Like a lot of people, my reasons for getting an eyebrow piercing were intensely personal to me. Was it something to do with taking control over my body after emotional trauma? Perhaps. Was it related to enhancing self esteem? Of course. Was it an empowering decision I wanted to make for the sheer joy of embellishing my body and making it my own work of art? No doubt.
At A Glance Author Rhapsody on a windy night Contact Rhapsody on a windy [email protected] IAM Rhapsody on a windy night When A month ago Artist Young piercer Studio In2Skin Location Manchester, England, UK Unfortunately, now there is a member of my family that won't even talk to me: my mother. The intensity of her anger and sadness over this piercing has left me reeling, and at first I could scarcely believe how extreme her reaction was.
Allow me to set the scene: I hadn't seen my family in a little while, because everyone's jobs, university careers and so on not did not diverge in the same place. A little family reunion was planned, and it was a couple of weeks prior to this that I had my eyebrow done.
I'd thought about this piercing for a long time, and finally the timing seemed, from a health point of view, good: I was in a sound state of mind and body and I'd be spending the next week emptying my old apartment (which meant I wouldn't really be going out, therefore not wearing make-up, drinking alcohol or doing anything else that might aggravate a fresh eyebrow piercing in its delicate first stages). I had it done at In2Skin in Manchester, who had done a decent job on my navel already, and it was titanium-adorned that I travelled happily to spend a week shuffling boxes around my soon-to-be-empty flat.
When the family reunion came around, I was so preoccupied with meeting everyone that I wasn't even thinking about the eyebrow piercing, until the inevitable but pretty nonchalant comments came. My cousin said, "Oh you've had your eyebrow done, cool..." before changing the subject to whichever flavour-of-the-month heavy metal band he wanted to tell me about. "Ooh, luvvie, I bet that hurt!" said my Aunt. "Funny, woman at my office just had her navel pierced!" said her boyfriend. So far, so humdrum; they're mostly an open-minded bunch, and the conversation drifted to other more pertinent things.
However, I'd noticed my mother hadn't said a word to me after her initial "I asked you not to do that." I had called upon her advice regarding aftercare in the past (she's a microbiologist) so she was well-aware that an eyebrow piercing was on the agenda. I knew she wasn't overjoyed with the idea, but her vehemence shocked me, and irritated me a little: yes, you asked me not to do it; but why would that affect me modifying my body for my own reasons? She continued to ignore me for the next few days, and although I had a suspicion it was about the piercing, I couldn't quite bring myself to believe that my sane, rational, intelligent and family-oriented mother would blank her daughter because of a piercing she already knew I was going to get. She was well-aware of my navel piercing, and had merely rolled her eyes and sulked for half an hour. Her coldness this time was surreal, and bitingly hurtful, especially as it became more and more clear that she was ignoring me and a cting in a warm, empathetic way with every other member of the family.
Still in denial, I took my father to one side and ask him about it: was she troubled by something at work, was she sleep deprived, anything but the eyebrow! Dad grudgingly admitted that it was about the piercing, and (clearly not wanting to be disloyal to his wife) said he thought she was overreacting but he understood where she was coming from. Apparently, my piercing was interpreted as a personal slight, a gesture of defiance and rebellion, considering my mother had asked me not to get it done. Furthermore, my timing was allegedly "incredibly insensitive", given my exposure to relatives who just "aren't ready for this sort of thing".
Now, it enrages me past thought that anyone, least of all my own mother, could think I would modify my body permanently just to piss her off. I mean, come on now, I'm out of the irrational, bitchy teenage years and (until recently) enjoyed a relatively functional relationship with my mother. There is no baseless teenage angst because I'm forming an identity I feel comfortable with, and I'm more or less on the path I want to be. Everyone has problems and I'm no exception, but I'm not a quivering fifteen-year-old basket case who is trying to symbolically break free of parental constraints. I've worked in a foreign country for the past year, and you can't get further from parental shackles than that.
As for timing, it is clearly not the older relatives of the family that are the problem. For example, when I showed my navel piercing to my 84 year old grandmother, her only dismay was that I had surgical steel jewellery which was "not very pretty". Grandma reccommended I have it replaced with gold because it looks more feminine!
Evidently the problem is solely, blatantly and undeniably with my mother. I continued to attempt to make conversation with her, asking her if she wanted a drink, or help with her bags, acting as I do normally, but she wouldn't budge and continued to respond laconically, or sometimes not at all. She literally hasn't looked me in the eye since she saw me with the piercing, and that breaks my heart. When I spoke to her on the phone the day before she saw me, we had a good gossip and talked like friends. How could a good relationship have vaporised because of a small change I effect to my own body?
I almost began to regret this piercing, but when I glimpse it in a mirror, it looks right. This experience hasn't made me more determined to continue with my modifications, and it hasn't deterred me either. My motivations for modifying myself have always been intensely personal: I am not trying to prove anything to anyone, I'm not making a statement about anything. People read different things and make varied assumptions about people with piercings, but I'd exhaust myself if I spent my time worrying about that. All I want to do is follow my own vocation, because I'd drive myself insane if I worried obsessively about the rest of the world's perception of my appearance. This is one area of my life which is purely for me: my own aesthetic choices and my own fulfilment. I don't feel selfish for not taking others into account when I modify my body, because it's my temple, no one else's.
I am, however, gruesomely aware of one side-effect that isn't in BME Risks: Irretrievable loss of family member.