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Beyond Ear Lobes THE ART OF BODY PIERCING BY JENNIFER NELSON © Copyright 1999 by Parents' Press Corbis photo, all rights reserved Some teens choose piercing as a statement of rebellion against parental values, while others are merely exhibiting a personal preference. Joy Reeves' daughter Regina took calculus during junior year at her Midwestern high school and got an "A" the first semester. "Wow!" Joy told her. "I ought to buy you a car." "Actually, Mom," Regina replied, "I'd rather have my navel pierced." Joy was stunned. "I can't really say I was against it," she recalls, "except that I never personally felt the need to buck the system as strongly as Regina does when I was young." Joy did allow the navel piercing. Now, four years later, Regina attends Mills College in Oakland and still wears her navel ring. She assures her mom that she is the most normal-looking girl in her college dorm room. On the Rise More and more parents are finding themselves faced with similar dilemmas. Based on nationwide anecdotal evidence, body piercing ­ eyebrows, nose, tongue, chin, navel, and genitals ­ is on the rise among teenagers. Piercing is not new. "There have been people doing these piercings for hundreds or thousands of years," says John, who self-pierced his genitalia more than a decade ago, and prefers to not use his last name. "Certain tribes in Africa and North America were doing piercing long ago, as well as European sailors and carnival performers." Today, however it is teens and young adults drawn to the piercing frenzy in droves. In some cases they are dangerously piercing themselves in order to wear the shiny body adornments so craved by their generation. At age 24, John, who lived in Colorado, self-pierced his penis, in what is referred to as an Ampallang piercing (horizontally through the head of the penis). By his own admission, he says the piercing was risky and he was foolish to do it himself. "My piercing bled a lot, and I fainted not long after I did it," he says. Luckily he had two friends with him who helped to revive him. "It's hard to say why I did this," says John. "I guess it was a kind of rite of passage for myself." He had heard that the piercing would intensify sexual pleasure for both partners, but acknowledges that he and his girlfriend at the time didn't notice much difference. Self-piercing, unfortunately, is more prevalent today than ever. Although it carries with it risks of self-mutilation, infection, and serious complications, teens often have a cavalier attitude toward piercing their own body parts. "It's a developmental issue. They think they are invulnerable," says Lynn E. Ponton, M.D., a child and adolescent psychiatrist. "They take risks because they think, 'Nothing bad can happen to me.'" A professor at UC San Francisco, Ponton is the author of The Romance of Risk: Why Teenagers Do the Things They Do (Basic Books, 1997). A sense of thrill or risk-taking can make self-piercing seem like an acceptable adventure, similar to the thrills of bungee jumping or drag racing in teens of previous generations. It may also seem like the only alternative to teens whose parents won't give permission for a piercing. next > you got pierced WHERE?