreme section for harder modifications, and even an “adult” section for the more saucy side of things. I remember spending hours on BME almost every day, never getting tired of everything there was to see and learn.

By the late ’90s, it was more and more common to have clients bring in print images of things they had seen on BME. This is where the type of clients I’d see started to change. While many were still light piercing enthusiasts, they weren’t the die hard piercees I had become accustomed to seeing. They were much more squeamish and sensitive to the portfolios they flipped through.

It was also at this point that freehand techniques started to spread slowly out into the industry, causing a slight fuss. Many piercers, myself included, were concerned about the safety of these new techniques, having sharps so near your fingers during the procedure. Of course, as time went on, many of us did begin to test and adopt freehand methods, seeing that there were certain benefits to be reaped, both for us and our clients.

As the early ‘00s rolled in, BME introduced a new companion website, IAM.bmezine.com. Modeled after social websites like Livejournal, but meant specifically for those in the body mod community. In many ways, it did things the right way before Myspace and Facebook existed. With the ability to design your own page, post diary entries, create your own forums, and easily upload images (that could also be auto submitted to the main BME website), it became a huge hit within the industry, and with even the lightest of piercing enthusiasts. This was also when I started attending the annual APP conference. It was amazing to have somewhere with so many piercers all in one place, all sharing and learning.

With the mid ‘00s came Myspace and Facebook, followed by Twitter, and the ushering in the of the social media era. As more and more people joined these sites, made connections, posted photos, and shared opinions, the need for a dedicated social website started to slowly dwindle, and less and less people stayed on IAM.

The other thing that rolled in with the mid ’00s was the public eye being drawn to some of the heavier things some piercers were doing, and posting for public consumption. Several piercers got themselves into some trouble here and there because of it, so many of us started to be more conservative with what we offered at our studios.

It was also in the mid ‘00s that I noticed clientele had drastically begun to change. A good portion of clients had no interest in piercing as a whole. They instead just wanted the latest accessory. While studios had always been a retail business, this pushed piercing studios into a more retail mindset, having to really consider the full customer experience and customer service became a greater focus than it had ever been. What once had been risqué for many was now chic, and many clients wanted that chic boutique experience. With the proliferation of smartphones, clients also began to have immediate and constant access to the internet wherever they went. This brought up companies like Yelp in the mid to late ‘00s, where anyone could review anything, making the customer experience one of the most important things. This didn’t just go for in-shop interactions, but also for any online interactions, and even personal blogs and webpages being scrutinized by potential clients. This caused more and more of us to realizing that once something is on the internet, it never really disappears.

It was also in this timeframe that freehand techniques began to become more standard and accepted techniques as previously. This is partially due in turn due to the internet as well, especially with how easy it was to get information and interact with other piercers. As this information spread, more and more of us started to ditch piercing clamps, with some taking strong stands that one was better than the other (when the truth is all that matters is that the client gets a clean, safe, and properly placed piercing). It did lead to many (in my opinion) fun and amusing debates amongst us. The annual APP Conference & Exposition also had grown exponentially, with more piercers wanting to test the waters and experience what had made so many of us fall in love with that one week a year.

As the late ‘00s and early ‘10s rolled in, Facebook, Twitter, and even newer internet based technologies like Instagram and Pinterest had all become household names. Clients could instantly save a photo they saw to their phones and bring it in. Piercers could immediately share their work and have hundreds if not thousands of people liking, tagging or repinning these images in a matter of minutes to hours. This is what still amazes me sometimes; how quickly and easily information can spread, both good and bad. This also lead to the pseudo-death of BME and IAM. While many still visit the site, and even still have IAM accounts, Facebook with its ease of connection–one place where you can chat, blog, and share all aspects of your life and lifestyle–now exists and IAM and BME have suffered because of this. Similar to how small businesses have been hurt by big box stores.

And that, my babies, is the end of my recount of how I’ve seen our industry, clientele, and the interaction of the two change over the years. Hopefully you have not only learned that I am old as dirt, but that these changes have made for some interesting and great things happening to our industry and organization.

