Yes, but I'm not talking about the cultures you mentioned, because these are evolved, too. I'm talking about our nature even before the "neolithic revolution" 10.000 years ago, even before our ancestor's began to develop their different cultures. It's about the basic functions of our body and our organs. About the unity of our shell and our consciousness.

[Keeker]

Yes, but I'm not talking about the cultures you mentioned, because these are evolved, too. I'm talking about our nature even before the "neolithic revolution" 10.000 years ago, even before our ancestor's began to develop their different cultures. It's about the basic functions of our body and our organs. About the unity of our shell and our consciousness.

I can empathise with that view. My mother and my boyfriend had to practically bully me into just getting normal pierced ears when I was about 18 or 19. I remember giving them some speech about what a backward evolutionary step it was and how in no time at all we'd all be swinging from the trees throwing excrement at each other again as a result of all this uncivilised nonsense. However I eventually grew up a bit and learned to be more pragmatic. There are indeed several cultures that have extreme body modifications but when you look at those cases you see they are cultural dead ends in decline. Whether right or wrong they are being overtaken by, arguably, more 'successful' cultures.

As for the current fashion for piercings, et al. It is just that, largely a fashion. When enough of the current population have them then a future generation of teenagers will find it 'uncool' and not do it.

So no, I don't suppose I have any major concerns about consenting adults doing stuff to themselves. Although I too question their psychological state of mind for the extreme things. What does upset me are body modifications forced on babies and children, often as a means of control in some cultures.

Oh, and, people pluck nose hair??? I've heard of trimming it but plucking?

As for the current fashion for piercings, et al. It is just that, largely a fashion.

My thoughts exactly. I guess many people simply can't resist these kind of external controls inflicted on us by mass media and fashion industry.

[djskrimp]

Oh, and, people pluck nose hair??? I've heard of trimming it but plucking?

Hurts like a sonofagun. That's why I stick to trimming, now.

I really am showing my age.... guh.

[Keeker]

Oh, and, people pluck nose hair??? I've heard of trimming it but plucking?

Hurts like a sonofagun. That's why I stick to trimming, now.

I really am showing my age.... guh.

Hehehehe. Yeah, I've occasionally wondered what natural purpose is served by developing hairy noses, ears and eyebrows as you get older. I mean I can think of a few, but still it seems daft.

Oh and maybe this is the ultimate implant:

Subject: Apple Computer News:

Apple Computers announced today that it has developed a computer chip
that can store and play music in women's breast implants.

The iBoob will cost between $499 and $599. This is considered to be a major breakthrough,
because women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them.

Thanks to Apple, everyone is now happy.

Nose hairs have a purpose, don't pluck them!

[djskrimp]

Nose hairs have a purpose, don't pluck them!

Okay, Dad.

Maybe that's the point of my reasonment : just cuz' it hurts more doesn't make it more valuable IMO. Just like a pasta necklace from your kid (for a woman ^^) is more valuable than a real necklace from some random guy who wants to have sex, and more if chemistry works (don't know how to say it in english, that's a French expression^^). Or more generally whatever handmade by your kid or loved-one is more valuable than anything else mass-produced by cheap labour, be it expensive.

Well in this case I think tattoos are much more mass-produced than scarring your arm, so your analogy doesn't really work. It's a matter of "oh yeah I got this picture on my arm on my daughters 1st birthday" vs "i went through the most painful experience of my life for my daughter". I can see where he's coming with that. Not that I would ever do it myself.

He did that for his daughter? Yeah, right

Nose hairs have a purpose, don't pluck them!

Okay, Dad.

They act as a filter for the dust and other nastiness that's floating around in the air you breathe. Plucking them will get that stuff right in your lungs

Yup', and that's why you gotta breath with the nose and close your mouth when it's stinky out there (car fumes and things like that), even if it's a bit paradoxal :þ "wow, that's stinking around here, let's smell it with nostrils full-open !"
Cuz' if you're not smelling it, you're eating it, tee-hee.

