lets go:

Gauge - definition (by kong because the wiktionary definition baked my potatoes**).

- a measure

- to measure something

- a device used for measuring things

looks easy, yes? Then why is it the current generation of chromosome deficient cocknecks run around saying the following:

I gauged my ears…

or

I bought some new gauges…

If neither of the above sentences bothered you, you are well and truly FUCKED. If I were a more eloquent man I would be able express how tremendously fucked you are. I’m not really all the eloquent though, so I usually fall back on capital letters. Chances are you can see how stupid those two sentences are, and you have heard it all before. Usually a polite piercer gently correcting the ignorant child before trying to sell them something. So why bother reading this? This is worth reading because I will fix this problem, definitively. I don’t have a business to worry about. I don’t need to be polite. This isn’t BME QOD. This is my column and I will say what I want. I will tell you exactly what needs to be done to make the problem be gone.

First thing you need to understand. The people who misuse the word “gauge” are by definition white trash. More accurately, American white trash. I have never heard the monstrosity come from the mouth of any others. I would go so far as to include the misuse of ‘guage’ as part of the defining the character of being white trash. That and emo kids. I don’t the who / what / when / how of emo, I’m on the other side of the world, but I godamn know I want as far as possible from me, and sometimes I’m not sure Thailand is far enough away. These are the same kids who, ten years ago, would have been listening to korn, wearing adidas and selling their girlfriends for smack money. I’m not sure if I can think of any other toes I can step on while I’m at this, but I can always come back and edit this if I can think of more. Anyway, I’m not sure what the culprit is. I’m sure the internet is partly to blame. It’s only purpose seems to be for the dissemination of degenerate language and over-compressed media files.

The funny thing is that “stretched” was a common word, gauge was less common. It makes sense to say “stretch”. It makes sense to call the jewelry a tunnel or a plug (heh, I was once asked by a co-worker what I should call these when I was wearing a pair, she came up with ‘plunnel’, that’s damn cute and adequately satisfying for the invention of new words). stretch, tunnel, plug - all them are everyday English words. “Gauge” was taken for medicinal terminology used for measuring the diameter of needles (though in medicine it is used to measure the internal diameter, in the piercing it refers to the external diameter). It is practical to use it when measuring the size of needles, and the jewelry that will follow it, but ONLY in that sense. White trash is not only fucking up the language through stupidity, they are doing it at the same time they are trying to sound technical and educated. The worst kind of fuck up, when you fuck up while trying to impress people with your mad vocabulary skillz.

You’re probably thinking, “my brother Dwayne says he is ‘gauging’ his ears, and he has a  Bachelor of Arts with a major in Social Studies, how can he be white trash?”. Wrong. Your inbred brother Dwayne has a degree in cone packing and welfare scamming. It says nothing for the increasing intelligence of white trash, it says more of the joke western universities have become. More to the point, he has to be learning these naughty words from somewhere. Maybe netnanny wasn’t working, but more likely it was those terrible friends he found in social studies class. This stuff spreads like the plague, fleas riding on the backs of rats. I’m not sure how that analogy could be extended, but I like it. Your brother says he is ‘gauging’ his ears, he has fallen in with the wrong people, he has fucked up, he will never amount to anything, disown your family and move to a new country, now. 

Out in the real world I’m a pretty tolerant guy. I don’t correct or try to humiliate people. I don’t even share my point of view very often unless in the company of close friends (and neither should you, I have had it with people loudly sharing their opinions in the staffroom, I have to work with you blue jeans wearing fucks just like you have to work with me, chill out, do your job, go home and beat up your wife). If I heard someone misuse ‘gauge’ I would just write them off as a fuckwit and wouldn’t invite them over for play dates.

