over all of this time, i met several very interesting people. one man
that i was amazed by was fakir.
www.bodyplay.com in his own
rite and inside of this industry, he was and is considered a shaman.
he is one of the first of what we really call ?modern primitives? he
looked beyond some of the typical aspects of body modification
and studied the history behind it. he did want to pierce his nose
because he liked the way that it looked, but he also wanted to
know the meaning of it and the history behind it. he was the first
man that got me interested in body suspension and taught me
his ideas of the spiritual aspect of it. i dont know how much
i personally believe in what he was seeking, but i did
respect the fact that he was on a path and he was interested
in finding out if there was more behind it all.
what i did take from him was a huge interest in suspension
that i still have to the day. i really dont like the public veiwed
side of it, the fanfare that is around it now, but i still have
a love for it. and i few hooks still at my house.
ok that was a long weird story. i guess that the short part
of it that i at least witnessed, if not helped out a little, in
most of the early parts of the professional piercing industry
and ended up working in the field for well over a decade.
i was part of setting standard, and writing laws. but in the
end... i made cockrings and put them in people. this was
the industry that i was in when lars andi first became
friends, and it was the industry that i left to work for him.
oddly, i think that the two industries have quite a bit in
common and what i learned from one, i was able to take
to the other. both industries are sparked by people who
have lived outside of certain lines that society as a whole
have drawn. i see the adult internet industry started and
fueled by computer geeks that would sit and tweak with
the thing that they have fun with. they figured out a way
to make a living doing it, a job out of their hobby. i bet
that there is a huge chunk of people in this industry that
do not have formal business training or education. same
thing with the piercing industry. we wanted jobs doing
what we liked to do, we wanted to make a living at it
in our own and in our own time. so we learned these business
skills just out of necessity. it gives an awesome perspective
of being creative, since we really were never told about
guidelines that we should stay inside of.