Chicago ? Ears with two, three, even five piercings are ancient history. Studs in tongues and navels are, for many, no big deal. And who doesn’t have a tattoo? These days, the attention-grabbing look is tongue-splitting: cutting the tongue to make it forked.

Some say the practice is nothing short of mutilation. Lawmakers in Illinois are considering regulations that would all but outlaw it.

Earlier this year, several branches of the armed services banned tongue-splitting. Officials at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina say one airman had his split tongue sewn back together in February to avoid being kicked out of the service.

Those who’ve had their tongues split call it a body modification. A few do it for shock value. Many say they simply like how it looks and feels.

“When I first saw it, I thought tongue-splitting was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life,” says James Keen, a 19-year-old from Scottsville, Ky., who got his tongue cut by a local body piercer in December after a surgeon declined to do it.

Keen says most people don’t know he’s had it done unless he shows them. When he does, he demonstrates how both forks of his tongue can move independently. And it’s a plus, he says, when it comes to kissing.

James Keen, a 19-year-old from Scottsville, Ky., shows off his spilt tongue. James got his tongue split in December by a piercer after a surgeon declined to do it for him.

He says the cutting was done in three sessions with a scalpel heated by a blow torch and no anesthetic.

Keen’s story is exactly what Illinois state Rep. David Miller, who’s also a dentist, had in mind when he authored a bill requiring that tongue-splitting be done by a doctor or dentist, and only for medical reasons. The bill passed nearly unanimously in the Illinois House and is awaiting a Senate vote.

Essie Hakim, a 30-year-old New Yorker who had her tongue split by a surgeon in 1998, says she had to learn how to speak again. But she says she knew what she was getting into.

“I’m an adult making a decision that’s not harming anybody. And I’m not harming me,” says Hakim, who believes piercing and tongue-splitting are no different than plastic surgery.

“People get breast implants. People do body building,” she says. “People do so many things that are never questioned.”