back to archives

'Body modification' has moved from the fringe to the mainstream. What does it tell us about ourselves?

By Laurie Lattimore

Freaks. Some look as though they came right out of National Geographic. Others sport the more tame college favorites--an eyebrow ring or belly hoop. Many have body piercings you can't see, and it's just as well you not know where they are.

But no matter the location, type or frequency, experts say body piercing is no passing fad with the anticipated shelf life of the mohawk haircut. No, body modification--as the shoptalk goes--has finally made its way West and is attracting an eclectic but ever-growing audience on the American scene.

The stereotypical biker crowd is not necessarily the largest, and certainly not the exclusive, customer base for body piercing. Instead CEOs, politicians, state troopers, clergy, teens and soccer moms alike are lining up under the needle. But most of the one-time customers have no idea of the origin and purpose of piercing.

"This has been underground for years, but it has finally gone mainstream in the last five to 10 years," says Radar Love, a body modification artist in Anniston, Ala. "Western civilization, and the United States primarily, is the only civilization to shun body piercing. Everywhere else in the world it is a status symbol."

In fact, body piercing has roots in European and tribal cultures. Greek men who did not have their genitals pierced were not allowed to marry or have sex. In Victorian England, Prince Albert pierced his to facilitate the daily ritual of hiding his privates underneath the grossly tight trousers popular in the 19th century. The "PA" has remained a favorite among the truly committed, Love says.

MORE THAN DECORATION

While many of today's piercings are primarily for decoration and as a form of self-expression, the main motivation behind the serious body jewelry is sexual gratification--to self and others.

The typical college coed bopping into a piercing studio for the way-too-common belly button ring has no knowledge of the culture she is partially entering. "Most of our young customers have no idea about piercings," Love notes. "They see their buddies with a cute girlie ring and two weeks later they are getting one just to have one too."

But it is exactly this kind of blissful ignorance that concerns the religious and conservative communities worried that body piercing is yet another sign of society's plunge into moral chaos.

"The younger ones get it done as a fad," says Jeff Browning, owner of three tattoo-piercing shops across central Alabama. "They saw it on one of their friends or on MTV or on their favorite professional wrestler."

Ed Tweet, businessman in Ames, Iowa, helped a tattoo-piercing studio get started in that small college town two years ago. Claiming unofficially to be the country's only tattoo-piercing shop owner without any personal body modification, Tweet believes there is societal significance in the body-peircing trend.

"When the fringe of society gets more exotic, it allows the middle class to get more exotic," Tweet says. During his high-school days a few undisclosed years ago, Tweet says, it was unheard of for guys to have their ears pierced. Now a regular pierced ear is so mild, it is almost offensive to the hardcore piercees who are constantly striving for larger diameter hoops to go through their ears. "The fringe stretch our boundaries a little bit," Tweet explains.

But despite this gravitational shift away from the center, Tweet does not believe body modification is going to get out of hand. "They stretch the boundaries, but they will reach a saturation point. We have a limited market of those who want more than one [piercing], but we have a growing market for those who want just one."

DIFFERENT STROKES

Meagan McCall, daughter of a minister and a senior at Gilford College, a Quaker school in Greensboro, N.C., pierced her nose about a year and a half ago because she liked the look of it. "I just think it is really beautiful," she says.

Her family wasn't as complimentary of the nasal adornment but accepted it nonetheless. "At my family reunion, my Granny kept wanting to pull out the ring." The nose ring is a follow-up to a rather large dragon tattoo that colors her lower back.

McCall's friends sport eyebrow and tongue rings. And while she and her friends are quite aware of the sexual reasons for piercings such as the tongue ring and below-the-belt ornaments, McCall thinks the attraction to piercings is more about expression.

She is adamant about never getting pierced in more private areas. "No way! That gets into self-mutilation," she says. "Besides, I wouldn't want any of those guys at the tattoo parlors touching me."

Rob Abbott, a junior at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, until recently had belly button and tongue rings. His reason for both piercings was just "to do something at a level of craziness" he could handle.

Abbott claims he chose to add a barbell-like tongue piercing after having a particularly frustrating day. "I just thought it would be cool to have," he says. "I didn't do it to be a rebel or anything like that. I could sure come up with better ideas than that to rebel."

Renee Mooney, married mother of three and a student at a Baptist college in Alabama, doesn't understand all the hype around getting a body part pierced. "It was no big deal," says Mooney, proud bearer of a belly-button ring.

"I had wanted to do it for a long time," she explains. She came "real close" to getting a tattoo, she adds, but thought that was too permanent.

"I don't know exactly why I wanted to get it," says Mooney, an active Southern Baptist whose husband is in the military. "I have this certain image as a soccer mom, going to church and going to school, and the belly ring is a way to show a different side."

