I don't knock anybody's tastes or fetishes. As far as I'm concerned, anything consensual is fine by whoever's doing it. But for me, the beauty that calls me in my mind, heart and soul, in my above and below, is the beauty of nature and not the beauty of artifice. Strapping up in corsets and belting ourselves in puritan mores is one kind of inhibition. Strapping up in leather getups with metal studs and tattoos is just another kind. Both seek to constrain nature's glory within a man-made frame. To me, the subjugation of nature - branding and marking the skin, metal posts, studs and chains - is just a form of inhibition. Of domestication. Take what's wild and break it, yoke it, brand it, tame it.
Me? I'm unpierced, un-inked, and unchained. I don't need to make my mark on what I already own, on what I already am. I am my mark - I cut my mark in the world using body and mind as blunt implement and sharp instrument. Tats and piercings are fine for others! If that's what appeals to you from an aesthetic standpoint - elements of design, elements of artistry, elements of adornment, cool to the cool to the cool for you and yours. I certainly have no problem with that, and I join you in admiring the artistry involved at high levels of execution. There's nothing wrong with one's body as one's canvas. I should know - mine is a masterpiece! Albeit, in a naturalist style.
But I have to admit, there's one point at which I have to draw the line: I have a hard time agreeing with anyone who considers tattoos and piercings rebellious. That's just plain silly. Tattoos and piercings are not certainly not rebellious (except, rebellious against your relatives, maybe! But that's not really all that grand a stance...). Now, that's no knock on the thing itself! The fact that it's not rebellious is no knock. But I don't care if you're starting from Amish - at some point, embracing the entrenched fashion trends of the dominant culture ceases to count as meaningful rebellion. That doesn't mean it isn't a perfectly legitimate choice from a style standpoint alone. Of course it is! Perfectly legitimate, perfectly accepted. Style yourself as you will be styled; be self-styled, as indeed should we all be.
Still, for me - a brand, a chain, a mark, a claim...the stuff can be cool and all, and no disputing! I'm just a little too uninhibited for all that, is all.
4 comments:
I agree with you. The same goes for cosmetic surgery. People age. We've been doing it forever. Deal with it.
If sewing some skin up back where you can't see it to makes things tight makes you feel better about yourself, then you are giving the finger to all things holy.
On the other hand, if we have the ability to make ourselves seem to look younger, and it came about by natural means (thinking, the body) then as long as it's possible, it should be exercised.
Another good example. Cosmetic surgery - I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but it's certainly in that same category of subjugating nature to an imposed design, branding one's flesh with the mark of artifice.
I don't put such things as body-painting or makeup in that category, though, because the mark washes off.
In either case, though - temporary or permanent, I'm cool with whatever people choose for themselves! I just think that some of the ways it's viewed are a little off-base.
I...yeah. Where do scars fit in?
Well, any deliberate creation of mark or brand would fall under the same basic category. It's the deliberate imposition of art/artifice/will/design over nature. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not an impulse to the wild, it is an impulse to domestication. And nothing wrong with that for those who like it.
The body's healing from involuntary wounds (or medicine's assistance to aid and maximize a clean heal) wouldn't fall into that category of course. There's no question of motive involved, no deliberate self-subjugation at that point.
Again: ain't nothing wrong with putting one's mark on one's self! Those who like the effect, that's cause enough.
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