Originally, I was going to write a humorous little haiku about keeping a little bag of homemade IUDs handy to shove up the cunts of whoever incorrectly uses the word “gauge”, hopefully preventing their genes from contaminating the human race (the men have their own personality for contraception, though I guess white trash girls like them, but we just ‘fixed’ them didn’t we?). That kind of advice helps no one but me to have a giggle. Here is some incredibly boring and practical advice we can go through…

1) BME is the source of everything. I read a lot of BME experiences before doing what I have done. I have done my bit and contributed to the experience sections. BME insits on a miniumum level of literacy in the experiences and everything is checked before being uploaded (ie. checked and then accepted or rejected, not edited). That’s great as it sets some kind of standard. They should be just that little bit harsher. Reject that story about “fully gauging ma earz wit silicon hot topic gauges” with a message saying “Kong teaches 14 yr old Thai girls with better English and more common sense than you”.

2) Better yet, send them to India and enrol them in a special ed. class. I guarantee the standard of English far exceeds our finest social studies institutions.

3) If you own a piercing studio and a kid comes in asking you to help ‘gauge’ their ears and wanting to buy some ‘gauges’. Make them sit in the corner with a funny hat and think about what they did wrong. Bad for business? to show how much I care, tell me how much you lost and I will print out some professor kong dollars to the same amount and send them on.

4) Rather than rejecting people when you hear them say it, do the opposite. Invite them over for a play date, take them under your wing, teach them how to tuck their shirts in and use a urinal without pissing on themselves. Kong is pro-family and pro-retard.

5) Finally, back to the model T plan. Sexual assault and tender seduction with fine wine and truffles are one in the same for a white trash girl, they have korn and white trash boyfriends, those fine models of male chivalry to learn from, after all.

** the wiktionary had an entry saying that “gauge” (n.) can mean the actual piece of jewelry. Kong is not one to fuck around, so I deleted that part of the entry on the wiki. I didn’t link it in case the same gremlin came back and fucked it up again.

A little while ago wrote an article about how stupid the piercing scene is getting. It was inspired by microdermals and how the recent burst in popularity is symptomatic of some downward trends in the scene. Nobody cares much what I have to say, I’m not a piercer and pretty lightly modified. I’m pleased then to see this article come up on modblog:

http://news.bmezine.com/2008/08/14/on-eyelid-microdermals-modblog-and-turning-body-modification-into-a-contest/

A big thank you to Jordan Ginsberg for saying what needed to be said. I have to be honest, I only skim read it because I’m a busy man, but I got the gist of it and it seems that there is the voice of reason in there. He is also a lot more eloquent than my article, but I think we are observing the same phenomena and made a few of the same points.

I’m not going to repeat myself. What I want to vent over is the inevitable shit-fest the comments afterwards turned into. There are times when Modblog commenters would have to be the most rancid shit-fest creators on the internet. Most of the time they are very nice, and think are the majority are all good people. Unfortunately There are posts that come up that, even before the horse bolts, you know exactly where it is going. I have been playing a game recently. Looking at a controversial post, guessing what particular variety shit is about to go down, then testing my prediction as the comments unfold. I’m invariably 100% right. Even when the comments look like they might be veering into uncharted territory there is always some retard that has go jumping in head first with some cliched agitation, whereupon nobody has the maturity to ignore them, and off the horsey gallops into the sunset.

Before I start talking about my spidey senses, let me first get this off my chest. Since the Shannon stopped running the blog it has certainly changed, and some people have been kind of rude to the people currently running it. I say to those people who are complaining, fuck off and die. I can only imagine the hard, thankless work that goes into running the whole thing. I think everyone here needs to give them a big thank you and stop being such a bunch of spoiled bitches.

Now back on to my spidey sense. I will list the content, and typical response, so like me, you will never have to bother clicking through to the comments on those ‘edgy’ modblog posts ever again.

