Piercing pros and inking cons

Some people love to be painfully poked and prodded – all in the name of body art.

I haven’t… Some people love to be painfully poked and prodded – all in the name of body art.

I haven’t yet decided if I am one of these people, perhaps because it took me until the age of 16 to get my first piercing. However, when I did finally go under the needle, I skipped right past the traditional earlobe and right to the navel. The following year, I had my ears pierced. I know, I am one wild child.

I stopped there, partly because of one of my best high school friends. As a child, she had her ears pierced and only rarely wore earrings. Nevertheless, both of her earlobes split as though her earrings pulled right through her skin. As a result, her lobes are split permanently – unless she gets plastic surgery to correct it. Not too big of a deal, right?

Until she got her belly button pierced and it did the same thing. Her body rejects piercing. I kind of wanted her to get her tongue pierced just to see what would happen.

There’s also an unfortunate stigma that seems to go along with body piercing and tattoos that makes me hesitant to dive right into body art. If you’ve seen “Wedding Crashers,” you’ll know the lead characters refer to a lower-back tattoo on a female as a “bull’s-eye.”

A friend of mine who dresses very conservatively was bending over to get something out of the fridge at a party once, when a guy caught a glimpse of the flower tattoo on her lower back. He asked if it was real, and she joked that she had drawn it on with marker that morning. He came back with, “Good, because otherwise I’d have to call you a slut.” I thought it took a bit more than a little body ink to classify someone so harshly.

Of course, there are people who go crazy in all aspects of body art. Take 32-year-old Kam Ma for example. About.com reported that just last week he beat his own world record of non-stop piercing in a single session without any anesthetic. His previous record was 600, and this time the aim was for a whopping 3,000 rings. However, his body went into shock at 1,015. That’s an average of three piercings per minute for about nine hours straight. What kind of job permits him to be so heavily pierced? Ma is a hairdresser.

While piercing is prevalent in the record-beating world, tattoos are all the rage in reality television. Not one, but two reality shows about the art have recently debuted on TLC and A’E. “Miami Ink” is obviously set in Florida, while “Inked” is centered in Las Vegas. An article in Tattoos reads that key terms for “tattoo” have been searched more than key terms related to porn in the last few years.

Recently, I’ve been pondering the idea of getting inked myself. I’ve ruled out the lower back because of its popularity, along with any other area of my body that would be exposed in a wedding gown or business suit. I take these things into consideration. This leaves few options, and I’m not certain I would ever like someone getting up close and personal with needles and ink in those areas.

I also don’t know what I would get permanently drawn onto my body. I don’t want to be the 80-year-old Grandma with the teeny-bopper tattoo. A girl I didn’t much like in high school had a ring of dolphins around her belly button. I like to imagine her post-pregnancy, stretched out tattoo resembling more of a ring of whales.

The most important aspect of taking the leap into body art is doing it safely. Make sure you’ve done your research on the establishment. They must use sterile tools, and you have to do your part in follow-up care to prevent infection. Choose an artist who makes you comfortable. Trust me, it helps a lot if they can put you at ease.

So, I guess the only question that remains is “to ink and pierce, or not to ink and pierce?” It’s all about personal preference.

Give Jessica a poke at JP32@pitt.edu.