-- Laurie Lattimore is a free-lance writer in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (llattimore@aol.com)

Bearing the Mark

Need a souvenir of life? Anybody can buy a T-shirt

Life's lessons are hard. Those who survive should have something to show for the experience.

How about a pierced nose?

Body piercing--like its cultural cousin, the tattoo--is more than a fashion statement or symbol of rebellion for many young adults. To them it is the indelible testimony that life's meaningful experiences--the good, the bad, even the religious ones--should bear their mark on you.

"To pierce one's body is to leave a permanent mark of intense physical experience, whether pleasurable or painful," says Tom Beaudoin, author of Virtual Faith, which analyzes the "irreverent spiritual quest of Generation X."

GenXers measure life more by meaningful experiences than by achievements or acquisitions. The popularity of piercing and tattooing among these young adults "reflects the centrality of personal and intimate experience in Xers' lives," says Beaudoin, himself a pierced GenX Christian with a theology degree from Harvard.

RITE OF PASSAGE

Not all GenXers look for the deeper meaning behind their nose rings or belly-button hoops. And many choose not to adopt those markings at all.

But for many young adults, getting a piercing or tattoo amounts to a "rite of passage" into adulthood that American society does not provide any other way, say Beaudoin and others.

American society is one of the only cultures not to provide an obvious transition from youth to adulthood, says Michael Murphy, anthropologist at the University of Alabama. Outside Western society, piercings are one way of marking children as becoming adults after accomplishing certain tasks.

"In America, kids don't know if they are fish or fowl," Murphy says.

Piercing, tattooing and other behaviors outside the cultural mainstream allow young adults to create their own culture. "Where they are outsiders in the normal world, they become insiders in their own little world," Murphy says. "Our society is great at proliferating those little worlds."

Susan Holtham, a sociology scholar who has studied body piercing, notes that piercing in primitive cultures is used as a symbol of joining the elite group. In the West, piercing symbolizes separating from the norm.

Holtham's research found a number of motivations among piercees. For some, piercing is a way to symbolize a radical change either in their attitudes, their bodies or their lives. A number of respondents pierced their bodies as a way to denote regaining control of their lives.

Aesthetics, nonconformity and sexual enhancement were of course among the other answers. Although few respondents said they pierced as a way to "belong," Holtham, herself a piercee, observed that often people arrived in groups at piercing parlors.

BODY AND SOUL

For many GenXers, body-piercing is a spiritual experience too. While other generations might keep the spiritual and physical dimensions of life separate, body and soul are inextricably linked for Xers, Beaudoin says.

Piercing, which is a common way of "marking" a spiritual experience in many religions, becomes a "sacramental" expression for many Xers, Beaudoin says,

The tattoo on Mike Gray's right wrist has deep spiritual meaning, the 25-year-old says. It's a cross adorned with the Chinese script for "servant."

"I was sitting in the airport in Phoenix reading I Corinthians, how we are servants and slaves to the Lord," he recalls. The scripture moved him so deeply, he says, he got the tattoo to commemorate the experience. The script is in red to represent the blood of Jesus. He chose the location, the wrist, "because of where the nail was driven."

Most of Gray's nine tattoos have spiritual significance, he says. So do some of his 14 piercings. All were painful. But so was the sacrifice of Christ, Gray points out. "He took on the pain and the sins we are committing."

Gray agrees many in his generation are looking for bodily ways to mark their faith, even if they are painful. "This generation takes its faith more seriously than our parents. Their faith doesn't cost them anything, or they don't teach that it does."

Tom Beaudoin says Gen-Xers turn to body piercing partly because "religious institutions are unable to provide for deeply marking, profoundly experiential encounters."

"Institutions that ignore the way Xers need to be marked, religiously branded and body oriented cannot fully minister to them."

--By Laurie Lattimore and Greg Warner. (editor@faithworks)

Pierced Christians say many misjudge the motive for their markings

By Greg Warner

Christians who pierce their bodies know they are misunderstood. But they say they will put up with that in order to be "culturally authentic."

One group of pierced Christians in Waco, Texas, say it's more important to take on the markings of the alternative culture in which they live--including its distinctive dress, music and "body modifications"--than to be accepted by mainstream Christianity.

"It's just part of it, a look," says Rob Forkner, who has four piercings--a lip, one ear and two in his eyebrow.

The only justification anyone needs for such non-conformity is the example of Jesus, says piercee Mike Gray. "Christ did nothing socially acceptable, or to make him acceptable to people. He hung out with whores, beggars, and tax collectors. He died a criminal."

"If I'm not accepted because of the way I look, I'm not the one who needs to question that," adds Forkner. "I'm pretty comfortable with who I am right now."