Content: BDSM slave type with offensive or degrading tattoos

Ah, this separates the men from the boys, or more so the men from the fruit cakes, so I thought I would start with it. Most recently this manoeuvre in the cannon was played out when a sub girl had “worthless cunt” tattooed about her pussy, but don’t be fooled, the enlightened commentary afterwards was nothing new. Funny that most people forget that modern western modifications has a lot it’s roots in BDSM culture, though of course we are specifically talking tattoos here, where I know a lot less of the history. Either way, the scene has been overrun but this lovely little vegan do-gooders who would put missionaries to shame with their preaching power. “oh, I think it is ever so terrible when somebody has such a low sense of self worth that they would have ‘fuck my filthy pootang’ tattooed across their abdomen…”. I’m beginning to think these vegan do-gooder types have severe emotional issues of their own. Fortunately they channel the angst into the pretense of enjoying mung beans, but every now again in spills over into telling other people what to do. I think we all need to remember that BDSM has been around a lot longer than vegan do-gooders and will certainly still be around after the vegan do-gooders get eaten alive by the same Borneo tribes they have been stealing tattoo designs from. BDSM is a good thing. If someone wants to be a sub, then let them be a sub and mind your own fucking business. The really ironic thing is that if it is a male sub, the vegan do-gooders don’t give a toss, it is only women subs that gets their thin blood boiling. I guess It gives away what other hypocritical leanings these vegan do-gooders might have, which brings us to…

Content: Absolutely stunning girl with only a few mods

There is a few directions this one may go. One is the feminist slant which gets on the objectification of women pony. This has gotten a bit old though, so many try to hide it with the “she is obviously only on modblog cos she’s hot, she doesn’t really have any interesting mods” thing. Again, I will point out it is not a competition, but I’m sick of always pointing that out. I would like to point out that people who object to the objectification of women are always women who cannot themselves be objectified. To simplify that; ugly girls. It reminds me of that thing about “men like to look at women, women like to look at women”. I like foxy women. I like them even more if they have a few tattoos or piercings. Shannon had no shame in posting these things purely for the cause, enough said.

Content: Ugly girl

I’m suppose I am at the risk on contradicting myself, but what the hell. It gets my goat when people bitch about stunning, but lightly modified girls. It gets my entire herd of rutting boy-goats when a less than stunning girl gets posted and people make comments like “she’s fat”. I justify my love of stunning, but lightly modified girls because I think simple well done mods are vastly underrated in the mod world (and I am a man, hence have a wee soft spot for absolutely stunning women). When a less attractive girl gets posted I guess I end up looking more at the mods… bearing in mind my tastes in women are kind of quirky so we might be thinking of different kinds of girls. It’s only natural though, I don’t look at the pictures of men on modblog sexually either, but you can bet your ass I have looked at MANY more pictures of pierced cock than pierced pussy, just because that’s where a lot of my mod interests lie. I guess it is just one thing that crosses my moral boundaries (which I really do have, despite pretenses of amorality). You should NEVER try to make someone feel bad because of their body. NEVER. If you don’t find someone physically attractive, don’t have sex with them, other than that treat them exactly the same you treat everyone else. When someone gets posted on modblog, they read the comments. If you think she looks like a horrible beast of a sow, that’s ok, but keep that thought to yourself. Express it in a medium that will get back to the girl and make her feel like shit, then you deserve a nice dose of prostate cancer.

Content: A tattoo of an anatomically incorrect pink rhino tattooed by the subjects 5 yr old son

Usually with this one we get either a) It looks shit, despite well-meaningness, or b) isn’t it teh cutest lil thing you ever seen, comments. First, it comes into the whole modern art debate. A 5 yr old isn’t not a great artist. It is technically impossible for there to be a great artist until sometime in the twenties or thirties. Why? Because at least 50% of art is skill and technique, and it takes YEARS to master it any field, whether it be painting, sculpture or tattooing. It is the farce of modern art that has led to red faces when anonymous entries from 8 yr olds of abstract scribbles to prestigous art competitons win ’serious’ art prizes. So, the tattoo looks shit, I think we all agree that it does, but beauty is in the eye, so I’m sure the wearer loves it all the same. There is also the ‘kid might be embarrassed by it when they are older angle. I feel most sympathetic towards this one, I always have the feeling that the whole exercise is so the parents can bask in their own crapulence, rather than any benefit for the child. In conclusion, though, like most of the provocative tattoos on modblog, obviously it was the wearers choice, if you have something to say, don’t…

