High Noon: A piercing question
Blake Perlingieri measures Finn Logan, 6, for a slightly larger earplug size at Nomad Precision Body Adornment and Tribal Museum in Portland in June.
PORTLAND – Jon Guac burned a design into his skin with a candle and fork to prove a point during a dinner debate about whether branding was an art form. As a teenager, he carved “Iron Maiden” into his arm “for experimentation.”
Stories like his, along with graphic photos of extreme body modifications, encouraged the 2011 Oregon Legislature to establish a new Board of Body Art Practitioners. But body piercers worry that Internet photos of untrained hacks slicing bloody skin with scalpels will distract the board from writing rules for what they say is a bigger problem: licenses for common piercings like ears and belly buttons. Read more.
The Oregonian further reports:
“If you regulate, that implies you will have clinical training,” Sen. Frank Morse, R-Albany, said in a hearing. “Where are you going to find clinical training to put double rings in the glans on a penis?”
Piercers say it’s a waste of resources to regulate the things that most frightened the Legislature.
Should body art be regulated?