Piercings

Disgusting piercings.

Last week I went Black Friday shopping at the Grand Teton Mall in Idaho Falls, ID. I don’t know much about Idaho, except that it is a conservative state with lots of LDS people and tasty potatoes. But with my limited knowledge of Idahoan culture, I was surprised to see how many people had multiple piercings. It wasn’t just the salespeople in Hot Topic and Zumiez who are basically required to have many piercings, but also the ordinary shoppers (well, not really ordinary, since they were crazy enough to get up at 4am like me) who were roaming around. I told this to Sister Purse (who I was staying with over thanksgiving break) and she speculated that those kids might be trying to rebel against Mormon culture or ward off potential proselytizers. My experience with people who have piercings is fairly limited. I went to a conservative medium-sized high school where most girls wore 2-5 earrings and about 10% of the boys in my senior class had 1-2 earrings. The three most extreme stories I’ve heard about piercings are (1) a girl (who later transferred out of my school) got her belly button pierced to fit in with her older friends, (2) one of my best friends disobeyed her parents to get her nose pierced and she now has 6-7 piercings, and (3) one of my BYU peers pierced her own ear a second time so she now wears 3 piercings. But as I go out of my high school/college bubble I’ve noticed more and more teenagers getting their lips, cheeks, eyebrows, chins, and other places pierced. The mall in IF is not the only place where lots of kids have piercings. There is a mall in Pearl City on Oahu called Pearlridge Mall that is off-limits for Mormon missionaries because it has a bad reputation. I’ve gone to Pearlridge and noticed the prevalence of gang-related symbols, clothing, tattoos, and lots of piercings. Personally, I don’t like piercings and I don’t have my ears pierced. It’s kind of a sick idea when you think about it, mutilating your body to stick a jewel in it. It gets worse with rods and gauges. Anyway, the church has something to say about piercings too. Church leaders say that girls should only wear 1 pair of earrings and that boys shouldn’t wear any. Unfortunately, the trend in society is toward flashiness and piercings. I think that the increase in multiple piercings among young people is a physical manifestation of our society’s moral decline.

photo: healthjockey.com