Content: Procedural pic of a implant that’s gone wrong being removed

This one will always degenerate quickly into two camps. The “that was stupid, they got what they deserve” camp, and the “people are free to do what they want with their bodies” camp, and perhaps a side deabte about the degree of responsibility heave mod practitioners should be held to (a mute issue as far as I can tell, nobody is forced to go to them). As always, with my incredible gift of the gab, I will show you the final and most correct camp. Some people think getting you’re ears pierced is an affront to god and would roar with laughter should you get your hoopy ghetto girl earring snagged and an infection as a result. Accept the fact that your light mods put you in the same boat as heavy mods for most people in the world. Hypocrites aside, my camp is built upon the golden foundations of being a big kid and looking after yourself, a camp somewhat abandoned once we invented lawyers.

Ok, so you want a big bit of silicone under your skin, that’s your right. Find a practitioner who can do it with the best possible known techniques, use a cheap hack and it’s your fault as much as the practitioner when you are in the ER room. Lets say you got the best work possible, and it still goes ass up, that’s implants for you, but you’re not surprised because you did some research and knew it had a high probability.

So, you are off to the ER because you don’t really want to do lose a limb or die, good move. Here is where I get itchy. If you were in Australia, the hospital would fix you up, they might be a little rude, but that’s life and you are all better again, all for free. That’s right, the tax payer paid for your little adventure, which means I paid for your little adventure, and there is something not quite right about that. Just the same as I don’t want my tax dollars to save a drunk driver who just ran over five orphans and a kitten before crashing into a retirement home, I don’t want to pay for your fucked up mod. You and the orphan-killing drunk are in the same boat now, how does it feel? You want the mod, you pay for it, if it fucks up, you pay for it. Don’t blame the practitioner, pay him for his work, and don’t blame the doctor, pay him for his work. I have the feeling that in the states there would be a nice fat medical bill at the end, which may or may not be covered in your health insurance (I’m pretty sure my Thai health insurance would cover it I suppose, and I pay for the insurance). Maybe this really isn’t an issue at all in some countries. Either way you have wasted the doctors valuable time in a horrendously understaffed hospital (all hospitals seem to be understaffed). This all might be minor quibbles, but it is the only thing that plays on my mind.

So if you paid for the mod, and paid for it to be un-modded, then there are no other issues here, and if you are thinking of saying something, just don’t. I would like to see a modblog where the discussion is based on a) what went wrong, and b) how can we make our techniques and procedures better to make implants more viable.

Content: Any thing about skullboy

A young guy with a skull tattooed over his face (I thought it was something to do with the misfits, I could be wrong… who the fuck are the misfits anyway?). Generally he gets quite positive comments, all is well. You will occasionally get things along the line of “oh my, what will he do for a job”, which is fair enough, if he is sitting on welfare I will personally neuter the dumb fuck (apparently he sticks up posters for a living). All seemed rosy for skullboy until an interview was posted about him, and it turned out he is a complete ass. That was until those truly enlightened people on modblog decided they couldn’t have such an ambassador for the scene thought of as a complete ass, so they decided to change angle. Now, if one dares to criticise his ass-ness, it is simply because you don’t “get” the punk scene, you aren’t picking up on his subtle and complex irony, you simply don’t get “it”. Read the interview, there is nothing subtle or ironic about it. Face it, the guy is a cock. The tattoos are well done and look great, but he is still an ass. It’s a bit of pity, because it could make other similarly modified people an ass by association. I have nothing against him, just don’t make the assumption that great tattoos make a great person. If someone talked to me the way he writes in his interview… I don’t know what I would do, move to BKK to get away from him I suppose.

