| BME: Body Modification Ezine | |
|---|---|
| URL | http://www.bmezine.com/ |
| Type of site | Magazine |
| Owner | Shannon Larratt |
| Created by | Group |
| Launched | 1994 |
BME stands for Body Modification Ezine. It is an online magazine that is famous for its coverage of extreme body modification. See http://www.bodytwo.com BME chronicles the current and historical body modification world internationally; covering tattooing, piercing, suspension and ritual, scarification, and similar acts in its public sections. It also has a members' area called BME/extreme which focuses on implants, amputation, eunuchs, subincision, saline inflation, silicone, and other heavy body transformations, as well as an adults-only area called BME/HARD which covers the erotic application of these modifications and acts, including cock and ball torture (CBT).
History and content
BME was started as a web site in 1994 by Shannon Larratt and is the first body modification website and is by far the largest (with hundreds of thousands of unique images and stories), and covers a full spectrum of body modification (rather than being limited to only tattoos for example). While an "underground" or "counterculture" website in many ways, BME's Web traffic far outpaces many mainstream websites as it generates tens of millions of hits daily. BME offers evidence to counter many myths about body modification and the body modification community, and has many FAQs and an online wiki encyclopedia and documentation of risks and safety information. BME was further expanded in 2000 by the addition of IAM.bmezine, an online community, which hosts blogs specifically for members of the body-modification community. Users are able to view profiles and diary entries of other users, as well as participate in forums and chats with other members. In late 2005, BME added both a video sister site, BMEvideo and a body modification blog, Modblog.BMEzine.com. The site also publishes hoax articles each year on April Fool's Day. Both Shannon and his wife Rachel Larratt have cameo appearances in the Kevin Smith feature Clerks II. Currently, there is an ownership struggle going on over BMEzine. Shannon is no longer using the site for disputed reasons. He set up another site, Bodytwo.com, but this site is now "offline."
Censorship
The BME site is blocked by many Internet filtering services intended to protect children (and workplaces), for reasons such as nudity, torture, and other adult content. It was banned by Germany's Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien in 1999 as a "danger to the youth".[1] In December 2005, the German agency forced Google to remove the site from search results returned by www.google.de [2] [3]. Shannon Larratt writes in [4]:
- When Germany came after BME for "endangering the youth" and demanded that I make changes to the site to comply with German law, my response was to simply not visit Germany again (and I'm a German citizen). When the US started to pressure us, we moved all of our servers and presence out of the country and backed off on plans to live in the US. No changes were ever made to the site, and no images were ever removed — if anything, the pressure made me push those areas even more.
