Is There a Ring
in Your Future?
For many upstanding citizens
(like the author's wife), the answer is yes. Here, the risks
and rewards of bejeweling one's navel.
By
B u z z M c C l a i n
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
You expect 18-year-old pop singers and
impossibly thin supermodels to have pierced bellybuttons.
But you do not expect 38-year-old mothers of two who
volunteer at school, work as executives and live in the
suburbs to do so.
But they're doing it, perhaps in droves.
Many keep it a secret; the beauty of the umbilicus piercing
is that no one needs to know unless you want them to. But
come this spring and summer, when cropped tops and bikinis
reemerge from storage, don't be surprised at whom you'll see
bearing beads in their bellies.
I should know. I'm married to one of those
mothers. And, believe me, she didn't do it on my account.
Not that I'm complaining. Suddenly, after 10 years of
marriage and two kids, I find myself cohabitating with a
woman possessing a pop singer's torso and a refreshed
enthusiasm that reflects how good she feels about her body.
That can't be bad.
By day, my wife, Leslie Ann, is vice
president of public relations for a big food service company
based in Gaithersburg. By night she is a devoted suburban
mom, secretary of our daughter's second grade class and an
amateur antiquer whose idea of a high time is refinishing
beat-up furniture.
But a few months ago she came home from a
New York business trip with a little surprise in the form of
a stainless steel ring and a pewter-colored glass bead where
her bare navel used to be. She did it, in true overachiever
fashion, between business meetings.
Having lost 30 pounds of what smart
husbands call "maternal storage tissue" after the birth of
our son, Luke, Leslie felt svelte enough to show off her
tummy and adorn it with jewelry. She didn't ask me, she did
it for herself. And that, I have recently learned, makes her
very similar in motivation to other women in her demographic
profile all over the country.
"I can't tell you officially there's a
trend because we'd have to be doing the statistics," says
Laurie A. Casas, a Chicago cosmetic surgeon and spokeswoman
for the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, when
asked about belly rings. "But I can tell you anecdotally:
absolutely, not even a question. I've seen in the last two
years a tenfold increase in bellybutton piercing among
patients of mine above the age of 35."
And what's the appeal? "It's beautiful,
they put jewelry in it, it's private, no one needs to see
it, it's a little risky, it's on the edge, it's a little
exciting," she says.
Do any of them add, "And my husband loves
it?"
"Never," she says. "I've never heard that
comment. Educated women tend not to talk about what their
husbands care about; they say, 'I'm my own person and this
is what I like.' "
A Job for Professionals
Casas and others who study the procedure
say a bellybutton piercing is a low risk when done in
sterile conditions and followed up with diligent hygiene.
Casas has drained only one infected navel that went bad
after a piercing. But not all piercings are performed with
single-use, sterile instruments by trained, experienced
piercers. Indeed, many body piercings in various locations
-- including the high-ear rim, nose, lips, labret (the area
right above the chin), neck, genitals and the tongue -- are
performed by amateurs.
My wife went to a professional shop in New
York's East Village, which prides itself on its urban
primitivism. "I'm pretty sure they were drugged out," she
says of the proprietors, "but they were recommended by the
concierge at the [Tony, well-known hotel] and they said they
did [name of post-adolescent pop singer's nipples." Leslie
went through with the deed only after seeing that her
heavily pierced, somewhat high-strung piercer was going to
use single-use equipment in a sterile environment.
It's not that way for everyone.
"If the literature is correct, half the
body piercings done in this country are done by peers rather
than in a professional place," says Dennis Ranalli, senior
associate dean and professor of pediatric dentistry at the
University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine. "Kids
are doing it to each other." Indeed, you can get a piercing
starter kit for $75 off the Internet; it doesn't include
antiseptic but -- good news! -- it does have five "minor
consent forms."
