It all seems a bit superficial.

Some of the readers will surely like to kill me today for this,
but well hidden behind the internet screen I should not be afraid to offend political-correctness and will say the truth nevertheless: The emperor is naked.

The act of modifying, even more so permanently, the body which is the temple of the soul, is an abomination and plainly ugly and disgusting.
The idea that one can willfully do better and be more "artful" than whoever designed our bodies - be it God or Nature, is plain arrogant and stupid.

Teenagers may tend to rebel, but they will need to carry those scars even when they are 100 (including the reduced chance to reach that age). Nowadays distorting one's body no longer even expresses a rebellion, but rather an act of conforming to the crowd, probably following blindly someone who once was rebellious but is now gray-haired and wiser... and don't tell me about customs of those primitive tribes: there is nothing spiritual about these acts - they too have a problem respecting their lives and inner divinity.

The disrespect for our bodies, considering them to be just mechanical and insignificant objects, leads to emptiness, meaninglessness, disrespect for oneself and ultimately suicide.

Surely everyone has a right to do what they want with their bodies - but I also reserve the right to feel disgusted.

Yuyutsu, that is a very strong view - do you also disapprove of minor mutilations such as peirced ears?

Dear Laurie,

In the land of the blind, the one who has one eye is king.

We got used to live with ear-piercings for so many centuries (if not millenia), that we kind of got used to it and consider it normal.
So yes, I disapprove the practice, but not those who practice it.

If God or Nature, whoever the divine architect that created our bodies, intended us to wear earrings, we would be born with holes in our ears just like we have our nose so conveniently positioned exactly where we need to place our glasses.

Yuyutsu

Evolution or the 'divine architect' gave us the ability to use tools. Along with that ability came choice of how to use those tools be it for surgery or body art.

As the 'divine architect' didn't provide us with spare hearts would you also disapprove of heart surgery?

Also I am sure that the 'divine architect' has better things to concern itself with a rose tattoo.

I suspect that nature remains completely impartial to anything we do to ourselves.

And if man had been meant to fly, Yuyustsu, he'd have been born with wings? And if man had been meant to drive, he'd have been born with wheels? Are you a Jehovah's Witness, or a Christian Scientist? How do you feel about tonsillectomies? Appendectomies? Caesareans?