Barbells and Body Piercing

Piercing the nose, the ear, the lip, the eye  and various body parts has become a national pastime in masochism and display of fearlessness.  It is not only a cultural sensation but also a pure form of art and artistic expression.  

With roots in modern american culture drawing back to the punk rock movement of the seventies where savage mohawks and an occaisional piercing clearly marked a person as a rebel or outsider.   As people grew more tolerant more radical forms of expression arose.  The traditions of body art are as old as mankind and are still practiced by some of the most primitive and advanced cultures on the planet.

Piercing Traditions

Tribal Ceremonies

Piercing itself has a long tradition, from tribal ceremonies where bones, sticks, stones, sharp quills and other ornaments were placed through the skin to mark a persons progress as a warrior or tribe member.    This practice was pretty much contained to remote aboriginal areas until fairly recently.

Interestingly, in early american culture piercing began subtly, with low gauge steel silver and gold earrings worn by women.   More recently barbells began to appear in navals and other interesting locations on the female body.    When men took to piercing they took to it with a vengeance.   Where women kept their piercings generally concealed, or at most in fairly remote parts of the face, men began placing high gauge steel barbells into their jaws, skulls, through their arms and took it to  a new extreme.

In 1980 if you were seen with an eye piercing you were considered quite shocking, but now tattoo and piercing shops are a regular feature in America as well as many other places in the world.  Stainless steel has proven to be a popular choice in piercing, and is measured in gauge.   A 00 gage barbell is markedly different in effect than a giant  18 gauge piercing that runs the length of the jaw.

Piercing Technology

Various advances in piercing technology have made piercing both more popular and more sanitary.   Steam sanitizers make sure that bacteria is not on the steel and present as a contaminant.  

Designers have taken many different approaches from barbells to highly stylized gauge steel rods with decorative features.

Body Piercing Prices

The price of body piercing procedures, for the most part, are fairly inexpensive.  If you want more artistic work such as tattooing the prices increase. 

Major bodily modifications may require the services of a surgeon or dental professional.  When you have advanced work done expect to pay for the expertise of the surgical practioner, just as you would with any other medical procedure.  A lot.  Finding a medical professional willing to accomodate more extravagent requests such as tongue splitting or radical body reconfiguration may be a challenge in itself.  License requirements vary on a state by state and region by region basis, but in many cases legal requirements will insist on you finding a practitioner who is a licensed surgeon.