Pierced!

Set aside fancy clothes, elegant headpieces, killer shoes, and all removable accessories. Now you are left with a bare, simple, skin-adorned body. While for many people this is the epitome of beauty, for others it is just a dull, boring sight. And since adorning has always been one of people’s best loved hobbies, it didn’t take them long to come up with ornaments that not only covered the body, but went straight through it. This is how body piercing was born.

There is no clear evidence on how and why body piercing began. However, logical reasoning can give us an answer. Probably, people started wearing embellishments on their bodies – hung on their earlobes; around their neck; and on their head, hands wrists and fingers. However, most of these ornaments were quite uncomfortable, as they would fall off at any sudden movement. So, one day some ancient guy came up with the idea to drill a hole in his body and hang the jewel through it. This way, it wouldn’t fall off anymore. Perhaps at first people thought he was crazy, but, like any crazy idea, its popularity increased quickly and the trend he set spread throughout the world.

It all started thousands of years ago – as ancient mummies testify – and though the practice had its ups and downs throughout history, it eventually won the fight with time. Piercing is now one of the most popular methods of embellishing the body, more popular even than tattooing.

Most people who choose to get pierced wear a pair or two of earrings. Others, however, have gone to extremes and put hundreds or thousands of beads all over their bodies. What makes them go this far? What religion or life philosophy can resolve an individual to making irreparable holes in their body? And how do they do it and what risks do they face?

A Little Bit of History

It seems that ear piercing is the first type of piercing that people came up with. Scientists have found mummies believed to be over 5000 years old which were wearing earrings. By comparison, the oldest known mummy to have sported a nose ring was ‘only’ 3500 years old. From India to South America, archaeologists have found remains, statues, paintings, jewels, and other artifacts which prove that body piercing has been around for quite a few millennia.

Of course, piercings moved from simple to heavy, from avant-garde to tradition, from secular to religious. Piercings have also had a darker undertone during some periods, for example, marking people as slaves who chose not to be released during biblical times. Despite the roller coaster of meanings and influence that piercings have had, it has gained much importance and significance and remains embedded in many peoples’ traditions to this day.

Yet these traditions and norms have not remained unchanged everywhere. In the West, the number of acceptable piercings has increased over the last generation, yet aboriginal populations have maintained their traditions and have exhibited neither an increase nor a decrease in the mean number of piercings among their members relative to what was the norm hundreds of years ago. That is because in their culture piercing is not only used for decorative purposes but has deep significance, usually related to different rites performed at birth, before marriage, after the death of a close relative and so on.

What Body Parts Can be Pierced?

All of them. Any of them. Usually smaller, thinner body parts are chosen, because they can be easily punctured and penetrated, and they also heal faster. At the same time, soft-skinned, highly vascularized parts should be avoided, as they imply higher health risks and are less likely to hold jewels in place.

Ear, nose or eyebrow piercing is seen as normal, acceptable, even boring in some countries. Therefore, liberal youths started piercing other body parts. Navel piercing also gained popularity in the 1990s, but now it is not edgy anymore. In the same positions are tongue, lip and chin piercing, all of them are still popular but considered somewhat ordinary.

A fanciful piercing style is the monroe. As you may have guessed from the name, it implies the insertion of a stud above the upper lip, on the left side, meant to resemble Marilyn Monroe’s notorious mole – if you insert in on the right side, it’s called a madonna. No need to explain why, is there?

Lesser-pierced spots are fingers, although the trend was once flourishing. Finger ornaments were supposed to replace rings, but they proved to be much more uncomfortable.

However, discomfort was not an issue when people decided to pierce some more sensitive regions. From the ancient Indian kumaz, which was allegedly used as a chastity ring for women, to Prince Albert’s piercing, this type of body piercing is so surrounded by urban legend that nobody knows anymore how it started and what its purpose was. Nipple piercing falls in a similar category, with sources claiming that it dates back to the Roman Empire.

The Norm and the Extremes

It is difficult to define a benchmark in a world of diverse (or even contrary) cultural, social, and religious standards. Nevertheless, we can mention some major norms in the Western world and other developed countries, as well as a few standards specific to indigenous people in different corners of the world.

A few decades ago in the Western world it was only acceptable for women to wear a single pair of earrings. Any other form of body piercing was criticized and rejected by society. It was the gay movement that crossed the gender boundary, so that men started to wear earrings just like women did – although nowadays earrings are no longer linked with homosexuality. As expected, each generation took a step further in the number of piercings and body areas adorned. Unlike the expectations, the limits have been pushed to hard-to-imagine extremes.

