Couldn't agree more about the Marines ink ban . Reminds me of the anti gay marriage folks . Don't you have anything better to worry about ? Couldn't your time be spent in a better way doing , oh I don't know , just about ANYTHING else ? There is way too long of a history there to get upset about it in my eyes .

Skin braiding is supposed to be where essentially you get strips of skin and plait them, the way you would hair, and leave them to heal. Common sense dictates that slicing your skin into strips then laying it down differently wouldn't heal, right?

Well, as the above article states, some people don't have common sense.

(By the way, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, anyone, I couldn't find the BME article about it.)

Edit--http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20050612.html (found it)

So I clicked the link to the Suffolk ban. Among the 'extreme' body art measures which include scarification and tongue splitting (which even I as a modded body will admit are a little on the heavy side), they also include septum and tongue piercings as well as genitals.

What?

When I think 'extreme piercing' I think of the stuff you see on bme's site that makes you say 'How do these people ever have sex?' Or maybe surface piercings - a corset piercing is not exactly a light undertaking. But a little hole through the nose or a VCH? Not a huge deal. The funny thing is, all the piercings they want to ban can very easily be hidden in any case. If they want to check my crotch for a ring, then they're going to have to fight me for it.

I'm actually kind of surprised they haven't tried to put something silly like that through here in Nebraska, because I know it would pass. What with all these young kids these days with no respect for their elders, puttin holes in their head and makin their hair funny colors, they ain't gonna amount to nothin..

That is absurd...the army has no problem with tattoo's...it is only the marine core...in a tattoo magazine i read 2 years ago, one of the featured people also had a interveiw printed with the pictorials of his tattoos, he stated that he had been in marines 6 years and was due for promotion again to officer and was told he would never get the rank in marines because of his tattoos (he had near full suit with only hands and neck/face uninked) this has always been the marines policy, all they have done is make it official now..this form of tattoo discrimination needed to be addressed much earlier than this...no amount of protest will change it now, it has been an entrenched issue with the marines for too long. I believe the only reason they have made it official now is because that is what the marine core does...when everyone is distracted by much larger issues is when they slide through all their pissy little ones...just this time round not everyone was looking at the big issues and they got caught trying to slide through a quiet little manifesto on how they want their troops to look...it seems it is not enough that some of these people are prepared to die for them, but also they must look the part and have a certain standard of presentation before they die as well...otherwise they have to put a flag on a open coffin of someone who has tatts...and we wouldn't want that...people may think we associate with riff raff. Again the u.s military has shown it's imperial elitist nature....on the military scene it is the hottest dance club on the globe...it has got the most expensive door charge and drink minimum..as well as the strickest dress code on thestreetr...simply wanting to come in and be a part of it is not enough....essentially this is good news...because no rocking individual with tattoos now,....even if they wanted too,...can be sent overseas to be bullet fodder.

I've just given up on the government. They sit by and pass ridiculous laws when they could be addressing things that, hmm....matter?
Naw, really?

I live in Suffolk County. I've never heard of "Skin Braiding." Illegal or not, I would never allow another person to tell me what I can or cannot do to my own body.

isn't this issue two years old and was shot down very quickly? I remember reading about this in 2005 or so.
I double checked and found this
http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20050612.html

it's about this exact issue down to the skin braiding.

It's being addressed again and should be up for a vote this year.

I know I am gonna get some flak for this and in no way am I trying to disparrage(spelling?) our service men but maybe the ban is to keep them from being easily identifiable. Tattoos serve as a great way to positively ID somebody and as it seems in all wars not just this one many soldiers are committing crimes. Perhaps the marines are just using this as a way to help protect themselves against humiiation. Just speculation on my part.

You would have thought the dork would have been fired from his job after the first time.. I'm come on... the guy had to change his phone number the last time lol.

The Marine ban is bizarre because I always thought of Marines as the service most likely to have tattoed soldiers ...

Seems like the least of worries ...

It's interesting.

Tattooing has been illegal in Key West since 1966 but recently a small group has been fighting the city to get the ban lifted. It's been pretty big news here.

You can get a totally nude full contact private lap dance, carry an open beer down the street, buy drug paraphernalia and sex toys, go to clothing optional bars, but you can't get a tattoo.

Here's a thought, offered carte blanche: They (the USMC generals, I assume, in charge of the regulation) perhaps they might want the corpsmen (and women) to the Marines to not look like soldiers to the U.S Army -- even incidentally.

The USMC is quite a disciplined body. The U.S. Army is not an undisciplined body, but the manner of esprit de corps in each respective (US military) force component is definitely distinct.

Crypes. I can't wait for the first SCOTUS ruling on the unconstitutionality of such bans. The media-wire junctions might actually be some more relatively lively places, then.