I pierce my skin with a safety pin and display the piercing to the public. I describe the piercing process:

First, I place a safety pin in boiling water for fifteen minutes to sterilize it.

I clean the safety pin with an alcohol prep pad and place it aside.

Next, I remove a butterfly needle and tube from its sterile packaging

and remove the tubing with scissors. I pinch my skin near my collar

bone and pierce my skin with the butterfly needle, creating an entry

and an exit wound. I insert the tip of the sterilized safety

pin into the end of the butterfly needle and push the safety pin

through the piercing, removing and replacing the butterfly needle

with the safety pin. Finally, I close the safety pin.

I observe the public’s winces and grimaces. I name and reject their empathetic response. I ask the public to remove the safety pin. The removal requires collaboration, risk, trust, intimacy, and bodily contact.

The action ends when the safety pin is removed.