Content: Stretched nostril piercings (like Pauly Unstoppable kind of sizes)

Most people will all be ooh and ahs, which is quite nice, especially when it is someone like Pauly Unstoppable, who comes across as a great guy. However, there is always some callous asshole who wants to point out that it is ugly. Personally, I don’t like them aesthetically either, but, just like with the ugly girl, the owner of said nostrils will read what you are writing, and you have no reason to try to hurt them. I always try to imagine what kind of prick writes those kind of things. I think I have developed a pretty good profile. Firstly, they are damn ugly themselves, or at least insecure about their own appearance, and hence only value and can only judge a mod on aesthetics. These are probably the same kind of people that can’t value a stretched septum because it cannot really be seen, hence, what’s the point? More accurately, these are people who feel somehow oppressed in their own lives. People who cannot express themselves in real life, so they have the urge to hassle people on the net. These are the worst kind of losers. Criticising someone on the net for the appearance or choice of mods is akin to taking your anger out by beating a stray kitten to death. A plague on all your houses.

Content: Pierced or Tattooed pets

This is a real gray area. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you the kind of excrement that will follow this. I don’t know how I feel about and I’m only including it to be thorough. All in all I’m against it, and I feel ok telling the people doing it, because I’m not telling them what to do with their own lives, it has to do with a 3rd parties life. Modblog would choose to argue about the risk of the mod, the amount an animal perceives pain and so on. Most of those questions don’t have any definitive answer so is not really worth debating. I guess my question is, does the animal appreciate the mod in the same way a person appreciates a mod? No, of course it doesn’t. The procedure is a means to an end for us, so worth the trauma and risk. I don’t think there are many dogs out there who are lusting after some earrings. Of course, somebody else will jump on this and say there is no dog lusting after a docked tail either… like I said, a gray area, probably best off not being featured on the blog at all.

Content: Woman masturbating with a crucifix

This was a real post, back when Shannon was running the show and we seemed to get a lot more sexually orientated material. If you follow the mind of the average poster, you go something like this. “Hmmmm, how can I go better than this picture. Making fun of Christians is so 90’s, I think I will go one better and show how big minded I am by saying that, although I’m not Christian, I am so full of vegan do-gooder love and acceptance that I will defend the Christian faith.”. So you end up with a whole heap of posts about how this person should remove the crucifix from her privates, wash it off and place it back on the mantle and hang their head in shame for not being punk enough to become a straight edge preacher. You get posts about how nobody should be try to offend Christians, after all, they are human, too. These kinds of comments fill me with so much bile, I don’t know where to start. Ok, so we have three baddies here in a way.

1. Christians shouldn’t do many things they do, most of all, telling people how to live their lives.
2. Vegan do-gooders shouldn’t be doing that exact same thing.
3. Miss Crucifix shouldn’t be sticking an uncomfortable icon up her cunt, when she could be using a 12 inch black rubber cock, also useful for self defence.

Compared to the first two baddies, Miss Crucifixe’s choice of tittilation really doesn’t compare. Realistically, doing naughty things is a turn on. Miss Crucifix wasn’t out to burn the Christian faith, she was out to get her rocks off. After spending her childhood having her ears pissed in with a bunch of jesus-y crap, I can understand the correlation, and I hope she had a fine orgasm. It could also be that she spent her childhood having her ear pissed in by new age love and acceptance types, and she is getting her naughty fix from offending the very same kind of people that get their hemp underwear in knot on modblog. Either way, in the meantime, the Christians and the vegan do-gooders can enjoy some toe tapping through a hole in a sheet and please please please keep away from the keyboard.

I think that will do for now. Never again will you have to bother with clicking through to the comments ever again. You now know what they will say before they have even thought it. Sit back and just enjoy the blog, the way it should have been from the beginning.

No idea what I’m talking about? Ok, NOW you know what I’m talking about. They are the latest and greatest thing since VST and it seems to be the thing to get for the fashion-conscious young go-getter. They first became popular a year or two ago, and since then every man, his dog and local piercing celebrity has gotten some. They look similar to transdermals, but are a lot safer. Transdermals can have horrific consequences for chumps who don’t seek medical attention when they go wrong. Potentially microdermals could have similar consequences, such as inward traveling bone munching infections. Thus far I have not heard of this happening, most probably because it would difficult to place them too deeply. Microdermals also don’t seem to reject nearly as often either. I think of microdermals as being more akin to surface piercing than implants, especially when you consider how they are put in. You very often see horrible pictures of rejecting messed up surface piercings (and the vast amount of surface piercing pictures you see in grayscale haha). I only remember seeing one case of seeing rejecting / messed up microdermals. They seem to work out well in the short term. Nobody can really be sure of the longevity simply because they have not been around very long.

