Paying for pain?

At A Glance Author Anna Contact [email protected]

Think about it: how many times have you walked through a city and seen a man with his arm tattooed? How many little girls have their earlobes shot before they can even rife a bike? How many teenage girls have their navel pierced as soon as they hit an age where peer pressure to do such things sets in? Did you ever consider the reasons behind your piercing, the thought process behind your decision to have a cold needle inserted under your skin? If you had stopped to think about the cause behind the effect, would you have chosen differently? Have you ever heard a middle-aged (or older) person complain about the regret they felt for having their body tattooed, or does it bother you that you boyfriend has his ex's name tattooed above his heart?

Okay, fine, I admit it, I have various piercing and am planning on getting inked, but I still can't help but wonder about the reasons behind it. I know I'm not doing what I'm doing out of peer pressure or "because everyone else has it", I'm truly laying out my money to have needles rammed through me for my own sake, out of my own free will. Why the f*** do I do this?!

I grew up with tattooed and pierced people around me, so I see it as almost natural to 'redesign' your body. My earlobes were pierced at an age I can't even remember, and all my life I've been staring at my mother's tattoo and counting the years until I could get one of my own. As far as I know, my mother got a tattoo because her friend was getting one, too. Is that truly a reason to scar yourself in colour, a brand you'll carry for the rest of your life?

As for my reasons as to my decisions to be pierced and inked, I can only answer that it's addictive. The thrill of having a piece of cold metal come in constant contact with your warm flesh, the buzz of having it done, the huge amounts of money you end up paying for pain...?!

When I revealed my newly pierced, oozing and red ear cartilage to my seventy-something year old grandmother, she gasped and turned away. "How primitive!" she sighed, shocked. Exactly. Primitive. You and me baby, we ain't nothing but mammals...! How is this return to primitive times any different to the primitive urges to hunt, feed, even survive? These are all things we have done since the dawn of time, why should it be any different now?

Although it may be almost an instinct in some of us, in others it's more of a fashion statement. I know people who have pierced their cheek with a safety pin in attempt to pierce what no man has done before, so to speak. It failed. A day after doing so, they bumped into a punk who had BOTH cheeks pierced, plus various other parts of his anatomy which seemed virgin to the piercing 'trend'.

Even despite the fact that tattoos and scarification are no longer considered rites of passage into modern day mainstream Western society, there are still cults, religions and cultural groups who demand exposure to physical pain as proof of worth. Most people don't deliberately ask for pain, and it's apparent that we'll go to all measures to avoid physical pain. Just take a look in any pharmacy: how many different brands and types of painkillers can you count? How many times have you received a shot of Novocain at the dentists'? How many times did you take a tablet for a headache? Physical pain and the voluntary exposure to such are a show of tolerance and resistance, as well as showing of your courage! As soon as you let yourself be seen with a new BM people will ask, did it hurt? and you get to play the hero who isn't afraid of pain.

There are so many different reasons for doing what you are doing to your body, and all I ask of you is to be clear as to why you are doing it. If you want it done, fine, whoohoo, but make sure it's for the right reasons and that you won't regret it. Right, lecture over. ;)

I admit it: piercing is a great experience, in a way it's even a bonding experience with your own body, if you know what I mean. Tattooing is so cool, I already have plans for five inkings of my own. If it's what you really want, it's one of the most beautiful decorations you can wear. And if it hurts, grit your teeth and think of people's reactons afterwards...it really has impact!

"Your body is a canvas. Paint it."

[I don't know who said that, it may have been my art teacher...]