Piercing

Metal ring or small object, usually made of steel, used particularly at the end of the 1990s to decorate and embellish various parts of the body: a sort of extreme evolution of the use of earrings. However the practice of piercing is more than just a matter of decoration; it is part of a real current of thinking above all amongst adolescents, but also young adults. The philosophy behind it is to communicate one’s unease and disapproval of society, in part by referring back to primitive and tribal customs. In this way the body becomes a means of communication, and piercings give out different messages depending on their size, shape and where they are on the body, in the same way as an item of clothing. The practice of piercing can be included in the series of body modifications defined as technomutations. These include tattoos, scarification, and branding (the latest development being people branding their name or a number onto their arm.) Technomutations as a whole represent the search for a unique personality outside the norms proposed and imposed by society. They are a violent response to plastic surgery and body building, which aim to sculpt the body to perfection and erase all defects. By “disfiguring” themselves with these technomutations, people want to present an unpolished, imperfect type of identity, where beauty comes from diversity. Added to this, particularly for piercing, is the desire to awaken an untamed sexuality able to unite the masculine and feminine sides found in each individual: in fact it is no longer just the ears, eyebrows, lips, navel, and nipples that are pierced (they are considered as purely fashion phenomena belonging to the initial phase of the piercing trend), but also the most sensitive parts of both men’s and women’s genitalia: from rings through the clitoris, vulva or outer lips, to scrotal piercings and the Prince Albert, a piercing through the man’s urethra which tradition claims was used in Victorian England to hold the penis between the legs so as to avoid showing any bulges in one’s pants. The many different types of piercing have been documented in a book about technomutations which has now become a cult object: Manual to make of yourself what you wish, by Bodhipat A-rà. It includes oddities like the fact that the nose, lips and eyebrows are the parts of the body preferred for piercing by young people aged 18 to 25. The tongue, nipple, navel and genitalia on the other hand are favored by adults aged 25 to 40, who are motivated by sexual gratification rather than aesthetics. Genital piercing is very common within the US gay community and amongst heterosexuals, mostly women, in Italy.