Point #69: Informed Consent and the Body Modification Industry

January 4, 2015 Comments Off read Features, Lifestyle

By Kendra Jane

Authors note: During research for this brief piece it became apparent that is not a topic that one can do justice to in a few short paragraphs. Please consider the following piece merely an introduction for a full length research article that will be forthcoming.

Informed consent is the process of getting permission from a patient before conducting a healthcare intervention. In the case of body piercing or modification (which for the purpose of this article may include, but not be limited to, scarring, branding, ablating, or suspension), it is the process of getting consent from a client prior to any procedure. Most body modification practitioners worldwide already obtain some sort of informed consent—borrowing relevant pieces from the medical world, mainly from the fields of medical ethics and research ethics.

Informed consent can be said to have been given based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the fact, implications, and future consequences of an action. This means what maybe more than adequate information for lobe piercing is not adequate when that same lobe piercing is being done at an initial size over [for the sake of argument] 4 gauge. The information one must relay to a client about a navel or nipple piercing, versus multi point ear projects as an example.

In order to provide informed consent, the individual giving the consent must have adequate reasoning faculties (be of sound mind and judgment) and be in possession of all relevant facts at the time consent is given. This means they need to be given all and any information necessary to make an informed decision about the procedure at hand. Impairments to reasoning and judgment which may make it impossible for someone to give informed consent include such factors such as basic intellectual or emotional immaturity, age, inability to comprehend the future, and any other impairment.

Due to the fact that expressions of consent or understanding do not necessarily mean that full adult consent was in fact given—or that full comprehension of relevant issues occurred—makes the idea of informed consent even more complicated. (It is also possible for consent to be implied within the usual subtleties of human communication rather than explicitly negotiated verbally or in writing.) For this reason you document everything in writing, especially when it comes to your business and your livelihood. A person may state he/she understands the implications of some action, as part of their consent, but in fact has failed to appreciate the possible consequences fully and later deny the validity of their consent for this reason.

Note on Piercing Minors

Additional problems and ethical dilemmas arise when we talk about piercing a minor, or someone who is not able to provide consent for themselves based on laws and/or regulations. The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages medical professionals to seek the assent of older children and adolescents by providing age appropriate information to these children to help empower them in the decision making process, and this is something we—as piercers—can do as well.

Point #66: Piercer Fights for Freedom of Creative Expression

March 13, 2014 1 Comment read Features, Lifestyle

By Victoria Voodoo

Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted from Obscure Magazine (September 2013).

Recently, while scrolling through Facebook, I crashed head-first into an article titled “Bill to Ban Certain Tattoos, Body Piercings Passes Senate.” Glaring back at me was a close-up of a girl covered in tattoos, piercings, and neon colored hair with the words “BANNED” stamped across the image. NO WAY, I thought. There is no way, in this day and age, that any U.S. state could outlaw tattoos…

…right?

I was hooked. I clicked the link.

I was not surprised to find an article barking about how an Arkansas Senator is on a mission to limit the freedom of creative expression in her state. The majority of the reviews of this particular article were of similar tone: Anger, frustration, fear, offense. Certainly our freedom to be tattooed, pierced, scarred, and branded is protected under freedom of speech. Is Big Brother watching us?

Seeing this uproar intrigued me. I had to know more. Without much difficulty, I found the actual senate bill in question: “Senate Bill 387. Arkansas Senate Bill. To Limit Body Art Procedures.” This bill has been sponsored by Arkansas Republican Senator, Missy Irvin.

I read it all the way through. In its first draft, the language was rather vague. It was not necessarily banning or outlawing anything, but the spectrum of what was being considered a “piercing” or a “piercer” (among other definitions) was very broad. Technically, under the original language, even naval piercings would have been made illegal if the bill was passed into law. However, there were modifications made to that vague, original language. I wanted to know who was responsible for those modifications.

My investigation continued. I emailed the sponsoring Senator, personally, and began my hunt for whoever may have helped modify the language of the original bill. I found Misty Forsberg, a piercer and scarification specialist from Southtown Tattoo & Body Piercing in Fort Smith, Arkansas (the irony is not lost on me that the modifier to the bill’s language is a body modification artist). Irvin and Forsberg responded to me and they were both extremely open and helpful in teaching me about what happened, how it started, how it ended, and everything in between.

The battle lasted about a year. There were significant technicalities to clarify. Both sides had to absorb vast amounts of education to be able to cohesively speak about this piece of legislature.

In an interview, Forsberg told me “essentially, the state took an interest in heavy modification and held a meeting in which [owner-operator of Anchor Tattoo and Piercing Studio in North Bryant, Arkansas] Dustin Jackson, [Association of Professional Piercers Representative] Steve Joyner, and I were asked about the modifications [the state] had heard of or found online. We did our best to educate them on the areas they asked about, and encourage them to work with our community rather than trying to write legislation for us with little to no knowledge of the subject.” ¹

With the support of the ABMA (Arkansas Body Modification Association), the APTPI (Associazione Piercers e Tatuatori Professionisti Italiani), letter writing from the community, international support, and varying levels of outrage being poured out on social media networks, the body modification artists were able to appeal to the Senator and the state government to clarify the language.

The vague language in the first draft of the bill was revised. For any current or potential body modification clients, the most important thing to know about the final draft of the bill is: NOTHING WAS MADE ILLEGAL. “The final result was the bill that passed, SB387, defined scarification as a form of body art, but still banned subdermal implants from being performed by licensed Arkansas body artists, with no criminal penalty listed.”¹ To clarify, this means if you want a subdermal implant and you live in Arkansas, you now have to go to a licensed medical professional instead of a piercer or a tattoo artist.

The bill defining scarification as a form of body art changes nothing about its legality. All it means is: scarification is now recognized as a “real” art form – similar to the military recognizing Paganism as a “real” religion to print on government-issued dog tags. To me, this is a positive change. More openly-recognized diversity in the body modification industry will help avoid situations like this in the future (for example: naval piercings being lumped into the same category as subdermal implants).

While the limitations to who can perform subdermal implants can be considered rather disheartening, in the long run, it is not a significant loss to the industry. “There have been several people upset to see any ban, and I agree that it isn’t entirely what we would have liked to see. One day it may reach a point when [subdermal implants] become a licensed practice, but that day isn’t today. For now, I feel the compromise we reached isn’t a step backward for that industry.”¹ Think about how bad the results of this battle could have been. We live to fight another day.

Something else worth considering is the differences between the artists and the government involved. Both parties worked together to find a mutually agreed-upon middle ground that made everybody as happy as possible. In an email correspondence, Senator Irvin told me “Not everything you read on the Internet is truth. I completely reject the idea that I somehow am limiting freedom of expression when the tattoo artists of my state wrote this bill along with me, the Arkansas Department of Health and other legislators from both sides of the aisle.”² Through hard work, discipline, open communication, and mutual education, these stereotypically different parties were able to find compromise.

Anybody who is tattooed, pierced, or modified has likely experienced some sort of discrimination – myself included. Very often, being modified gives “conservative” people the impression that we are less educated or of questionable morals. We must, however, realize that the conservatives also face a similar type of discrimination from us, the modified. I will bet when you read “Republican Senator,” you automatically assumed that Missy Irvin would be cold-hearted, close-minded, and unmoving on her stance to ban certain types of body modification. I will be the first to admit that I was afraid that would be true, too, but she then told me “I am proud of our work and was honored to work with a very fine group of professionals with a high code of ethics. I have a tremendous amount of respect for them and their passion for their art, industry and clients.”²

Admit it. That is awesome.

The professional respect did not stop there. Misty Forsberg expressed to me “the misinformation which has been posted online does not help our fight here, and, if anything, sets us back with that progress. More importantly, we hope that people realize the rude and disrespectful comments made toward Missy Irvin that are being encouraged do nothing but make us look like the unprofessional, unintelligent people that many state representatives might assume we are. She and our industry might not see eye to eye, but in the end she chose to work with us rather than push forward with a bill that could have potentially harmed our industry a great deal. She shook our hands when we won, and she admitted that her view of who we are was different than when she first came into this. We could all do with being polite enough to show the same level of professional courtesy.”¹

If you learn nothing else from this article, learn that.

What scares me most, at this point, is that just because something is illegal does not mean people will stop. If somebody wants a subdermal implant in Arkansas but does not want to pay for a “licensed medical professional” (basically a plastic surgeon), he or she might find an underground artist to perform the procedure behind closed doors, against regulations. This poses just as much risk as getting a tattoo out of some dude’s garage. You, the client, will be at a higher risk of exposure to infection, blood-borne diseases, and rejection of the piercing, implant, or tattoo that you might get.

