You seem to say that better and different are opposites – can one not look different and better?

“Incidentally, I have closed some gauge holes for people. They are usually a little freaked out and more nervous than most people. I find that interesting considering that they likely didn’t have anesthesia for the piercing.”

I can tell you from experience and you should probably know just from a mechanical standpoint that a split second piercing and the process of closing stretched piercings (sutures, etc) is far different

“As an intern, the worst patient I ever had to place an IV into was covered with tattoos and piercings. After 15 minutes of him moving around so much that I couldn’t place the IV, I asked him in exasperation how this was so much more difficult than all the other needles he’d had poked in his skin.”

Again – look at the mechanics for a start, there is a huge difference between inserting a needle into a vein and the process of tattooing which is fast and shallow and the needles are barely even visible as opposed to looking at the big needle about to be driven deep into you. It is apples and oranges.

“I was surprised that this didn’t shock him to his senses. Instead, he had the perfect answer. “But I wanted these.” ”

Precisely, there is a huge difference between voluntary and involuntary actions.

You seem to say that better and different are opposites – can one not look different and better?

Obviously I can’t speak for Grant, but FWIW I read him a little differently. I read him as saying that his goal is to make the patient’s face look like the same face only better, rather than to make it look like a different face. I don’t get the implication that they’re opposites, only that they’re different goals.

I think one can certainly look different AND better (I’ll certainly look both if I lose the 40 pounds I’m planning to shed), but one can have one (either one) without the other.

If you really want to see some “extreme” surgeries, look for facial feminization surgery pictures. Nothing like a 13 hour surgery where they cut your face off, remove bone or shave it while still attached, adjust other features then put everything back together.

I see the difference but I also view activity of this sort as being on a spectrum and find that most people seem not to understand that my choice to alter my body is very much like their choice to wear a standard blue or black suit. It isn’t their type of choice v mine, it is where we both fall on the spectrum of determining and creating our appearances. I am simply willing to more or less wear the same suit for the rest of my life after some careful deliberation and design. In terms of the personal & artistic expression the permanence is, in fact, a necessity for me.

“Many people recoil from irrevocable choices. That’s a basic element of human nature.”

My perspective on this is that they recoil from perceived irrevocable choices while accepting many choices that they fail to recognize as irrevocable and mistaking some choice as irrevocable that really aren’t. I also think that this is not a necessary element just a common one and that those who exhibit it are often overly fearful.

“Or is there something I’m not getting about your reaction to our reactions? Please explain if so.”

What really gets me about these reactions on this subject is that for me it represents people letting themselves be influenced by false limitations. They think that permanent body alterations necessarily have certain results when that is demonstrably not the case. They are letting themselves be fenced in by their own imaginations and extending those fences to others when they say or imply things like ‘no one will want you’ or ‘you’ll never get a job’ when it simply isn’t true. So, yes – it can be a bit of a trigger for me…

“If that’s what you think, no, you don’t understand. What I find childish is your idea that people shouldn’t react with revulsion to extreme (like yours) or merely creepy (like the ones in this post) body modifications.”

I don’t mind the honest instant ‘gut reaction’, if its not your thing then its not your thing and that is fine and dandy. It the move from there to make what amounts to a condemnation / insult – if you don’t like it, move on but don’t stop to insult those who are enjoying it.

“You may find it desirable that I’m repulsed by your body mods. Repelling some while fascinating others may be your goal, in which case you’ve achieved it and I salute you (that, unlike ‘childish’, is a compliment).”

I don’t mind repulsing people but I don’t generally set out to do it

“And I’m quite amused, in my turn, by your apparent opinion that you can tell anything about me by the fact that I’m repelled by your body mods and willing to say so.”

Old saying from the world of tattooing: I can tell more about you from your reactions to my tattoos than you can tell about me from my tattoos

It works nicely in combination with: The difference between tattooed people and non-tattooed people is that tattooed people don’t care if you have tattoos or not

“To try to explain why this is wrong would, I’m convinced, be fruitless; but here’s one hint: you’re not making that same judgment about the many, many people who have the same reaction and conceal it as best they can, while they’re actually just less forthright with you than I am. Preferring them to me is foolish at best.”

OK then call me foolish, but if the only thing someone has to offer is that they find me unattractive they can keep their mouth shut.

You are right that we agree that extreme and ugly should not be used as synonyms

Yes. That feels better.

I honestly believe that our concepts of beauty, beyond the appreciation of symmetrical features, are culturally driven. A consumer driven culture will invariably create a standard of beauty that most reflects the products it produces and consumes. The problem with this is that consumer culture moves rapidly, meaning that the subjects in these photos have a more fleeting grasp on beauty than most. They can literally go out of style.

Think about that… a generation of people who have gone out of style, not just in clothes, accessories, etc.. but out of style in the physical form, more so than any generation before them. It makes me think of humanoid robots in science fiction that are pushed aside for newer, more stylish models.

If I find these examples as freakish and abnormal and people like my friends Matt Gone, Slug & Katzen beautiful I guess that’s just me. The models from the photog series startle me with their sterile artifice meanwhile Slug’s smile warms your heart. In the end I think it is all a matter of honesty, one group tries to hide while the other draws back the curtain.

I also find that makeup is best in small doses on people I find attractive. People with big doses of either make me feel a bit uncomfortable when I’m around them.

How often do you think this chick gets asked out? Is this guy getting any?

the whole point of this project was to ask questions about where we’re going as human beings (physically speaking)

phil

The subject “Michael” is clearly doing his best “Death of Marat” by Jacques-Louis David impersonation.