So all is well? Well my dislike isn’t risk or questionable longevity. Microdermals seem to carry a minimal amount of risk. People can do what they want, I really don’t give a toss. I don’t like big silicone implants either, but as the saying goes, I would defend to the death somebody’s right to get them. The only time the risk element really shits me is when the practioner gets blamed. There are dodgy ones out there, but it is equally the fault of people who use without checking them out first. These things can go horribly wrong despite the best of work. The human body is a fickle thing, there is an amount of risk in anything you do. Nor is my dislike of microdermals related to the aesthetics of them. They don’t really move me one way or the other. My dislike stems from the culture that has lead to the development of the micro-dermal.

This is a scene where often it is all about having something different or unique at the expense of all other concerns. . The problem as I see it is that it has become a culture where the freak-ish-ness far too often outweighs the quality of the work. Think about this in your own lives. If someone you know gets their labret pierced, you pay no attention, you might not even notice when you see them again. Do you think about the placement? Does it compliment this persons face? The choice of gauge? Are they looking after it and is it healing well? This all makes the difference between a good practitioner / consciences client and a hack / a chump, but not many people seem to care. If your friend got some microdermals you would all be coming in your panties to have a look. We are so busy looking for the next best thing that simple quality gets left behind.

To be fair, I am just using microdermals as an example. I don’t really mind them. There are many good practitioners doing them and the amount of time and effort that has gone into developing them is admirable. Medicine struggles to heal anything like this, and while modders draw on medicine, it could even be vice versa. The fact that the more reputable high quality jewelry companies (e.g. IS and Anatometal) are producing them for general consumption is a vote of confidence in the procedure. It is the attitude that has led to their development that annoys me. The greatest criticism of piercing has always been that it is just a fad. A sick little narcissistic phase in life that most people would grow out of as long as they didn’t do anything too permanent. Once, my tattooed brother said to me in confidence how great piercings were compared to tattoos (he think he may have regreted getting his) because piercings were easy to remove hence good for the kiddies. This was a long time ago before I started stretching things. All the people removing their little eyebrow piercings when they ‘grow up’ and get a real job helps prove their point. Microdermals prove them right in a different way. Pictures started turning up on the net along with stories the numerous advantegers over similar looking work. They could be done by your local family piercer. Overnight they were everywhere. Everyone who was anyone had to have some. People who were itching for something new but were bored with the current possibilities got their answer. If you are looking from the outside in, the explosion of micro-dermals proves just one thing. This is a fashionable scene. It’s not always a scene where people think long and hard about their mods. It is a scene where I WANT IT NOW. It sort of reminds me of ear scalpelling. If you need the piercings repositioned, it’s great. If you are getting them scapelled because you cant get wait to stretch them the old school way, perhaps you are missing the point a little.

It proves to the naysayers it is just fashion, nothing more. Britney says “I don’t want to pierce anything. I think it’s outdated. Belly rings and all are, like, old.”. She’s right, a well done piercing is so 1990’s, lucky we have micro-dermals instead. For anyone to take the scene seriously we have to all stop being such children and rushing into things just because it will oooh and aaah everyone at the local watering hole. The explosion of microdermals in the scene makes it most look like fashion. The next shade of the yellow car, perhaps my least favourite analogy.

Even the I WANT IT now attitude I do understand to an extent. I have been stretching my ears for nearly 3 years now and sometimes I wish I could magic myself up to my goal size (though it is an undefined goal, I just don’t feel as if I am finished with them yet). Skipping back in time, before micro-dermals were everywhere. Why were they developed in the first place? It is the urge to be different. This is a natural urge, and it will be here as long as people are here. There is something very cool about the experienced modders who tinkered away after hours to develop what we have today. Far be it from me to criticise them. It is more the primer for the main charge that gets to me. The first people to rush out and get them. The people who were thinking about how this will make them different, special, a stand out in the scene. This is a shit attitude. These people are only thinking about their actions relative to the community. People who can’t see the forest for the trees.

