Jun-27-2011, 06:04 PM (UTC)
My words may have been ill-chosen. I did not mean to imply that people who pierce necessarily suffer from mental illness. Allow me to make a comparison: automutilation.
Back in high school, a girl in my class actually turned out to engage in automutilation. Her younger brother was going to die and she couldn't deal with it. Not being able to express her grief, she cut herself with razorblades.
Obviously, piercing is not as extreme. But nobody goes through life unscathed, even if not everybody experiences events as traumatic as one's child brother dying. I often suspect that piercing might in many cases be a subconscious manifestation of inner pain.
(About that girl who hangs from meat hooks... I am sorry, but that does not sound healthy to me.)
As for earrings... I knew someone was going to bring it up. While I don't have the strong feelings about earrings that I have about other forms of modification, I don't truly understand it. I think the only reason I don't revile it as much is because it has been socially accepted for far longer. Earrings can be pretty, though. Piercings tend to be unattractive nubs of metal.
Also: split penis? That sounds like the most horrible thing ever to me. I get queasy just thinking about it.
All in all, I do want to stress that although I have my theories about what drives people to pierce, I am still very interested in hearing those reasons from piercers themselves. If anything, I have learned in recent years to become more tolerant of other lifestyles. It is not my place to impose my views on people, even if I think their behavior is not quite right.
(There are limits of course. I once saw an item on television about tonguesplitting. Many owners of tattoo / piercing shops refuse to perform that operation, because the chances of botching it are very high, leaving the "victim" without control of their tongue.)
Back in high school, a girl in my class actually turned out to engage in automutilation. Her younger brother was going to die and she couldn't deal with it. Not being able to express her grief, she cut herself with razorblades.
Obviously, piercing is not as extreme. But nobody goes through life unscathed, even if not everybody experiences events as traumatic as one's child brother dying. I often suspect that piercing might in many cases be a subconscious manifestation of inner pain.
(About that girl who hangs from meat hooks... I am sorry, but that does not sound healthy to me.)
As for earrings... I knew someone was going to bring it up. While I don't have the strong feelings about earrings that I have about other forms of modification, I don't truly understand it. I think the only reason I don't revile it as much is because it has been socially accepted for far longer. Earrings can be pretty, though. Piercings tend to be unattractive nubs of metal.
Also: split penis? That sounds like the most horrible thing ever to me. I get queasy just thinking about it.
All in all, I do want to stress that although I have my theories about what drives people to pierce, I am still very interested in hearing those reasons from piercers themselves. If anything, I have learned in recent years to become more tolerant of other lifestyles. It is not my place to impose my views on people, even if I think their behavior is not quite right.
(There are limits of course. I once saw an item on television about tonguesplitting. Many owners of tattoo / piercing shops refuse to perform that operation, because the chances of botching it are very high, leaving the "victim" without control of their tongue.)
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