HUH.
That makes one of you that thinks that! 
Yes yes yes, but I wanted to know what you base that on. What informs your opinion? What are your reasons for considering them so? I mean, you must have a reason for it. Right?
No, it wasn’t obvious. I could easily see you taking out your fear on the poor kids around you and simply dismissing them as asshats participating in asinine behavior for reasons you’d rather not address beyond telling them they were being stupid.
I’m not saying you should approve of it, its obviously unhealthy unhappy behavior. I’m not even saying that you should start up a cutter’s support group (actually, I’m really not saying that, the fewer people who get your “support” on this issue the better.) I’m not even asking you to not be frigthtened by it. Its bad stuff, it is scary.
What I am asking you to do is to take a moment and see how much worse your fear would be if it was something you were doing to yourself. And worse yet, that you knew you couldn’t stop doing. All the horror that comes with self mutilation, the knowledge that this behavior is not right the knowledge that even though you are a honor student, thespian, editor of the newspaper… you are so demented that you damage yourself permenently. That even when you can go a few days or week, when life gets stressful the thoughts of how much cleaner you feel after bleeding will come back to you. Think a minute on how lonely and frightened these people are.
And now, think about how much help being told that their behavior is asinine is. Way to go. The depth of your compassion is astounding. Belittling people who have an ingrained desire to disfigure themselves physically because they feel so out of balance is not the way to go. Either help or get out of the way, but there’s no reason to be insensitive and hurtful, the individuals in question will dish out all the hurt to themselves they need.
Being sensitive about it shouldn’t make you less frightened of it, but it may very well help the poor kids who are caught in it. Unless kicking depessed, mentally ill children makes you feel better about yourself. Then I suppose you have full right to go right on ahead.
Well I must be anti-cutter then. I have several tattoos, and currently have been going every week for 15 weeks working on my sleeve. I dread going every week, because I’m tired of getting drilled every damn saturday, when I could be at home watching kung fu theater or the likes. That all said, it is a damn hot design. 
I figured I could have blank skin, or a nice piece of art on my body. Seemed like an easy enough decision to me.
Okay. I personally regard sex and sexual intimacy as an act of almost holy proportion. Although I am not religious in the strictest sense, I do consider my relationships with people, whether they be romantic or platonic, to be of utmost importance in the scheme of why I’m alive in the first place. I am given value in the world in relation to how I treat, care for, and love people (I’m sure you’re laughing by now, Medea’s Child, but I’ll get to you in the next post). If I abuse love (sex), I will suffer the consequences of my actions by becoming devalued in either my eyes or the eyes of others (people who love me). The way I view sex is that it is the most beautiful and precious expression of love we have. I see casual sex as a bastardization of what love should be.
I do not believe in casual sex. I believe it lessens both parties spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically. I do not believe in trading sex for money. I equate it with selling a part of myself for money, something I am unwilling to do. I do not believe that being a porn star is a healthy lifestyle. Physical diseases aside, I believe it to be harmful to one’s psyche, sense of self, and emotional well-being.
I’m all prepared to be lambasted by people who practice casual sex, but you asked so nicely, Matt, and you’re such a sweetheart, you deserved an honest answer.
Since you’ve never met me, I’m not sure how you could EASILY see me taking out my fear on the “poor kids” around me. I have to tell you that the “your poor kids” routine is the first one people go for whenever I express something they disagree with. It’s arrogant, insulting, and trite. I love my students as if they were my own. I treat them with incredible patience and care. By the way, I also think taking drugs is asinine behavior, but I still love my brother. I think alcoholism is asinine behavior, but I love and emotionally support my recovering alcoholic friends. Yes, I fear cutting. I don’t understand it, and I think it’s asinine behavior. That doesn’t make me heartless. It makes me imperfect, but I’m okay with that. It means I don’t have all the answers to every question, but again, I can live with that.
