Pain can be sexy. Pain without injury is sexy. If it wasn’t, no one would be getting tattooed and pierced. Spend an afternoon at the mall or downtown, and you’ll see piercings and tattoos on every part of the body that isn’t covered by clothing. It’s not just the usual studs in the ears and a barbell through the eyebrow anymore. Tongues, lips, noses, navels, cheeks, nipples. Not to mention the places people get pierced that we can’t see. There are even more opportunities for tattoos. Anywhere there’s skin, you can tattoo.

An acquaintance of mine, Mike Jones, is covered in tattoos and piercings. He gained the nickname “Jazzdemon” from his massive devil horns he had tattooed on his head, and a more recent project of his is getting, in great detail, Doc Marten boots from his ankles to his knees. There is a man named Enigma who is covered, head to toe, in blue puzzle pieces. His ex-wife, Katzen, has cat-like stripes all over her body, and had her upper lip pierced six times and had special “whiskers” made to wear in place of studs.

I know a magician who has done something that no one else has ever done; and he’s done it three times (four if you count the time he did it to himself). It’s called a Tattoo of Blood. All the pain and nothing but a scar that takes a little over a year to heal to show for it. It’s an honest-to-goodness tattoo, just without the ink. The ink lubricates the process and coagulates the blood, so without the ink, it hurts like a mother-hubbard (so I’ve heard), and bleeds like crazy. Other people claim to have done this, but no one can offer photographic or physical proof.

I’m a wimp compared to these people. I only have one piercing, and just a handful of tattoos; granted I only started my journey about a year and a half ago.

There’s no doubt about it. It hurts to modify your body. It’s a pain unlike anything on this earth. We’ve all gotten injections at the doctors office, so you know how that feels. Now, rapidly take that needle out of your skin, and jab it back in, over and over again. It’s brutal, violent, and sexy. When you’re done, your skin is all red and beaten up. You truly do look like an art attack victim. And it hurts for days after. You’ve gotta be careful, because it might not heal properly (it is just a colourful scar, after all), and unless you’ve got the coin to get it removed, it will be there forever.

One question every single person who modifies their body hears is the ever-present “Why?” To some, it’s a celebration of life. Others will say that the pain lets them know that they’re still alive. For others yet, it’s the need to be different. For me, it’s mostly the first. I’m proud to live in a country where my body is mine. It doesn’t belong to a god or a government; it belongs to me, and that’s every reason in the world to celebrate. All of my tattoos are hidden, so unless I’ve granted you the privilege of seeing the ink, you’d never know where they were. Now, Jonesy gets looks everywhere he goes. His ears are gauged, his face pierced more than once, and he has tattoos visible almost everywhere — and that’s even when he’s wearing his business suit. His head is tattooed for christ’s sake! It’s different, and that’s a wonderful thing to celebrate.

That, and the pain is sexy.

Let us, once more, delve into the realm of pornography. What is pornography? At what point does a work of art stop being art, and start becoming porn? Is it when a nipple is showing or the outfit is little more than the thin layer of rhinestones Donn Arden’s Jubilee Girls wear on stage? Can the photos in Playboy really be considered pornography? There’s no penetration or lewd sexual acts. Just slightly airbrushed girls posing with corsets and Harleys.

Surely there’s no argument that Chicks with Dicks, parts three, four, and seven and the like are porno, but what about the Girls Gone Wild franchise? It seems to be little more than the Playboy shoots, only these girls are real, and really in the Bahamas or New Orleans.

A well-drawn picture of a busty blonde wearing a bikini can be sexual, yes, but is it pornographic? Conversely, a guy in a red Speed-o is often times neither sexual nor pornographic — if anything, it’s humour. Many people on the Internet draw “porn” in their spare time. I draw “porn” in my spare time. But where we differ is that what you may call “porn,” I call art. Naked does not equal porn. Naked can be very artistic. Naked can also be porn, but only if that was the original intent.

I believe pornography begins at penetration. Even when a character is drawn so overly endowed that one can’t help but automatically look at the character’s penis because it takes up three-quarters of the image, I see humour and horror (Yes, sometimes this is not the intent, but most often, it is).  You can purchase Playboy and Maxim at even the most family-friendly bookstores. When a person learns to draw, they learn to draw the naked body first, and then the clothing. Naked is not pornography. Sex is pornography, and sense sex is natural, so is pornography. French Stewart said it best: “Hooray, pornography!”

Everyone on the Internet has gone through that awkward "n00b" thing at least once. Maybe not on this site, and maybe not even this year. At least one of you has been online for so long, that you were never considered a "n00b," simply because the whole Internet thing was at the same level of newness to everyone online.

It's now 2006, and kids old enough to reach the keyboard are getting online. That's incredibly hip. I didn't even have a computer until I was in high school. High school opened up a whole new world for me. We got cable internet, and I began to surf around. I'd spend a day or two lurking on forums before joining, just to get the general feel and mood. I'd learn what was acceptable, and what was looked down upon. I mostly type in complete sentences. I try my best to spell words correctly, but sometimes in IRC, there's just no time to go to dictionary.com, but my grasp of the English language is firm enough to where I can bullshit my way through bad spelling.

I try not to Grammar Nazi, but there are times when it simply can't be helped. The last thing I want to look at when I'm forum whoring or enjoying an IRC session is "Im like teh haxorz!1" or the ever-annoying 1337 sp34k! People who just throw grammar out the window, because "it's the Internet. Not school," show up everywhere. Syntax and grammar don't matter on the net, because it's not the real world, and therefore doesn't count.