Always do your research. Always be smart. Always go to a professional. In my humble opinion, follow the old adage of “good tattoos ain’t cheap, and cheap tattoos ain’t good.” It is so true in so many different contexts. Do not sacrifice your health, your appearance, your pride, or even your wallet for something that only seems easier or cheaper.

I know reading about politics can be about as thrilling as a root canal, but it is important for all of us to stay abreast of any changes to the industry. The best way to gain acceptance for our respective forms of creative expression is to keep ourselves educated, informed, and professional. Just because this particular incident happened in Arkansas does not mean it cannot or will not happen in your state at some point. In an article published by the A.P.P., Forsberg stated “oddly, the most valuable lesson I learned from this was not about legislative writing, legalities, or how to create change in my state. It was about support – the importance of all of us supporting each other as an industry.”³

Senate Bill 387 was passed into law earlier this year.

Senator Missy Irvin and Scarification Specialist Misty Forsberg with a group of artists who helped work on SB387. Photo credit: Joe Phillips. Permission to print given by Misty Forsberg.

¹ Interview with Misty Forsberg via Facebook Messenger – 08/26/2013.

² Email correspondence with Senator Missy Irvin – 08/21/2013.

³ Misty Forsberg. “Point # 63 – Arkansas Legislation.” The Point – The Quarterly Journal of the Association of Professional Piercers. 05/04/2013.

Point #65: A Client’s Guide to Jewelry Sizing

January 2, 2014 Comments Off read Lifestyle

By James Weber
Infinite Body Piercing

Editor’s note: This article was written with clients considering stretching in mind, and was reprinted with permission from infinitebody.com.

When stretching a piercing from one size to the next, it’s obviously important to select the correct size jewelry. But when choosing what to buy, it’s important to know how body jewelry is measured.

The first thing to realize is that while the thickness of jewelry is measured in diameter, what your body feels is circumference. An excellent overview of this is included in issue #2 of Piercing Fans International Quarterly. (Thanks to J im Ward, you can download the article here.)

The second is this: body jewelry is measured in several different systems, depending on its size and country of origin. This means there are slight deviations in size with different jewelry types. While slight variances in smaller sizes this shouldn’t affect your ability to stretch too much, once you hit larger sizes this can make a big difference.

Here’s an overview of the different systems of measurement:

Brown and Sharpe (American Wire Gauge System)

Body jewelry manufactured in the United States is typically measured in the American Wire Gauge (AWG) System, also called the Brown and Sharpe measuring system. This wire gauge system has been used since 1857 (predominantly in the United States and Canada) for measuring the diameters of round, solid, and nonferrous (not iron-based alloys) electrical conducting wire. This system is used for measuring the thickness of precious metals in the U.S. and was first used for making body jewelry by Jim Ward in the early years of The Gauntlet. He explains the choice in his book, Running the Gauntlet.

The standard gauge system used for steel wire is different from the Brown & Sharpe gauge system used for gold and silver. For the sake of consistency and to eliminate the necessity for more sizes of piercing needles, I felt it was necessary to have all the stainless steel wire custom produced to corresponding thicknesses.

To anyone who is not familiar with the Brown and Sharpe system it may not make much sense. As the gauge number decreases, the thickness of the wire increases. In other words: 18 gauge is thinner than 16 gauge, which in turn is thinner than 14 gauge. This is because the number represents the number of operations used to produce a given gauge of wire, or the number of times a metal ingot must be pulled through a drawing die to make it smaller. Thinner wire requires more passes than thicker wire, hence the higher number for thinner material. Ever wondered why body jewelry gets thinner as the gauge number gets higher? This is the reason. Thus 2-gauge wire would need two passes through the die, 22-gauge will will need significantly more. Make sense?

