Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 25, 1994 TAG: 9410250062
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTOPHER HENSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"It's kind of like a thrill," he says with a clack, as the tiny metal barbell hits his teeth. He won't use his last name for this story.
Call it a revolution, or just revolting, body piercing has become the trend du jour with young people. In Roanoke you can't walk through the mall without seeing a teen with rings through his or her eyebrows or lips. Shocking to many people at first - like some sort of self-mutilation or barbarism - the possession of a piercing is but mere fashion these days.
Magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin recently have done stories on the vogue of perforation. The clothing industry also has worked hard to create piercing - the Style - with high-paid supermodels sporting the look on runways. From Madonna to comedian Margaret Cho, rings have sprouted in the sexiest celebrity belly-buttons like silver hoops of lint. And piercings are to alternative rock bands like Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers what flannel shirts and tattoos were a few years ago.
But there's nothing new about body piercing. Nipple rings helped secure the capes of centurions of the Roman empire. Nipple piercing was also common among society girls of Victorian England. A pierced navel was a sign of nobility in Ancient Egypt. And nose perforations were widespread among South American Indians.
Today, says Jason, piercing has two very different attitudes. Fad piercing is simply ornamental. "It's all an interest, I guess," says Jason. "For some it's like, 'I tried that once.'''
The underground culture of tattoos, shocking hair and loud music "involves the hard-core stuff," he says.
"It's really addictive," says Flanders Gore, 18, a Longwood College student. "Once my navel was pierced I couldn't really stop." She now has two rings in her belly-button, surrounded by a tribal tattoo, and a ring in her nose.
And for yet others, piercing is a decent way to make a living.
"I've got more business than I can handle right now," says Barry Webster. "The Yellow Pages wanted me to do an ad." But you won't find his name there. "I want to stay underground," he says.
The thick and edgy music of Nine Inch Nails plays over the stereo. In his office at Ancient Art Tattoo on 220 South, Webster is repairing a bad piercing job a young woman chanced at the beach.
"I get a lot of that," he says. "They take a dare and get the belly-buttons done because it's cheap. Two weeks later they're infected, and they wind up here." He replaces the cheap ring with one made of surgical stainless steel and tells the young woman to keep it clean. She suppresses an "ow!" on her way out.
A common problem is that navel piercings are usually done with a piercing gun or a sewing needle followed with a ring better suited for ear lobes. The skin sometimes is torn when the ring becomes attached to clothing.
Webster, 22, considers himself a professional. He's been piercing since junior high school. "I've done lots of research," he says. "I've learned about the right equipment, keep everything sterile."
People come from all over, most often from colleges like Virginia Tech, Radford, even Liberty University, to get pierced. At a recent party in Radford Webster did about 15 piercings in one night. Mostly noses, eyebrows, navels. He averaged about $40 a hole.
"When I first started you didn't hear too much about piercing,'' says Webster. ``Now it's kind of more mainstream. And it's not just the kids. I've done doctors, nurses, lawyers ... weird places, too."
Webster says the hard part is making the piercee feel comfortable before the needle. "I'll let them pick out some music to listen to, it calms them down. I tell them exactly what I'm going to do."
The procedure itself is fairly quick - 15 minutes including preparations. After sterilizing the area and getting the person in position the actual piercing takes closer to five minutes. Forceps are used to squeeze the points of entry and exit closely together. A tubular needle creates the hole, followed by the jewelry, usually a ring with a ball on it, a stud or a barbell.
Webster uses an autoclave to sterilize his instruments, something he says not enough piercers do. "It's one of the things you want to look for if you're going to get it done."
Healing time varies depending on the pierce - normally it takes two weeks to two months. Webster gives each new piercee a set of care instructions.
Marlee Richardson, a waitress at Awful Arthur's restaurant on the Roanoke City Market, had her tongue pierced by Webster. She says it didn't hurt at all. The only discomfort occurred when the piece became caught between her teeth and tore at her tongue.
A tongue piercing involves pulling the tongue out and holding it still while a bar-bell shaped piece of jewelry is fed through. While this is one of me more delicate insertions it has become fairly common.
With angst possibly today's most common teen emotion, an extra hole in the head or torso may be just another way of saying "you don't understand me."
While parents of experimenting teens may worry about the fad they can take comfort in the fact that it is just that, says Dr. Armando Favazza, professor of psychiatry at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
"As a group, body piercers who go beyond the ears and nose are probably more psychologically troubled than the average population,'' Favazza says, ``but they wouldn't necessarily meet a diagnosis of mental illness."
The real concern is when a person practices self-mutilation. "When they get piercing done by a professional, they're doing it for fun or sometimes as a sort of healing ritual," Dr. Favazza says. "When people pierce or otherwise mutilate themselves in private, chances are that person is in need of or will be in need of help."
Jason says that few people get to the point "where they step into the freak stage, or whatever you want to call it." He says he became intrigued after seeing other people pierced in person and in magazines.
He doesn't believe it's the pain that attracts him. "It's kind of like the whole procedure," he says. But, "one time Barry was doing [a piercing on me] and he actually said, 'You really do like this part, don't you?' I was sitting in the chair and I had a smile on my face.''
Has he hit the freak stage? "Probably," he says.
Gore plans to take the ring out of her nose when she graduates and starts looking for a job in physical therapy. "The others will be easier to hide," she says. "But, I mean, this is my last chance to live it up."
Memo: ***CORRECTION***