• June 21, 2022

Make a hole for me!

There are several ways that humans apply art to the body, these are called Body Art. Body art is done for aesthetics, status, or identity. Some cultures adopt one and criticize the rest, or sometimes adopt a fair part of one and condemn its ‘overuse’. Body art includes piercings (for the purpose of wearing jewelry or other adornments), tattoos, markings, and scarification. I will cover ‘Body Piercing’ in this article.
I still don’t understand the unfair criticism of Body Piercing. We express ourselves in different ways. I come from the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria, a place where virtually all women get their ears pierced, mostly from birth. And in this same society, piercing your nose is considered a sign of rebellion. I think nose piercing is cool, but really, not all of them make sense to me, not even ear piercing. I was at a meeting some time ago and saw a woman probably in her 50s with her ears pierced in about 5 different places each. She adorned her ears with beautiful jewels. She was a beautiful sight, I must confess. But in that same meeting, I could see that some people looked at her with disdain. I don’t know if they were irritated by the fact that it looked ugly or they just felt it was wrong to get their ears pierced in more than one place.
Have you ever heard of the Tainos? It is a beautiful set of indigenous islanders in Colón.

“The islanders were friendly and open to trade with the Spanish sailors. They traded anything for anything: balls of spun cotton, parrots and spears for glass beads, red caps and sailors’ trinkets. Most interesting to explorers, though However, it was the fact that the islanders had small pieces of gold pierced into their noses. In addition, they told Columbus that the inhabitants of other islands wore gold bands around their arms and legs. They also described innumerable islands, all like the The Spanish, believing that they had reached the Indies, soon called all the islanders Indians.” -Microsoft® Encarta® 2009.

This is just to show that a body piercing does not affect a person’s behavior, therefore stereotypes against body piercing are unreasonable and unfounded. The next time you see someone with a body piercing, as unreasonable as it may seem, the worst thing to do is keep your mouth shut.

If you see me with a pierced body, it’s not just the piercing process that hurts, your words pierce me too.

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