Sigh.

All I can say is this: body modification is something I felt compelled to do. I got my ears pierced at age 16 but I was begging my mother to let me do it from 13 onwards. I got my tattoos at age 26 and 27. I'm not going to get any more tattoos, and after 15 years of saying this I hope everyone believes me. I am equally sure I'm not going to get any more body parts pierced. But I'm really happy with what I've done, and it matters to me a great deal that I had it done. I didn't do any of it lightly.

I'm not explaining this simply to appease my relatives. They'll have to come to terms with it, and they will. Some of them will find it incomprehensible, and some will find it merely distasteful. What occurs to me is the explanation of why I did it tells you about how I perceive myself, and that is partly why I keep this journal in a public place.

I always felt strongly that my given name was not my essential name. It was like wearing clothing that didn't fit right and made me very uncomfortable. I honor my parents for their choice. Still, I changed my name when I was 22, and I've always felt the better for it. In the same way, I always knew I wanted to alter my body to more accurately reflect the real me. I saw myself as far more exotic a creature than the person in the mirror. I had a lively personality, a vivid imagination, a creative and passionate nature, and a plain as vanilla body.

So at various points in my life I decided to modify how I looked. Sometimes I changed the way I dressed, sometimes I cut my hair dramatically, and sometimes I modified my body. The older I got the more I was willing to stand out from the crowd, and that took courage. To some, my mohawk hairstyle was an abomination; to others, it marked me as someone with a strong sense of self. I don't have to change my body to stick out like a sore thumb, of course. All I have to do is open my mouth and everyone knows what kind of weirdo I am.

So why do it, then? Body modification is decorative and primitive. There's a very strong sense for me of marking the passage from one period to another: adolescence, young adulthood, full maturity. Lord knows what I'll do when I decide I've entered my twilight years; perhaps I'll be the first on my block to get my genes tweaked. I seem to require periodically putting my comfort level on the line in this way. In return, I get a sense of control over what I do with my life, and the exhilarating rush of making a serious commitment to looking different.

Sure, in this day and age having an itty bitty nose stud isn't wildly radical. Indian women have been doing it for hundreds of years, and teenagers have been getting some amazingly ugly piercings for the last ten. But it's different enough that I was plenty nervous about the aftermath. I still am. What I am not is sorry. I think I look pretty darned nifty with a diamond in my nose.

And if you disagree, that's okay. I did it for me, not you.

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