But he doesn't mind making other Christians uncomfortable if it helps them examine their stereotypes. Piercings among alternative Christians "really forces people in American Christianity to deal with it," says Forkner, originally from Anchorage, Alaska, who works in a Christian ministry to the punk scene.

"When I got my piercings, I really didn't even think about my Christianity as having any effect on it," says Forkner, "because for me some of the most right-on Christians I know are people with mohawks and piercings."

But Forkner is aware his piercings stigmatize him in the eyes of many. "I have to realize before I walk out that door there are going to be people staring at me. If that's going to bother me, I shouldn't get them in the first place."

ONE MAN’S ART…

Kim Robinson, a 19-year-old from Houston, agrees her pierced lip--called a labret--will invite some people to label her, "but it also opens doors to other people."

Robinson, an African-studies major at Baylor University, says her piercing is "more about finding acceptance within another culture" than a sign of rebellion. She acknowledges many piercings carry sexual connotations. "But I know my motivations are not that," she says. "I can't really please everybody, so I'm going to seek out my own identity."

She won't remove her lip ring just to avoid the stigma it carries, Robinson says, but she would take it out "if it was necessary." For a job, for instance? "Not for just any job, but if it was a job I really wanted."

Most people judge the practice of piercing based on their own "cultural norms and stereotypes," says Ravi Kapur, originally from Hawaii. If people have a negative image of piercing, he says, "they need to ask themselves how and why they came up with that idea."

"But all it is is art," says Kapur, who lives and works at a nonprofit agricultural-training agency in Waco. "If they see art on a wall, they will admire it and attach meaning to it. But because of their negative stereotype of body piercings, they can't look at it as art."

"Your piercings or tattoos should never define who you are," says Kapur, who sports piercings in his septum, nostril, chin, lip and ears. "I'm fine taking them out. I'm not socially disabled without them."

MARKING THE JOURNEY

Mike Gray, 25, is serious about body modification. He has 14 piercings to go along with his nine tattoos C all acquired since becoming a Christian. Some are merely "a cultural thing." Others have spiritual significance, like the two crosses and inscriptions, one on each arm. The inscriptions, both in Chinese, say "Son of God" and "Servant."

Gray's body modifications are a kind of road map of his spiritual journey. For this son of a Baptist pastor who grew up in rural Texas, they mark a break with traditional culture and his search for his own identity.

"I've been a Christian for 15 years now. But my faith, up until about four years ago, was not my faith but my father's faith. I didn't begin to develop my own personal relationship with God until I realized it was mine and I had to make decisions that were my own."

Gray became thoroughly immersed in the alternative culture and took on all of its markings. His first piercing was in his nipples. "I just wanted to pierce something, but didn't want my parents to know." Eventually his punk markings became obvious--pierced ears and nose, spiked hair, studded leather jacket.

Finally, after exhausting most of the regular piercing options, he got a "Prince Albert"--a pierced penis, named for the British royal who popularized it in Victorian England. That too is related to his faith, Gray says. "I got the Prince Albert for no good reason except I was not using it. Because of my faith and the fact I'm not married, I don't have sex." The piercing is "definitely a reminder" of his Christian commitment, he says.

Gray's tattoos are a more visible statement of his faith. In fact, his two elaborate cross tattoos have become witnessing tools, he says. "These two are my W.W.J.D. T-shirt," he says wryly.

Gray and other marked Christians say their piercings and tattoos give them credibility within the alternative culture, and actually open doors to share their faith. "I can relate better," says Kim Robinson. Without the markings of the culture, Gray says, "alternative kids would not take [us] seriously."

Gray says his pastor father has a completely different way of relating to the rural Texas culture in which he ministers. "His style is fine for the people he is witnessing to. But my dad could never witness to my friends or the people I am witnessing to. He could try, but he could never be effective."

His father, Jim Gray, is pastor of First Baptist Church in Eddy, Texas. "He doesn't like the tattoos and piercings, but he is accepting of them," the son says.

MOVING ON

Recently Mike Gray quit wearing almost all of his 14 piercings--the ones that show anyway.

"I just kind of gradually took them out," he says. Part of his disaffection, he says, is that piercing is less of a countercultural statement since it went mainstream. "Now they're doing it because MTV says its OK." But that's not the only reason he quit wearing his.

"A lot of it had to do with the fact I didn't feel like an individual any more," says Gray, who works as a production assistant for a TV station. "I want people to be forced to know me and not my piercings. And it was an obstacle to some extent."

"Now I just feel like a blue-jeans-and-T-shirt type of guy. And I feel so much freedom. I'm a chameleon. I can fit in anywhere. I love it."

Gray says he hopes others in the alternative culture eventually decide to pass on piercing.

"I want them to get to the point where they don't have to do it to freak people out or to fit in."

--Greg Warner is executive editor of FaithWorks. (editor@faithworks.com)

back to top ^