Body mods

[lnr]

From a conversation on irc...

To me all of the below are in some way the same sort of thing, although I didn't see it that way until Richard pointed it out a year or so back. It made me feel a lot less bitter at people who I don't see as overweight who still want to be thinner. I instinctively still find the cosmetic surgery more distasteful than most of the rest, and wonder if others feel the same.

NB More what you find acceptable in others than what you would consider doing yourself.

[Poll #369403]

Comments

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I do find small numbers of ear piercings unobjectionable, but large numbers do repel me slightly, so I didn't tick the box.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't personally like large numbers of piercings, but I don't think that's the same as regarding them as "unacceptable". I just think they look ugly and sometimes a bit squicky.

I suppose that's a sort of sideways angle on the question -- is it "acceptable" for people to present themselves in a way that other people (may) find repellent? I'd be very, very wary of saying that any of the above body-mods were "unacceptable" just because I personally found them repellent; I mean, there's a slippery slope there which ends in ludicrous things like "should fat people be allowed to wear bikinis?" and "should total mingers be allowed out in public without paper bags over their head?"

(Actually, minkboylove had some of this argument recently about pregnant women wearing skimpy clothes in public (http://www.livejournal.com/users/minkboylove/251303.html). I mention this only really because I think minkboylove's journal is worth reading in general. :-)

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think any of them are "unacceptable" as such, I'm a total libertarian, people can do what they like as long as they're not hurting anybody else. But as beingjdc comments below, it's not all that clear how exactly we're meant to take this poll, and I thought it would be more interesting for me to tick just the options that elicit no "ick" response whatever in me...