In today's global economy, where almost everything is on the Internet, the line between "real life" and the Internet seems to be blurring. You can go to Monster.com and post your resumé, or register for fall college courses at your chosen school's website, as well as take some of those courses online. Almost everybody, and nearly every company has a website; from the casual blogger to the mega-corporation. If UPS' website was full of grammatical and spelling errors, would you really feel safe sending that birthday gift to Nana in Massachusetts? Even if a blog covers the most important news stories of the day, can it really be trusted if the blogger in question can't even spell "President?"

The Internet is soon becoming a staple of every home. Even if a person doesn't own a computer, they can still go to the local library and get online for an hour at a time. The Internet is real life, and it's high time the inhabitants started acting as such.

The Internet is great. You're free to do (almost) whatever you want, talk to whomever you wish, feed whatever obsessions you may have, and even find a partner with which to share your shenanigans on Google. It's a great way to relax, do some research, or just plain waste time. What's not to love?

But there's always that one fucker that has to go and put everybody's panties in a bunch. We've all run into one at least once in our Internet lives. That guy (or gal, but I hate gender-specifics), that has taken the liberty of "policing" the Internet. I'm not talking about the casual Grammar Nazi or friendly Forum Mod, but the ones who just make it a point to make sure that the Internet is run as they see fit. Making sure that you know that your interests, political/theological standings, and the very way you act are WRONG!

Sure, it's one thing to go on somebody else's privately-owned message board and not agree with the rules. But that's the great thing about the Internet. If you don't like it, then LEAVE! But the ones that piss me off are the ones that come into MY privately-owned message boards and IRC channels and start policing the way I run things. Honey, if you can't handle a little bit of "random cunt obscenity," then leave, dammit! Need help? It's my channel, I'll block your ass and make sure that you can't come back.

One of the best ways to ensure that things don't offend you is to not go searching for things that might offend you. If you don't like my at times pornographic artwork, then don't click on that link. If you don't agree with my views on Evolution, then don't watch my blog. And don't, unless you want to pick a fight, come in to my IRC channel and tell me to tone down my language. Censor yourself, and get off my internet.

Nothing angers me more than downloading porno. Especially the damn pop-ups that come out of nowhere and start downloading shit onto your hard drive. It's an unwanted invasion, and a compromise to my security.

Pornography is wonderful, don't get me wrong. If I didn't feel that way, Ryan wouldn't have a library of DVDs and magazines out in the parlor, and I wouldn't have a VCL or FurAffinity account. But if you're not careful, and you're constantly whoring your internet connection around, you'll wind up with a Technologically Transmitted Disease. Viruses, worms, spyware; the works. One of the easiest ways to compromise the security of your network is to download porn (File sharing is another biggie, but that's another topic for another day). I've seen Ryan destroy three computers because of a lack of security features and a cache full of porn sites.

Maybe you love porn, too. Or, maybe you think it's foul and disgusting (if that's the case, why are you still reading?). Either way, unless you live alone, there's no way to guarantee that no one's unwittingly downloading the latest Trojan Horse onto your desktop, cutely disguised as an emote set that came with that membership to boobies.com. It takes more than just Norton to keep you safe. Today, you need firewalls, pop-up blockers, and anti-spyware technology (does anyone else think that pop-up advertising pop-up blockers are just the most ironic thing ever?).

These are good things to have anyway, but I shouldn't have to run SpySweeper every other day just to make sure nothing's wiggled its way through those annoying back doors Bill Gates so rudely left wide open in his OS. It's bad enough that we have to empty our bulk email folders once a week because of all the junk that gathers in there, but then again, if we're not prepared to properly take care of our networks, then we have no business being online in the first place. They say "don't blame the victim," but in the case of technological assault, you have every means by which to defend yourself. If you were too lazy to install the latest updates to McAffe, then I guess you deserve that $600 bill to the Geek Squad.

That pesky book does have evolution in it. Right there in Genesis, in fact. Where is it? Well, I'm not sure of the exact passage, but we all know the story. I'm referring to, naturally, Adam and Eve. Yep. I found evolution in the damn bible.

Here's how I see it:

We have Adam and Eve, and they're chilling there in the Garden of Eden. Then, one day while Eve's hanging out by this tree with some funkay forbidden fruit of knowledge, this serpent (not a snake, but any long bodied reptile-type critter) comes up and tempts Eve. I don't know how, because I've never seen a serpent that's capable of speech, but he tempts her, nonetheless, into eating the fruit from this plucky little tree. So, Eve is now responsible for "original sin." She likes it, so naturally, she hands it to Adam and tells him to eat it. They eat their fill, and soon after, realize that they're naked. They make themselves a loin cloth out of whatever's available, and are cast out of their garden paradise, where they have to now fend for themselves. Bummer.

Okay. That's what we all know. But, here's the other side. Adam and Eve are chilling up their in their garden paradise. Just a couple of monkeys sitting in a tree. Eve's doing her own thing when this psychedelic something starts to crawl across the branch. She's never seen a serpent before, but its bright colours sure look tasty, so she picks it up, and much like Ozzy, bites the head right off of that sucker. And you know something? It's better than the fruit she's been plucking out of the tree. So she takes this now dead critter (the serpent) to her mate, Adam, and they share this new delight. Carnivorous animals tend to be more intelligent than their herbivore counterparts. Omnivores (people) are right there on top. Adam and Eve don't give up their fruit, but they just add these new little crawling critters to their diet. With this now protein-rich, varied diet comes intelligence. They learn to fend for themselves, and no longer need their garden paradise. They climb down out of their trees, don loin cloths, and continue on their merry way to world domination.