Becky was willing to help. We didn’t exactly research it but had heard that if you used ice for numbing and used a needle sterilized by a match flame, it wasn’t that hard to pierce an earlobe. We were first-year medical students, but that hadn’t enhanced our expertise. It took more time, wasn’t as easy, and was more painful than I had bargained for, but in the end, there were gold hoop earrings hanging from my ears.
A local brewery named itself “Bad Tattoo”, a good description of far too many skin decorations.
Pierced ears were not so common in suburban Maryland, and I was sure my mother would not have approved. Maybe they were cheap or tawdry or somehow disreputable in her world. She wore screw-back earrings all her life.
I didn’t imagine that I would be piercing babies’ earlobes a few years later. The mothers were mostly from Mexico, and it was traditional for the baby girls, so they came to our community health center asking for assistance. If we didn’t do it, they would find another way, so we bought ear-piercing kits that had a spring-loaded mechanism to shoot the stud quickly through the lobe. Happier smiles on the moms than the babies, but it was fast and worked well.
As the millenium drew nearer, tattoos and piercings became much more common. Apart from the obvious multiple earrings climbing up the rim of the ears and the nose rings or studs, I started to see more of them in the exam room. Say “aah”—a tongue piercing. Nose and lip and eyebrow studs and rings. Breast exam with nipple rings. Many navel piercings. No genital piercings, but certainly they existed in some populations in the area. I always tried to accept whatever I saw without comment and simply carry on, unless there were a sign of infection. Although I did notice.
And the tattoos—on sacral areas, buttocks, inner thighs and of course arms and legs. Whatever. I now live near a beach and the panoply of tattoos is stunning. While I can appreciate a planned-out Maori-inspired geometric design or a floral “sleeve”, far too many people have what appear to be random and oddly-placed tattoos scattered across limbs or unfortunately on necks or faces. A local brewery named itself “Bad Tattoo”, a good description of far too many skin decorations, in my opinion. Of course they all fade and spread over time, and blue blotched skin in the elderly is now common.
Has the trend shifted? I think it is possible that some young people are rebelling and getting fewer tattoos and piercings, though not giving up the idea entirely. In Oakland, the community health center stopped offering ear piercings for babies years ago for administrative reasons but started a free tattoo-removal service at the teen clinic. In that case, many of the tattoos were “bad” because they were gang markings and the kids wanted to move onward, so it was important. It is not so easy to remove a tattoo, even with the laser tools required, and it can take multiple sessions. My good friend John was a pediatrician who volunteered many Saturdays in his later years doing tattoo removal for the kids he had previously helped to vaccinate and grow up healthy. He said it was rewarding to know he was still doing what he could to make their lives better.
Khati Hendry
Thanx Khati for your story, I’m glad your clinic was there to treat the infections after bad tattooing, and there to safely pierce those babies ‘ little ears!
I can think of few in my generation with tattoos, but ink and piercings are now so commonplace among the kids of my cousins and friends. And in the high school where I taught many students had nose rings and pierced tongues.
Now thinking back I remember my mother – like yours – wore screw-on earrings. After wearing them all day they’d start to pinch and she’d raise her hands to her ears and pull them off. How I’d love to see her make that familiar gesture once again!
Given the ancient history of tattoos and piercings (even Otsi the iceman had tattoos), I suspect body art won’t go away soon, at least in some cultures. But it may go out of fashion. I hadn’t thought of those screw back earrings for a long time but, like you, it brought back memories that those little details seem to do so well. Sad but happy little treasures.
Yes Khati and you now have me thinking of writing more about my mom and her earrings!
I look forward to that!
As has often been the case, Khati, we share another artifact of our cultural development — pierced ears. Adding the tequila to our communal solstice ear-piercing bashes was probably useless for pain reduction, but it did enhance the party atmosphere. And…
Agreed. I find it annoying and emblematic when I see some poor joker with randomly placed dumb-ass images scattered across an expanse of skin, as if an elephant had sneezed on the hapless individual with no sense of spatial relationship. I find that most randomly placed images land on the hides of random people, in the most modern sense of the word “random,”… dude.
Glad you could relate to the DIY ear piercing—we didn’t include the Tequila and probably a good thing given the shaky quality of the piercing as it was. You are eloquent in your description of the elephant-sneeze tattoo phenomenon. I have to admit to being pretty judgey when I see those poor folks, but try to remember we can all be clueless—it is particularly unfortunate to have the evidence permanently displayed however.
I love the fact that you had a DIY ear piercing when you were a medical student. That seems ironic, somehow. I had mine pierced by my doctor father in his medical office.
Thanks for all your observations from a doctor’s point of view about both piercings and tattoos. Interesting what you got to see in the exam room. I don’t think the trend is going away any time soon. I see more and more people with entire sleeves – many of them with small children, and I wonder what the kids think about it
I agree that tattoos aren’t disappearing, but it wouldn’t be surprising if at least some kids would be less interested just because their parents have them. But they will find something else to drive their parents crazy.