Imperial Units (or Customary Units)

In the United States, we’ve fought hard against the adoption of the metric system. Unlike most of the rest of the world we still use a structure based on the imperial system, defined by the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824. When body jewelry sizes get larger than 00 gauge (or sometimes 000 gauge) it is too large to measure with a Brown and Sharpe measurement, and under the imperial system is typically measured in inches and/or fractions thereof: ½, 9/16, ⅝, etc. Plugs for stretching manufactured in the U.S. are most commonly available in increments of 1/8 (or sometimes 1/16) of an inch.

The Metric System

Based on the system introduced in France in 1799, the metric system (or “SI” or the “International System of Units”; in French the “Système international d’unités”) is the official system of

measurement in almost every country in the world—with the United States being a notable exception. (Currently, the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar are the only countries to not have officially adopted the metric system.) Unlike the imperial system, the metric system uses interrelated base units and a standard set of prefixes in powers of ten. The system of measurement we’re concerned with for body jewelry is the one for length: meters, with the smaller division being centimeters and millimeters.

Why is this important?

When shopping for the right-sized jewelry, at my studio we often advise our clients to think of it like buying shoes: Proper size is important, and no matter how much you want it, jewelry that doesn’t fit will not work. Nowhere is this more true than when selecting jewelry with which to stretch your piercing. Jewelry that is too small is a waste of money, while jewelry that is too large can damage your piercing.

But when I buy a piece of jewelry, the size is the size, isn’t it? The short answer is: not always.

Where the jewelry is made matters. For example, when you buy a plug that is sized at ½”, a U.S.-produced plug will, more likely than not, be exactly ½” (or 12.7mm), where one made elsewhere will most likely be 12mm (or maybe 12.5mm). Often, these sizes line up as a close approximation to each other—but not always. For example: If you’re buying 2-gauge glass plugs they will most likely be made from 6mm stock. (True 2 gauge is approximately 6.5mm.) Going up to 0g will mean jumping to 8.25mm, while many companies who sell jewelry manufactured in metric sizes will offer 7mm plugs—often sold as 1 gauge plugs—which will be a much more reasonable next size.

And remember: Your jewelry is measured by diameter, while your body feels the circumference. Jewelry measured in the Brown and Sharpe (gauge) system or imperial units (inches) can be especially problematic, as circumference measurements are often not incrementally consistent. This means while one size to the next may feel easy, while the next stretch can be incredibly difficult.

Confused? It can be daunting, but the point to take away is this: Educate yourself and pay attention to the size of the jewelry you are buying. When buying retail jewelry, find out where the jewelry is manufactured—or at the very least have them take calipers to the piece and tell you exactly what size you’ll be purchasing. Understand how the different sizing systems measure what you are buying; this can make the difference between buying jewelry that is too close to what you are currently wearing, jewelry too large, or something that is the perfect size. Just like the wrong-sized shoes can turn a easy walk through the city to a crippling ordeal, the correctly sized jewelry can be the difference between a happy piercing and an angry one.

Point #65: Changing Myself While Changing Others

January 2, 2014 Comments Off read Lifestyle

By Jezebel Voulé
TRX

What has been your favorite piercing moment? It is a question that has haunted me since the first time I was asked. An echo of this makes the voice in my head always think “maybe this piercing will be the one that defines my piercing career.” Several people have shared their defining moments with me: some of these turning points involved meeting their piercing idol while, for others, it was defined by where they worked, who they worked with (or worked on), and, in some cases, a paycheck. The ways people have been affected by their careers are as unique as the individuals who had the experiences.

Most days there are no moments that change me, or at least affect me in a drastic way. I take a client in, bond with them and then let them go, hoping that we connected enough for them to return to me for their next piercing experience—or, better yet, remember my name to bring me more clients to bond with and release.

However, when asked about my favorite moment there is one I always relive. An older lady, at least seventy years old, came in to get her earlobe pierced. We took a moment chatting but as I started to get set up for the piercing she stopped me. “I need you to know that I have Hep C. I understand if you can’t pierce me.” After asking if she had talked to her physician about getting a piercing I smiled and said “Thank you for telling me but I have no problem piercing you. I take many precautions so that both my safety and yours are taken care of.” She was shocked that I didn’t respond like she had expected. She thought I would react poorly and then proceed to treat her as a leper, sending her on her way. Both she and her wife were overcome with joy. It was something she had wanted to do for a long time but had been afraid to get because she would have to expose a secret that had given her so many other bad experiences. (I later found out how much that experience changed her perception of herself. She, for a moment, felt like she was human rather than a disease and not worth common decency. I had felt like I had changed the world, and for her I had.)

