>> i have tattoos because i have tattoos. i don't have tattoos to hide behind. i don't have tattoos to make up for some lacking part of my personality. nothing of that nature. that's not the case. i'm visibly tattooed and i'm heavily tattooed in places where people see because i like to see them. >> by definition, if it's an unconscious, they have no consciousness of it. if you bring it to their attention, they'll say no, you're absolutely wrong. but they can never win that argument because in your unconscious, you don't know, but i'm the expert, and, therefore, i say it's in your unconscious, so you can't win. >> meg's dinner guests tonight include her boyfriend dan and her friend ann who is also tattooed and recently back from a trip to israel. it's a safe bet that the conversation at this sabbath dinner will be unlike any other in this neighborhood tonight. like the talk of ann's tattoos,
>> meg still plans on doing more body modification, even though she delves deeper into her religion. her boyfriend dan sees how much extra work it takes for them to be accepted. while meg is confident it will eventually happen, dan isn't so hopeful. >> i don't think we'll ever be really accepted in the hasidic community just because of the fact that she is so heavily modified and that kind of thing. but it really isn't that much of a conflict for me. [ speaking hebrew ] ♪ >> the poet ralph waldo emerson once said, "make your own bible." that's exactly what meg and company are doing as they bring in the sabbath their way.
suspension. >> it's piercing hooks through various parts of the body depending on what style you want to hang and suspending from them, being lifted off the ground and hanging from your flesh. >> it's not as bad as it sounds. >> it sounds bad. >> it sounds terrible but it's not that bad. >> it's really not. >> if you do it from one or two or three hooks, then the pressure is really intense. and this is part of native american, like the sundance ritual. they only did it from two hooks in their chest and that, that's -- but that was tied into a whole religious ethos and the whole culture was involved. and so, people are playing around with this sort of thing now and they're mimicking things without having the true religion. and multiple suspensions with multiple hooks, no big deal. it looks a lot worse than it is. nothing to be concerned about. you might as well do yoga. >> because meg and her friend
i just don't like what was there. so i'm having black work done over it then i'll have scarification done over the black work, at some point. >> one or two tattoos, sure. but facial tattoos, ear lobe stretching and ritual scarification. what would make someone go this far? dr. armando favazza has never met or treated meg but says there are common reasons people do this. >> for example, rebellion and anger, especially towards people in the past who may have harmed you or people who have let you down. >> dr. armando favazza is author of "bodies under siege," considered to be the seminal book on self-mutilation. he's also a practicing psychiatrist. >> and what happens is that anger, that rebellion lays buried in your unconscious and you get to a point where you can say, i'm going to pay them back. i'm going to get this tattoo. >> but meg doesn't see it that way.
at the new york city shop where megan barbour works, she and her friend say having their bodies modified has given them spiritual sustenance. some of them have gone way beyond tattoos. meg has had several piercings. she had her ear lobes stretched to what some might consider deformed, and she's into something else called pulling. >> essentially you have hooks in your skin and you are tied against someone else who has hooks in them and you pull against one another. for me, it's a huge emotional release. afterwards i feel calm and centered and actually zone out and really think while i'm doing it. >> meg's best friend, tattoos artist joy ramore has an even more extreme interest. she's into something called
they can get that final tattoo that somehow gives them some peace with themselves. but for a lot, it's a never-ending process. and if they don't come to some self-realization or some self-peace, then they have to move on. and from tattooing, you go on to branding and from branding you go on to putting implants in your skull and in your skin, and then from there it can really start to escalate into uncontrollable body modification. >> in fact, meg is planning to take her modification further. today she is having a tattoo blacked over by her best friend, brooklyn tattoo artist joyra moore. >> i'm going to have scarification over it. when the skin is cut, it will heal in a white design, in sort of a reverse of the tattoo.
>> oh, hell. [ bleep ] i hate you. >> i'm nowhere near your elbow. >> close enough. >> what used to be easy when meg was young and impulsive is more difficult now that she says she's old and cranky. within an hour she calls it quits. >> i'm done. >> she wants to be done. >> oh, you -- ah! >> it just feels too gross. i don't want to throw up. >> okay, okay. >> i'm not in the mood to puke today. >> fine. >> it went as expected. the tattoo turned out good. it's done. yeah. when we return, what's it like living in their skin? the prejudice tattooed women say they face on a daily basis. >> you're a raging junkie and nine out of ten times a complete whore. a wall. and i thought "i can't do this, it's just too hard." then there was a moment. when i decided to find a way to keep going.
joy are so heavily modified, people assume they're wild, which they say couldn't be further from the truth. both have serious boyfriends and their favorite activity is to have pajama parties where the two friends pore over, get this, crate and barrel catalogs. they're just two normal gals, they say, in search of a post office on a cold winter day. it just happens they're pierced, stretched, tattooed, modified and into getting pierced with hooks. >> we went down too far. >> yeah, i think -- >> we've got to go this way. i don't know where we're at. we have to find the post office. am i going to have to check -- >> yes. >> back at meg's workplace, we asked meg and a few of her friends about what it's like living as heavily tattooed women. they all seem to agree, tattoos
it was very strange. i get a lot of curious looks, i think would be the best way to describe it. >> meg started getting tattooed when she was 18. first one, then six months later another. >> then from there i started getting other tattoos. by then i had gotten an apprenticeship body piercing. so i was working in a studio with tattoo artists. the accessibility to get tattooed was there on a greater level. so, it just started happening. that's my tribute to cincinnati. that's the area code. pull my bangs back over, my forehead tattooed. and i've got little stars on both of my sideburn areas.
>> i live in a community that it's a form of hasidic judaism. their main thing is trying to teach people about orthodox judahism. they're trying to bring people back to be more observant in order to speed the coming of the messiah. i'm by no means an orthodox jew. i'm a religious person. i'm a respectful person, and that gets me a long way in this neighborhood. >> meg is striving for acceptance in the community. and she's finding it, to a point. she covers up out of respect, but it's hard for her to hide everything. as a result, even a routine trip to the grocery store can be an adventure. >> generally nobody really says anything. you know, the other day someone stopped us and asked us if we lived in the neighborhood. just a guy like actually blocked off the aisle. we couldn't get through. then he was like, are you guys from the neighborhood, asking my boyfriend and i. we were like, yeah. then he finally moved aside and let us walk through.