It is an attitude that pisses me off way beyond the confines of the body mod scene, and especially so in the goth-industrial-whatever scene. Going out of your way to be different is just about the most retarded thing you can do. If you’re defining yourself as being the antithesis of the mainstream, without the mainstream to define you, you’re nothing. In the case of micro-dermals it is a situation where the piercing community is the mainstream, and this is a way that individuals in the scene score scene points. And so it goes until micro-dermals become old and boring. Everyone has one so your one seems a little less cool. In the industrial scene you can also find numerous examples. That fake hair thing immediately springs to mind, though I had abandoned the country before I got to see the end of that story.

This became most apperant to me when I moved to Thailand. I pretty much have zero contact with any form of any alternative scene here. Like I have said before; I work, sleep, program and share my opinion about things. Here I am white first, everything else is misinterpreted or not even noticed. Some of the misinterpretations are really kind of amusing, but I’m too lazy to get into that right now. As a white person many parts of the culture are closed to you. I have no idea what the inside of a Thai family home is like, and probably never will. In a way you live in this odd other-world. So I don’t have a mainstream to rebell against. I don’t have locals to impress. If you are a teenage Manson fan whose existence is built upon fighting the blandness of the american suburban dream, you would be completely fucked when thrown into a place where it never existed. Nobody here is going to be impressed or even all that interested by my heroic struggles against all manner of adversities in the quest to stretch my septum. Nobody really knows what to think. For the most part they just don’t care. It is a good feeling to know that I’m doing it with no external input.

It also feels good not to be judged so much by people. Here I’m more of a curiosity. I strongly suspect that a lot of the scene queens (of whatever scene) wouldn’t like it. Even the negative reactions of people get these scensters off. They are sent into a spiral of self-rightous indignation at the afront do their scared individualism and revel in it. No reaction would mean no revelry. What are you going to bitch about on your blog now? Back in the old country I know people sometimes percieve me as being a bit of a messed up human being, and I hated it. Not because it was afront to my right to be an individual. I hated it because people would be assuming that I was doing whatever I was doing to assert myself as an individual, or worse, to be offensive or a rebel. I’m not trying to do that at all.

I see myself as a perfectly rational being for these times. It seriously blows my mind that there are not more people like me.

BLOWS MY MIND.

It reminds me of the “why do you [blank]?” question. I would always like to answer with “why don’t you [blank]?”, but good manners always dictates I should come up with a more accessible answer. Something about spirituality or self-exploration would probably be the socially acceptable answer in the current generations popular choice of meaningless terms… and if I said something like “I’m just trying to have my own style, ya know wha’ I mean?”, it would go down a treat. But that is all lies. I’m not trying to be unique. I’m normal. It is all you financial office workers in your new man pink dress shirts and the world’s thinnest ipods that have serious fucking issues. Every year the shirt is a little pinker, to prove you are that little bit more sensitive and unworried by innuendo regarding your sexuality. Every year that ipod is a little thinner to prove you are a little more [blank] than the next man (I’m not sure what it proves, but it is obviously important). And if you’re laughing… think for a moment. Are you so much better? Or did you just choose the blue-print that dictates your shirt must be a little blacker and your boots a little bigger than the next mans.

A lot of people talk about Apadravyas and Ampallangs being the “ultimate” in male piercings. I don’t buy into it. I can think of much more painful procedures, pain being a relative thing anyway. I actually rate my PA as a more traumatic experience than my Apa. In brief, it is a piercing that goes horizontally through the glands of the penis in which usually a barbell. They hurt like a bitch because a) it is a sensitive place b) it is a tough place and the needle goes through slowly c) there is a lot of tissue to get through and d) if you are full of bravado, like me, you get it pierced and tapered in the same sitting. For those reasons they also take between 6 to 18 months to heal, though that doesn’t mean abstinence in the interim.

I will write up the story later but for now I will throw down a list of pros and cons of having an apadravya.