Elaine Davidson is the current world record holder for The Most Pierced Woman. As of March 2012, the Scotland-based Brazilian woman has over 9000 piercings. Elaine had her first piercing in 1997, at the age of 32, so it was not a reckless decision taken by a giddy teenager. She, as a mature woman, decided to pierce her body inside and out – did I mention that a few hundreds of her piercings are on the inside? – and give up on her face and body for a bunch of knickknacks. Incidentally, her nickname is Nik-Nak.

Elaine’s feat, if we can call it that, is even more impressive when we consider that her male counterpart, Rolf Buchholz, who holds the record for The Most Pierced Man, has merely 453 piercings. The most striking difference between the German man and the Brazilian woman is that his piercing rate still enables you to recognize his face, while Elaine may not even remember what she used to look like.

The Big WHY

As stated previously, the traditional aspect of body piercing has a deep religious and societal meaning. In other words, each needle that goes through a woman’s cheeks or lips represents something: it can be that she is at mating age or that she is a widow, that she has performed some sacred ritual or has been punished by the society for some reason or another.

In modern culture, however, the reason behind the trend, and its possible meaning is more difficult to pinpoint. Piercing could be a means for young people to challenge the standards of the society they live in (just like aboriginal youths could show rebellion by refusing to be pierced). Everybody knows that teenagers don’t like to abide to any rule and will do exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to!

Another possible cause might be a lack of self-confidence and the increase in self-esteem provided by the pieces of jewelry adorning a person’s body. It is about standing out from the crowd, being noticed for something, getting some attention.

No matter why it was first taken up, massive body piercing can be considered a type of self-mutilation. In these cases, there is no positive answer to the question “WHY?” There is no rational explanation. Psychologists – at least the un-pierced ones – believe that excessive piercing denotes some sort of mental breakdown, a wound in somebody’s personality. The more piercings there are, the more extensive the damage.

A Medical Take on Piercings

At first glance, body piercing seems easy to perform. Just punch a hole in your ear or another designated body part and you’re done. Actually, things are not that simple. It is not only the issue of pain that should be considered, but also that of the considerable health risks associated with practically any insertion of a foreign object into the body. So, in order to diminish the risks, there are now specialized centers that offer body piercing services in the safest conditions.

Tools and Procedure

Right before the procedure, the equipment to be used and the jewelry to be inserted are sterilized in special, professional autoclaves.

After the tools have been prepared, the victim, er, client must be prepared as well. In some countries, an anesthetic is first applied, usually by injection, so that the client won’t feel any pain during the process (notice the word ‘during’; after the anesthetic effect fades away, pain returns and lasts until the healing process is complete). However, this is not the case in all countries. In the U.S., for example, it is illegal to use or administer anesthetics outside the medical field – and piercing is certainly not considered a medical procedure.

Then comes the piercing itself. There are numerous methods and tools involved in the procedure. A needle, catheter, or dermal punch can be used, as well as forceps or a cork, in some cases. There is no global standard for piercings, as each country has its own regulations and each piercing studio its own equipment. The single tool that is generally rejected and considered unsuitable, even by the Association of Professional Piercers, is the piercing gun. While it has quite a few flaws in comparison to the other tools, the first reason why anyone should reject it is that it was designed to pierce and tag the ears of cattle. Now why would anyone want to be associated with that idea? Even so, it is still the most popular method of ear piercing in the West. Go figure!

The Price you Pay

Piercing is a painful and risky pleasure. As with any incision, the highest risk is that of infection, as there is a wide variety of viruses and bacteria eager to enter any little hole you make in your body. Estimates show that somewhere between 10 and 30 percent of piercings result in local infection. Worse still, there have been a significant number of cases where people contracted serious diseases, such as Hepatitis B or C or HIV. Others have had to undergo surgery and have a part of their body removed, or even lost their lives. Although some situations are unavoidable, adequate daily cleaning of the pierced area and leaving the spot alone for some time should reduce the danger of infection.

Another risk is that of allergy, firstly to the anesthetic, and, more importantly, to the metal from which the piercing stud is made. Moreover, the wound takes quite a lot of time to heal, ranging anywhere from one month to two years to heal completely, depending on the body part affected.

Apart from this, there’s probably no need to mention that piercings leave permanent scars. Once the wound made by a piercing heals, the hole will never close up again. One day, you may decide to remove your body jewelry, but the mark will be forever there.

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Lunatics on the loose

Nonsense

Extremely extreme, what's left again, don't be surprised people like this can ve piercing on their private parts, even right through their d!!!!ck holes. SMH

Suffering and smilling.

I don't believe some of those pics

Awon werey