Recently another experience left the same type of lasting impression on me. While at Omega Red Studios a man came in asking questions about his daughter. She had cancer and, as a result, had made a “bucket list.” On that list was a lip piercing. He wanted to help her fulfill her wishes and asked if I would be willing to perform such a task on her. I had replied that I would be willing, after I knew it was okay with her doctor. The next day he came back with a handwritten note. Skeptical that the doctor was in on this idea I Google searched the doctor and found out everything I could about not only her but the entire hospital. I talked to lawyers, her doctors, and parents about what I expected, what they should expect, and the young girl’s expectations. I did not hold back on making demands on what I would need to make a safe and positive environment for her. Many of them were personal things to increase my comfort. After all, my safety is just as important as hers.

It took three days to come to an agreement on piercing her. After speaking with the doctor we decided the nostril would be a more acceptable piercing rather than the lip. I learned that the reason there was so much passion behind her parents getting this one thing done was because she had just received a dire prognosis. The likelihood that she would be alive long enough to even see her piercing heal was slim. She had fifteen things that she wanted to do before she died. Her parents chose this task, as it was most obtainable, and came in search of me. Completing one of her bucket list tasks was important in helping her fight the feeling that all was lost for this fourteen year old whose life was on a count down. The before and after effect on her life was immediate. She went from a child who looked and acted sickly to a young girl who wanted to walk around with her father as she felt a kind of rejuvenation.

***

These moments have stuck with me, as it has been these moments that have pushed me to realize how much I could help the world just with a tiny prick of my needle. Sometimes a navel piercing is more than a belly adornment, it is a story—a celebration—of a woman reclaiming her body. It amazes me how much a person can be changed from something that, for me, is just a way of life: the impact of one life to another. Everyone has different reasons for loving their job. So please take a moment and relish yours.

Point #65: The Piercing Password, Daith

December 17, 2013 3 Comments read Features, Lifestyle

By Jef Saunders
Rockstar Body Piercing

Few people are aware of what a shibboleth is, but they are familiar with one very famous one: Lollapalooza. Lollapalooza, made famous by the Perry Farrell’s traveling music fest, is familiar to us. It is relevant on several levels to the piercing industry, as Lollapalooza was, for many people across the United States, their first exposure to body piercing. Whether it be through traveling piercers like Eve Zamora, Gadhi, Cricket Keene, Allen Falkner, and Ken Coyote, or the modified Jim Rose Circus Sideshow: the Lollapalooza tour was essential to early 1990’s body piercing culture.

But the Lollapalooza I am referring to is the shibboleth “lollapalooza.” A shibboleth is a word that one culture can pronounce easily, but another cannot. U.S. Forces in the Pacific theater of World War II would hear other soldiers walking in the woods, or in the dark. If they were unsure as to whether they were American or not, they would yell, “Say Lollapalooza!” An American can say this word easily. Japanese soldiers could not. This shibboleth protected American soldiers from ambush, and the mispronunciation potentially cost Japanese soldiers their lives. [1]

The word shibboleth, and the first recorded concept of this kind of password, is from the bible. Specifically Judges 12:5-6 (King James version quoted) “And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now shibboleth: and he said sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.” [2]

The two previous mentions of a shibboleth are primarily a racial/cultural mispronunciation, but if we get to the heart of the matter, a shibboleth is a password into a culture. Arguably, body piercing has several of these: “plugs” versus “gauges,” “philtrum” versus some sort of “bite.” Some piercers still mispronounce “labret!” (For the record, it’s a hard “T” sound). But none is as nonsensical as the pronunciation of the daith piercing (doth, like “goth” with a “d”). The uninformed cannot wrap their heads around that pronunciation, and this makes it a shibboleth.

