Through an interview-based study, Victoria Pitts has researched the subcultural milieu of contemporary body modification, focusing on the ways sexuality, gender and ethnicity are being reconfigured through new body technologies - not only tattooing, but piercing, cyberpunk and such 'neotribal' practices as scarification. She interprets the stories of sixteen body modifiers (as well as some subcultural magazines and films) using the tools of feminist and queer theory. Pitts not only covers a hot topic but also situates it in a theoretical context. 'This work provides insight into a relatively understudied segment of the population.' - Debra Moore, Library Journal ". . . a fascinating and sensitive look at body modification subcultures and the political debates surrounding them."-Patricia Clough, author of Autoaffection: Unconscious Thought in the Age of Teletechnology "The book refreshingly moves the arresting figure of the extreme body modifier out of the realm of the pathological and the masochistic and reveals how these practices and their disturbing embodiments challenge the tyrannical concept of normalcy that keeps the rest of us narrowly in check."--Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University ." . . a fascinating and sensitive look at body modification subcultures and the political debates surrounding them."-Patricia Clough, author of "Autoaffection: Unconscious Thought in the Age of Teletechnology " "The book refreshingly moves the arresting figure of the extreme body modifier out of the realm of the pathological and the masochistic and reveals how these practices and their disturbing embodiments challenge the tyrannical concept of normalcy that keeps the rest of us narrowly in check."--Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Emory University VICTORIA PITTS is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queen's College, City University of New York.