piercings

Martin Milner · Post by **Martin Milner** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 3:43 am

No piercings, never wanted any.

It does seem to me that many people (not all) get piercings as a result of social pressures from their peer group, or parents (especially baby girls having pierced ears), or because they are going through a life change and want to mark their new persona, and that they come to regret the decision later.

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:12 am

Decorating the body goes back to time immemorial. Everybody do whatever you like. I'll just stick with my Tilley hat with the three silly badges on the front.

(And that's National Harmonica League, fiddler!

)

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:19 am

It's interesting that no one's had their eyebrow, nose, lip etc pierced without also having their ears done (based on the poll results). Looks like ears are the gateway drug of the piercing world...

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:24 am

avanutria wrote:It's interesting that no one's had their eyebrow, nose, lip etc pierced without also having their ears done (based on the poll results). Looks like ears are the gateway drug of the piercing world...

I suspect that you are correct in this. I also think that drawing on oneself as a teenager is the gateway drug to tatoos.

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:44 am

Hm, I never got a tattoo but I drew on myself with markers when I was about 4. My mother's response was to make sure all my markers were the "washable" sort.

That said, I have thought about a tattoo but never seriously, as I change my mind far too often to be fully confident in a tattoo selection.

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:52 am

avanutria wrote:Hm, I never got a tattoo but I drew on myself with markers when I was about 4. My mother's response was to make sure all my markers were the "washable" sort.

That said, I have thought about a tattoo but never seriously, as I change my mind far too often to be fully confident in a tattoo selection.

My wife always wanted a tatoo, but never drummed up the courage to get one. Recently, she took the plunge and got a rather nice tatoo of a cute little gekko (designed by herself) on the top of her left foot. Now she wants more.

I do not have any tatoos, but someday I may also take the plunge.

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:55 am

fiddleronvermouth wrote: I used to carry all kinds of coloured bandanas in one or the other of my back pockets. Lord knows what I was telling the world.

(note: url is not family friendly "material", so to speak).

Thanks for that link Fiddler. I always wondered what that stuff meant.
I think I'll make up my own list of signals using different colored socks.

If I'm in England I'll use different coloured socks.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Mon Jul 03, 2006 5:33 am

avanutria wrote:It's interesting that no one's had their eyebrow, nose, lip etc pierced without also having their ears done (based on the poll results). Looks like ears are the gateway drug of the piercing world...

Actually, in my case the first was my eyebrow, then my nose, and only then my ears.

LadyDi · Post by **LadyDi** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:26 pm

I had to choose the disappointingly vague answer of "Something Else."

I have an industrial bar in my left ear, an orbital and a tragus in my right ear, two lobe piercings in each, both nipples display large silver rings, and I used to have five piercings surrounding my navel, all of which have been removed.

For the uninitiated:
Industrial bar: http://www.bmezine.com/pierce/01-ear/A6 ... 296739.jpg

Orbital (the lower one): http://www.bmezine.com/pierce/01-ear/A6 ... 293414.jpg

Tragus: http://www.bmezine.com/pierce/01-ear/A6 ... 292809.jpg

And I'll refrain from posting pictures of nipple rings

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:34 pm

Thanks. That is just so gross I probably won't have an appetite for supper tonight. I can't help it. Piercings just give me the creeps.

djm

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:48 pm

I think that's pretty cool.

LadyDi, there's something funny about your signature line. Where'd you get it.

Tyghress · Post by **Tyghress** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:57 pm

Bloomfield wrote:I think that's pretty cool.

LadyDi, there's something funny about your signature line. Where'd you get it.

From Donald Winnicott, silly! Sez so right there!

LadyDi · Post by **LadyDi** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:15 pm

Right, but Winnicott himself didn't translate the German. A non-native German speaker translated it, hence the "odd" aspect.

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:34 pm

Googling suggest this Winnicott quote:

It is a joy to be hidden, but it is a disaster not to be found.

That "to be hidden" is tricky to translate because it is ambiguous between "being hidden through the efforts of another" and "the state of being concealed." In German, those would be expressed differently.

If the latter is right, here's how I'd render it in German:

Verborgen zu sein ist eine Freude, doch nicht gefunden zu werden eine Katastrophe.

herbivore12 · Post by **herbivore12** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 6:05 pm

LadyDi wrote: I have an industrial bar in my left ear, an orbital and a tragus in my right ear, two lobe piercings in each, both nipples display large silver rings, and I used to have five piercings surrounding my navel, all of which have been removed.

Getting through airport security must have been -- may still be! -- an interesting experience for you.

For the sake of clarity:

Though I no longer wear one, I did have an earring for a while back in my college days. I got it because, while my friends were getting piercings and coming home to horrified parents, my mother looked at me one day and said, "You know, you'd look good with an earring. You should get one!" I told her I'd do it if she paid for it. And she did, so I did, but I removed it fairly quickly -- within a few months -- because I could not stop playing with the thing. Drove me up a tree.

I do, though, have several tattoos, and a couple more in process. Does being pierced thousands of times by a tattooing needle count?

(I had to have an MRI done a while back, and a friend of mine warned me in advance that he'd heard stories of tattoos exploding out of skin, or at least being damaged, during an MRI due to the iron content in tattoo inks. I was skeptical, and asked the MRI tech beforehand. "Oh, bosh!", she said, which was the first time I really heard anyone use that phrase in real life. I liked her immediately. The tattoos didn't explode, by the way.)

Chiff and Fipple Forums

piercings

I have pierced: