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?

Sometimes life-saving procedures are necessary and I do not disapprove them. This certainly goes to heart surgery (Scout) and Appendectomies (anomie) as well as most Caesareans (anomie). Routine tonsillectomies and automatic Caesareans have become a fashion and should be avoided unless there is an acute medical need.

I don't think there is a divine architect out there who concerns itself with how people abuse their bodies - it is yourself who should be concerned (and others who care for you): you already got the best - what you do with it is now your business, but if you modify the best that you got, you only end up with less - not with more, and it is a reason to mourn rather than to rejoice.

My view is that the body that we have is no accident. It is not mere physical and besides its obvious functionality it is also designed to house our souls, and as it has a spiritual component, We cannot fully understand it by looking only at its anatomy and physiology. Interfering with our body makes it less comfortably habitable for our spirits - and that's a pity, for us.

Obviously I would disapprove of attaching wings and/or wheels to our body - but this has never been the case... not yet, anyway.

Yuyutsu

I enjoyed your final paragraph, "My view is ... ".

Yesterday my husband and I commented on two young men. Both had their arms fully tatooed. We were in the beer garden of a local pub. These young men were not drunk, were clean and well behaved. But they looked extremely aggressive because of the nature and content of their tattoos.

My husband has one tatoo which he purchased as a "stupid youngster" (his words). They will regret it, was my husband's notion.

Cheers
Kay

I have one tattoo which I have never regretted getting. It's a swallow on the back of my right hand underneath where the base of my thumb joins the base of my index finger. I liked it when I got it and I still like it nearly 53 years later. It has remained clear and well defined.

It was done on a table in the corner of a bar on the Aarhus waterfront in Denmark by Tattoo Peter. I still have his card. I was doing my national service in the Royal Navy. Shortly afterwards, a group of us were on a coach tour to see Odense, the birthplace of Hans Christian Anderson. The Danish tour guide sneered at me for having the tattoo. I told him that his king was tattooed and that shut him up.

Some people have commented on the fact that it is always on view. Well, I have shaken hands on a number of very significant business deals over the years, with my tattoo clearly visible and it's never been a problem.

She even has a name. Scheherazade, the lady from the 1001 Arabian Nights, who outwitted the sultan and finally changed into a bird and flew away.

I really don't see how it could possibly have adversely affected me in any way.

Some of my friends have had some amazing tattoos and piercings. Not my choice, but I am not judgemental about such things.

Rex

Exactly

:-)

yuyutsu

you are perfectly entitled to your opinion. But I am stunned at it. I have ear, belly button, tongue and traggis (inside ear) piercings. I have also recently just got my first tattoo. I have a scar from an appendasectomy and a 13cm scar down my belly from a large ovarian cyst being removed. Whether chosen or not, these things are all as Tacon says, elements of my personal history and the way I have always looked at it is that the body is a canvas for your life. It wrinkles, scars, sags, and can be written on in many ways. As Tacon says some of these things can be utilised to achieve a state of transformation or a higher state of spiritual being.

The link to suicide I just find completely absurd, unless you have some kind of statistical information to back it up?

On another note about the article in general, I loved the article and the meanings and potential implicit in all the various ways we can conceal, reveal or adorn.

I just wrote a brief article on this topic here: http://edified.org/articles/piercings . I think it's a little less strongly worded than the parent post but with the same general gist.

-Ed Palma