When this thread was started, it wasn’t a “Cutter Support Group Thread”, so giving my support wasn’t an issue. This isn’t Cutters Anonymous. You have beautifully expressed how painful and difficult being a cutter must be, but I am not obligated to be supportive of every single self-destructive behavior simply because it’s the right thing to do. Yes, in practice I am very supportive of people with this problem, but in theory I find it to be asinine. I am terribly sorry if that offends you, but I wasn’t setting out to offend anyone. I’m afraid my opinion just happens to offend you, and I’m okay with that.
I don’t think the OP is a depressed, mentally ill child. At least he/she didn’t seem so from the post. It sounded more like someone who was curious about tattoos and piercings. I cannot help it if you are a depressed mentally ill child. I don’t know you, and my post was not directed at you.
The question becomes: am I obligated to curb my opinion simply because SOME depressed mentally ill child MIGHT read my post. I don’t think so. I’m not spouting this view on a board overrun with teenagers or in my classroom. Most of the posters, but certainly not all, here at the SDMB are adults capable of dismissing my opinion if they wish. I considered my audience, and went ahead with the post anyway. If it is deemed ignorant by the teeming millions, so be it. I’ll suffer the consequences accordingly, but I won’t say I “understand” or “support” something that I don’t.
Um…back to the issue of the OP, I’m tatooed and pierced (although through the years I’ve removed the piercings for one reason or another) and a cutter. My cutting is almost nonexsistant anymore. As I’ve grown up and gotten a healthier perspective on the world and society and my relations with both, the cutting has disappeared, as has my desire to add to the tatoos and piercings. I would have to say that these did serve as a more acceptable form of cutting for me. I’d get the desire to add to the body art under hard, emotional situations. Not to say that I don’t like the body art for itself, I do. I don’t regret the tatoos and never will. I enjoyed the piercings while I had them and probably would still had them except for culinary school, when most of them had to be removed for attendance.
I think people who cut themselves do it for the pain. When I got my tattoo it didn’t hurt at all. I got it because tattoos are cool.
I am a cutter… (I would like to say 'I used to be a cutter, but I think it’s like being an alcoholic - it’s never completely over) and I have 2 tattoos.
I can say that the motivations for cutting and for getting a tattoo are profoundly different. Medea’s Child has described the reasons for cutting much better than I could. For me it was the “feeling” part of it. I had conditioned myself not to show any emotions, not be affected by anything and was just desperate to feel SOMETHING, to have proof that I was still alive…“the blood is the life” says Dracula 
.
I got a tattoo because it looks good - no more, no less.
The only connection between cutting and tattoos that I can see:
Maybe, just maybe…a cutter who is thinking about getting a tattoo will have no problem with the fact that it may cause pain. He knows pain…
I had a roommate in college who was a cutter. I’ve known a number of folks into the tattoo/piercing thing.
I have to say, on a gut level, they aren’t the same thing. Sure, you may get both in the same individual from time to time, but there’s really a world of difference.
The cutters who have posted here have already gone over the psychological aspects of cutting - as a release of negative emotions, control (anorexia and cutting is an overlap that does occur), and so forth. Another aspect is that a cutter usually tries to hide the cutting, and the scars that come from cutting. My take, from the outside, is that there is also a punishment aspect to cutting, these folks are such perfectionists, holding themselves to such high standards, that any deviation from perfection much be severely (and, on a certain level, permanently) punished. But this punishment must not be visible, so as not to mar the image of perfection they try to present to the world.
Tattoos and piercing, on the other hand, do have an exhibitionist aspect - even those that are not commonly displayed in public. The goal is decorate, beautify, and in some way improve the human form (at least in their own eyes).
I do think some folks take the tatooing or piercing to unhealthy extremes, or do it out of unhealthy pyschology, but those are the exceptions. Cutters universally have emotional problems - that is why they cut. If they overcome those emotional difficulties they either stop or significantly reduce the cutting.
It sort of like - most people who excercise and watch their diets carefully don’t do so because they have emotional issues, or control issues, or enjoy sweat or depriving themselves of sweets - they do it because they know that they’ll feel healthier and look better for doing so. Anorexics, however, exercise and diet because they do have emotional and control issues. There is a superficial resemblance but the root causes are worlds apart.
Actually, it’s 4 of us. Me and the other voices in my head all agree.