Being a Teenager and Self-Piercing

I grew up in America and there seemed to be an age where everyone was poking themselves left and right. When I was younger, it was all about bellybuttons and earlobes. I think most needle-pierced earlobes come out alright (better than the gun) but all those teenage bellybutton rings were disastrous . As we got older, we’d dare each other to do more wacky stuff like liprings. Anyway, a couple years ago in a psychology course, I remember a discussion about how most cultures have a “coming of age” ritual for yougsters that generally comes at the age of 13-16. We read about walkabouts, ceremonial piercings and tattoos, bar mitzvahs … etc. And I was thinking, maybe we have self-piercing in our culture as a coming of age thing too. It has some of the same elements as other cultures. It’s daring, slightly traumatizing, exciting, sometimes permanent changes. The only thing missing is that the adults in our culture don’t guide the teens through it. Anyway, just food for thought.

PS – I think teenagers piercings themselves or their friends is generally a pretty stupid thing to do, but it still happens. I don’t condone it.

PSS – Another thing to think about is the originators of piercings, which I assume are tribal nations. I’m sure they basically self pierced or pierced each other as there were no professionals in those days.