Deborah Lipp

So, Suffolk County, New York (that’s Long Island) is considering a ban on certain forms of body modification.

There’s several things wrong with this story. First, They are fairly consistent in confusing the phrase “body art” with the phrase “body modification” (see the headline of the linked article; I heard the same error on the radio). Body art is decorating the body, either temporarily with things like henna, or permanently with tattoos. Some piercings which tend to be temporary (like an eyebrow piercing, which will close up pretty much as soon as you remove the jewelry) might also fall under the category of body art. Body modification is changing the shape of the body, with branding, tongue-splitting, scarification, etc. You can lump the two together, but they’re fairly different, and there are many tattooed people who don’t do the piercing thing (like me), and vice versa.

The reason this is important, obviously, is that it bespeaks an ignorance about the procedures they’re going after. Legislation rooted in ignorance, that always works!

But let’s keep looking at this:

…health officials are concerned that more exotic body art practices pose a greater risk of infection and may cause permanent damage to the muscles and nerves.

You know, I’m thinking there are all sorts of things in this world that pose a risk of infection. It seems like the way to decrease the risk is to educate and regulate; y’know, like with health inspections. And clearly the minute you outlaw something you prevent yourself from being able to regulate it. Plus driving it underground gives it a certain caché.

In fact, tattoo artists and piercers would welcome regulation.

Cliff White, owner of Cliff’s Tattoo, said piercing makes up about 30 percent of his business, which began offering piercing in the early 1990s.

He and others in the industry said any ban would drive the practice underground and create more of a public health hazard. “I don’t think people are going to stop doing it,” said Lauren Sebestyen, a piercer at Cliff’s. “It’s better to have stricter rules.”

It was tattoo artists who formed the Alliance of Professional Tattooists, which promotes health and safety through education and certification. Since tattooing was so outlaw, so obviously bad bad wrong bad, it functioned without any health regulation at all. Tattooists themselves worked to create the change.

All of this speaks about our culture in ways that extend far beyond body piercing. To outlaw rather than to protect and educate is a lot like abstinence-only education. To use the law to justify one’s own ignorant reaction is a lot like taking custody from a Pagan or Subgenius parent. To assume the harshest answer is the best is why the U.S. has more prisoners than any other country in the world. If we don’t notice all the ways in which we are a basically Puritan culture, if we miss the little things, we allow it to creep into the big things.