Well personnally nose hair annoy me since a more or less nasty fall from bike, where I hit the ground with both knees, both wrists, both elbows, and the nose (a friend and I stuck our bar ends (yeah that's pretty dumb) at 40km/h in a descent... he was riding with headphones, I passed him on the right as he was slightly on the left of the road, he didn't hear me and closed back on me... when you realise the bar ends are stuck together you're really like "oh... shit"). I had blood running from the nose all over my mouth, was pretty cool.
But it looks like one of the many small cartilage part in the nose isn't exactly placed as it should since then (no, my nose isn't like Alain Prost's...), and when the nose hair just grow a little bit it gets annoying and tickles, and I can't divert my attention from it.
So I pluck 'em where it bothers me.
Pretty interesting story hey ? :p

[Keeker]

Nose hairs have a purpose, don't pluck them!

Apart from filtering stuff going in they also stop stuff coming out. My sister-in-law's brother has alopecia. No body hair whatsoever, including nose hair. So if he even gets just a touch of a runny nose it just goes straight out ...whoosh... splat! He says it is really annoying and occasionally embarrassing.

I'm cool with most things, other than plastic surgery. I can maybe understand why someone who's getting a little older might want to look more like they used to, but what I really find objectionable is this whole idea of there being an 'ideal' way to look...like trying to look like someone different to who you are. It takes away all the individual things that make human beings interesting, like different facial shapes, different noses. We are all different and I think we should be able to appreciate these differences as a positive thing. As someone who really struggles with the way they look, it just really gets to me.

[JuZ]

Yeah, the whole obsession with youth is pretty unhealthy and I don't get it at all. I enjoy looking in the mirror and seeing a different person to the person I was when I was 20. It reflects the fact that I've lived a little.

I can understand why someone may wish to alter a disfigurement or something along those lines, but why would someone actually prefer to look like a monster, eg Priscilla Presley:




... than look their actual age? Your self-esteem would have to be so heavily attached to your appearance and your idea of beauty so linked to youth that you'd hate yourself regardless. I can't imagine someone who would do that to themselves would be genuinely content or comfortable in their own skin. Bizarre.

Self-inflicting pain is - to some people - presented as a solution when encountering a deadlock in their subjectivity. It is a redemption of some sorts, puts them at ease.
I'm of course talking about the body artists (last four on the list). Plastic surgery is just denial of the same deadlock through projection on the body - I project the inner deadlock somewhere where I can point it out and then have it removed/altered and *poof* the deadlock is gone. Don't underestimate the power of denial, it works for some.

Self-inflicting pain in general also shows how the speaking subject is in an ex-timate relation with his body. The subject is not his body, his subjectivity cannot be rooted in the body, not even in brain circuitry. One can have his brains removed. Isn't that a beautiful paradox: you must have absolutely no brains to have your own brains removed!

Labelling any of it "sick" shows our innability to relate to others' solutions for their deadlocks (it's a narcissistic thing, requires ethical decision to overcome it). Every speaking subject deals with that deadlock in his own way, and the interplay of all that "dealing withs" is what makes the misunderstanding the essence of human communication. Including all the attempts to surpass that structural nightmare.

Labelling any of it "sick" shows our innability to relate to others' solutions for their deadlocks (it's a narcissistic thing, requires ethical decision to overcome it). Every speaking subject deals with that deadlock in his own way, and the interplay of all that "dealing withs" is what makes the misunderstanding the essence of human communication. Including all the attempts to surpass that structural nightmare.

I accept that some people have a good reason in their own mind for doing it, but I personally think when people harm their own bodies there's something wrong in them. They may not think there's something wrong, and other people may not think it, but it's something I feel is harmful and unnecessary. I'd say seeing as there's people out there to help people with what I deem 'problems' such as self-inflicted injury, it seems to be the opinion of a good few people that this is a genuine mental illness which requires treatment.

Calling it 'sick' is narrow-minded. But it is a sign of something seriously wrong and should be dealt with before it gets out of control, for the person's own sake. Psychological problems should be dealt with on a psychological level. Just my take on things.