Polaroid: Sid Diller. (Patreon)

There's never going to be a post here on Sacred Debris where a Polaroid is presented that I don't wax poetic on the ephemeral nature of the media; I almost always go back to a quote from Tiffany Teske on their I heart Polaroid blog:

"Polaroids are not archival. This means they will not last forever. Polaroid images were designed for instant gratification, to record a moment in a moment but not necessarily for that moment to live on in a museum."

The recording of a moment in a moment for nascent body piercing/modification scene of the 1970s/80 wasn't always an easy task; having to take your rolls of film for processing was risky enough for players in the kink community, risking having your negatives destroyed, copies of your private moments shared without your consent by an unscrupulous photo lab, etc, so when you added needles, piercing, blood - any of the trappings of body modification - your risk of exposure was immense. 

For those who didn't have a 'go-to' connection at the photo lab (I had many over the years; folks who processed incredibly sensitive body mod images discretely - if they weren't working when I'd go in, I'd leave and return when they were) the Polaroid Instant Camera offered instant gratification - the ability to record a moment in a moment. 

This Polaroid of Sailor Sid Diller was taken some time in the early 1980s. While it was never intended to live on in a museum, I'm thankful that it's stuck around for as long as it has.