For the scholars among you, here are a couple of books to quote with confidence.

"Marks of Civilization - Artistic Transformations of the Human Body," Arnold Rubin, Ed.

The first is a remarkable book, a compilation of essays from the first anthropological symposium to focus solely on body art, at UCLA in 1983, "Art of the Body." An important event, and a lovely book to go with it. Many photographs, chapters on African cicatrization, native alaskan piercing (the discovery of which caused the word "labret" to enter the English dictionary), Japanese tattoos, and other body art topics, both tribal and contemporary. Also, a great, concise history of body art in the introduction. Recommended.

Next, "In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification" by Victoria Pitts. It's written by a feminist scholar, and discusses post-modern feminist thought arising from the theories of Michel Foucault . . . etc. Just the thing if you are writing a paper for sociology or something. Although densely written in an academic style, this book does touch on some very interesting and pertinent themes in body modification, such as gender issues and cyber/medical body modification.

Here are links to daddy Amazon:

Marks of Civilization

In the Flesh