Pros:

- The look on a someone’s face when they see it (also see cons).

- The knowledge that you would be accepted as a man if you should wash up on Borneo after a shipwreck (if you don’t have one you would probably have to get it done quick smart with a dirty piece of bamboo, that or become the village bitch).

- Anytime somebody is boasting about having their wing wang pierced, chances are they have a PA or a frenum piercing. Men with apadravyas don’t boast. They do, however, stab thier member into the eye of any fucker who is boasting about their PA.

- When the offensive scottish asshole at work asks if you have a PA, you can also stab that fucker in the eye.

- That’s about it. The Borneo issue should have been enough to convince you by now.

Cons:

- The look on a prospective partner’s face when she sees it. the negavtivity comes in when I can’t help but launch into a comprehensive history of apadravyas and complete personal account of having one… the mood somewhat dissolved after that little history lesson.

- The mood can only be recovered by offering to take it out during sex (isn’t he sweeeeeeeet…).

- I like stretching my thing, but women don’t like stretching their thing. I have downsized mine to 4ga as a result. A more intelligent option would have been to put smaller balls on the post back when I was at the heavier gauge, but Kong doesn’t think, Kong DOES… so now it has shrunk a little and be damned if I’m stretching it back up after spending 1500baht on a new piece (that and I’m a wuss).

- The peeing thing. Especially since I have downsized this is a challenge in liquid physics.

And more:

- As far as I can tell this does nothing for the pleasure of the man. If you want urethral stimulation, get a princes wand, or simplier get a PA or dolphin… though if you get the PA don’t let me catch you boasting about it lest you get wanged in the eye.

- Piercing the corpus cavernoseum won’t cause you to bleed to death. Mine has an unusally high placement for astethetic reasons, hits the corpus cavernseum and I’m alive. There are men out there that hammer nails straight through for a nice afternoon of self pleasuring. This idea is up there with eyebrow piercings causing paralysed faces. It probably started with a hemophaeliac who should have known better.

But before I start the bitching and moaning session that represents my septum, let me first tell you why they rock. First off, all things should be permanent, and big septums certainly fit that criteria. To those who don’t know; a septum should be pierced in the soft bit between the hard bits (fear my vocabulary), and once you start stretching eventually the space between the two hard bits gets filled up.  Once you have filled up the space and continue stretching a whole world of interesting things happen. For most people the upper cartilage starts to die / compress or something along those lines (it doesn’t get pushed back into your head, unlike what some naysayers might have you think). Some people seem to stretch more on the lower part, and hence there tunnel is more visible. That isn’t what happened with mine, so I care not for those people. So now I have a nice semi-circle shape in my upper cartilage… I’m pretty certain it’s there forever more.
So its permanent. Two is it is difficult to do. Earlobes are easy, they stretch themselves. I doubt I will ever write up my earlobe stretching, despite them being the thing most people ask about. It is easy, people with fucked up lobes are morons with no patience - som num na. Septums, on the other hand, don’t like being stretched so much. They do loosen up over time, but you will sure as fuck know it when you buy an organic piece which is 0.5mm oversized. Suffice it to say, they are a challenge full of sleepless nights and a new found terror of catching colds. In addition, they never really 100% settle from what I gather. Back when I was at 0ga it was actually quite nice. Since then no matter how long I leave the thing alone, it has always been a little sensitive. I suspect it actually has most to do with oversized tunnels digging into my relatively small nose, the hole itself is fine. More about the woes of my own septum later… my point is anything this difficult has to be worthwhile.

Finally, it is a great party piece. The children love nothing more than someone who can get a pencil through their nose and write with it. Women find it attractive in the extreme, especially when she kisses you, bumps you nose after a fresh stretch and you fall over crying like a little girl. Your parents will enjoy the novelty. You should make a point of it on your resume. Enjoy the looks of bewilderment from pretentious assholes at parties who have a pinhead full of piercings but cannot comprehend why anybody would go through it just to have something that can’t be seen 99% of the time.

To kick it all off I will write about my more interesting piercing experiences, and from there go into other things.