By Rob Wilson

By involuntary response, we all try to protect ourselves from pain. It makes sense: pain hurts. But every now and then, despite our best efforts, we sometimes find ourselves in face-twisting, blood-curdling agony.

When I was 17, I was hit by a car while skateboarding. I did not fall well. My left hand was caught underneath the front wheel of the car as it was braking and was torn up pretty badly. I actually had to ask the woman who had hit me to reverse off my hand.

(Someone get these pirouetting skater boys out of the National Park and onto the real streets where they can put their bodies on the line like our esteemed author, Rob! – ed.)

The part of my hand that was under the wheel had not fared well.

I tore much of the skin off those fingers and remodelled some of the nerves near my knuckles. To this day they feel both distant and sensitive at the same time. It was painful in that bleed-all-over-the-nurses-and-demand-drugs kind of way and it was as close as I’ve come to actual paralysing, searing pain.

The sound of screeching tyres still makes me shudder. I wouldn’t go through that pain again for anything. And yet I, Robert Wilson, of sound mind and body, have spent countless hours in this tattooist’s chair and paid handsomely for the privilege.

These days, tattooing and body modifications like piercing are commonplace. (See Part One: Judgment of the Flesh). During the 1990s, the circus sideshow or ‘freak show’ went through a resurgence in Western culture with the resurrection of the music festival. The Jim Rose Circus came to prominence as a part of the Lollapalooza festivals in the early ‘90s in the U.S., thus bringing heavy modification and large-scale tattoo work into the public eye.

Even science nerds have taken to it – well, a small pocket of them anyway. This website features a Chemistry Professor from the University of Colorado with his tattoo diagram of the chemical structure of diazepam and a depiction of the inner workings of glucose.

People understand tattooing and other body modifications are painful yet they still sign up to do it. In this modern world, where pain is usually sedated rather than felt, could this be about awakening mental or spiritual endurance long thought lost?

It’s hard to say. There seems to be many reasons people undergo body modification. Is it a throwback to our once-tribal roots? An attempt to deviate from society? A flagellant demonstration of mental strength? Or simply, a fetish for pain?

Pain is part of the compulsion, but not for everyone, explains Rob Valenti, director and head piercer at Polymorph Body Piercing Studio in Newtown. Rob has been piercing professionally since 1998 and also performs “large gauge stretching and directional stretching, branding and cutting/scarification” .

And according to Rob (who says he passes out at the doctor when he has to get a blood test), you don’t need to enjoy pain to become obsessed with body modification.

When interviewed on ABC TV program ‘Enough Rope’, host Andrew Denton asked Rob:

“A lot of the things you’re doing strike me as being very … painful. Is pain part of the attraction?”

“For me, I’d say no,” Rob answers. “I don’t enjoy the pain – but there are people out there who find [the pain factor] attractive.”

It may be a bit of an anti-climax but when I talked to Rob about the pain involved, he said:

“I think a lot of what we do is not as painful as it looks. It hurts to be pierced, branded or scarred. But I personally think that if a piercing or other modification is performed quickly and efficiently and safely with the skill and knowledge that comes with being a professional body mod artist, most of these procedures hurt much less then waxing.”

Regardless of whether it hurts as much, or more, than waxing, people have been willing participants in mild forms self-torture for thousands of years. Think religious flagellation, fasting, or walking on hot coals. And as for me, I’ll happily continue to pay through the nose for the privilege of having hot needles dragged through my skin.

Rob Valenti will be there as part of the Powerhouse Museum’s Dark Science ‘Flesh’ evening on August 26th. Find out more about the event here.

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And you? The Powerhouse Museum is looking for volunteers to get tattooed at the ‘Flesh’ event. You must have a previous tattoo to participate. Submit ideas of a tattoo you would like to get on the night and the Museum’s panel of judges will choose the most fitting. Remember, you will need to have it done in front of the audience!

Submit your ideas on the facebook page here. Explain what the tattoo means to you, and where you want it.

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