I had heard several versions of how the daith received its name, but I decided to go straight to the

Example of a daith piercing, by Jef Saunders. — Example of a daith piercing, by Ken Coyote.

source. I called Erik Dakota, the first person to do the daith, and asked him how his client came up with the name. Erik explained to me that he had a wonderful, intelligent and creative client named Theresa, who was “a good Catholic girl” (which hopefully dispels some of the inaccurate versions of the story). She asked Erik if he could perform a unique piercing, what we now call the daith. Erik assessed her anatomy. Yes indeed; her tissue could support the piercing, but the cartilage was too rigid to put a straight needle through. Erik had lots of experience curving needles to perform another piercing he originated, the rook, so he curved the needle, performed the piercing, and asked Theresa to name it. Theresa had been teaching herself Hebrew, and decided it took quite a bit of intelligence to perform this piercing. She elected to name her new piercing the “daith,” which she said was the Hebrew word for intelligence. The name, pronunciation, and spelling stuck.

I’ve had a bit of trouble confirming this spelling and/or the meaning for the word “daith.” Internet searches and talks with friends who speak Hebrew have pointed me toward the word daath, or da’at, or da’as, meaning knowledge. [3] (For example, someone who is knowledgeable in Jewish law is “da’as torah.”) I have also found reference to “daath” on the Tree of Life on Kabbalistic websites. [4] The spelling “daith” remains elusive to me.

I think it is important to note that neither Erik Dakota nor his client Theresa had any intention of this piercing having spiritual overtones; it was simply a good name that fit a piercing that had to be performed by a knowledgeable, intelligent piercer.

I have heard several piercers suggest we change the spelling to “daath” or just make it as easy as possible for our clients, and spell it “doth.” Our industry seems to get particularly bothered by clients and piercers mispronouncing terms. I am of a slightly different opinion.

We have been given a gift, in this unique spelling and counterintuitive pronunciation. I say: Let’s keep this our password. One of the joys of my job is meeting other informed, active piercers, and the rarer, but much appreciated, educated client. To hear “daith” pronounced correctly is music to my ears. Only someone knowledgeable about our culture (at least a little) will pronounce “daith” correctly, and this uniquely confirms Theresa’s initial intention. It is a nod of respect to Erik and his client. Daith is our shibboleth; it is our pass into our culture, and we are well served to preserve it.

References:

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth
2 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+12%3A5-6&version=KJV
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da’at
4 http://www.mirach.org.uk/basic/daath.html

Safe Piercing guest post by APP member Miro Hernandez of Dandyland Piercing in San Antonio, TX

December 16, 2013 1 Comment read Editorial, Lifestyle

Why choose to get pierced by an APP member?

Because you and your body deserve so! When you choose to get pierced by an APP member you are making a statement that you and your body value your health and safety more than anything else. Many professionals in various industries are members of professional organizations, why shouldn’t your piercer be in one as well? Granted, there are great piercers out there that are not members, those that choose to do so are showing you their dedication to their occupation, and more importantly, you as a piercee. Though the organization has no say in the matter of a piercer’s skill or merit, members are required to meet a minimal set of standards that cover jewelry and environmental criteria, often times, standards that far exceed the minimal standards that many states have set forth. These standards and requirements set forth by the APP, have your health and safety in mind.

One bad piece of jewelry can lead to a bad experience, easily turning people away from an art form that they could have easily embraced. When you get pierced by an APP member, you are getting pierced by a moral, ethical piercer who refuses to put anything less than the highest quality jewelry in your body. With the amount of jewelry that has flooded the market, not all of it being good for you, you can rest assured that member piercers have made a conscience, knowledgeable decision with proven, factual, scientific evidence that the initial jewelry you are being pierced with is in fact, made specifically to implantation standards and is safe and suitable for your body.

Member piercers often are more than just piercers, but educators as well. They work hard with the general public on educating them as to what they should be looking for when getting pierced, which in turn means that they are seeking out means of furthering and continuing their education. Members will often attend the annual APP conference or travel to work alongside other piercers to seek and gain more knowledge, whether it be technique, safety and cleanliness, jewelry trends, bedside manner, etc., so that you, the piercee, can rest assured that you are in the safest, most knowledgeable of hands.

Piercers tend to be a very passionate bunch and love their professions and the experiences they are able to give their customers. Make your experience a statement that you value your health safety over all else, get pierced by an APP member!

Miro Hernandez
Dandyland
San Antonio, TX
piercermiro@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/piercermiro
IG @piercermiro

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