"I have one patient right now who has
self-pierced her eyelids -- not eyebrows -- with safety
pins. There's inflammation and infection there," says
Ranalli, who has studied intra-oral piercing. He has heard
piercing-related horror stories involving Ludwig's angina
(bacterial infection of the mouth tissues so severe it
threatens to cut off the airway) and bacterial endocarditis
(an infection of the tissues of the heart). He says there
has been one report of HIV transmission by piercing, a
tongue piercing resulting in a hypertensive collapse and
another resulting in cephalic tetanus.
"These aren't just localized, 'Oh, my
tongue hurts' kind of things," Ranalli says. "These could be
serious, life-threatening problems. The medical profession
is left treating the consequences of these things that are
done for, quote, body art. So it's a problem." The irony for
Ranalli is that "some of these kids won't go to the dentist
because they're afraid. Meanwhile, you let somebody puncture
your tongue with a large-gauge harpoon . . . . It's
strange."
Worse, once piercing becomes commonplace
among people like, well, Leslie, the trendsetters up the
ante with other forms of body alteration: cutting
(scarification as adornment), branding (searing flesh with
high heat in artistic patterns) and -- please don't eat
during this next sentence -- tongue splitting, in which the
tongue is cleaved nearly in half so as to cause it to fork
like a lizard's. Last month the Air Force specifically
banned this form of body alteration. That fighting force
also prohibited filing teeth (for a vampire appearance) and
implanting objects under the skin (for a 3-D effect).
Piercing, the Truth
Recent aberrations aside, body piercing is
age-old and wide-ranging. Ancient Egyptian royalty pierced
their navels, Roman centurions pierced their nipples and
American Indians used piercing in coming-of-age rituals.
But nothing in history compares with what
happened in 1994 when model Christy Turlington walked the
runway at the London Fashion Show boldly baring a new navel
ring for all to see. The next day Naomi Campbell, apparently
in a case of supermodel envy, made an appearance wearing a
gold navel ring with a pearl fastener. And thus was born a
fashion trend, or so says the legend. Soon after, pop stars
like Madonna, Cher and Janet Jackson were flaunting
abdominal adornments. It's only natural the hip masses were
to follow.
How popular is navel piercing, or piercing
in general? Everyone knows it's on the upswing,
significantly so, but statistics? Forget it. "It would be
impossible," says Bethra Szumski, a piercer of eight years
in Atlanta and the president of the nonprofit Association of
Professional Piercers.
"You'd have to know all the studios and
know the statistics for each one -- you won't get anything
close to an accurate statistic," she says. But, she adds,
business at her shop, Virtue and Vice Body Piercing Inc.,
servicing a clientele across the demographic board, is
booming.
Of course, anytime something becomes
popular, you can count on the government to regulate it, but
in this instance, localities are slow on the uptake. Myrna
Armstrong, a professor of nursing at Texas Tech University
Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, who has written about
piercing since 1995, says there no more than 17 states
regulate the practice. States and some localities are
starting to pay attention, she says, but for now the onus is
on the customer to make sure the piercer is using proper
techniques.
Locally, the District has no regulations
on body piercing; Maryland has "regulations in place to
cover the communicable-diseases aspects of body piercings
and tattooing, but any licensure is not done at the state
level," says John Hammond of the state's Department of
Health and Mental Hygiene. "If there is a complaint issued
about a parlor, the local health department would inspect to
see that proper universal precautions are being practiced."
Neither Montgomery County nor Prince George's County
licenses tattooists or piercers.
Virginia's Board for Barbers and
Cosmetology has until July 1 of next year to develop
regulations for tattooists and body piercers, says Zelda
Dugger, the board administrator. She says they will be
"licensed like beauticians, with training and a board exam."
Until then, it's belly beware.
Sticking With a Winner
Let's go live now to one of Greg Piper's
two Manassas shops, Exposed Temptations, a tastefully
appointed tattoo and piercing emporium that appears more
like a spa than a streetwise tattoo parlor. It's where a
somewhat nervous Fatima Pereira, Piper's girlfriend, is
about to have her bellybutton pierced.
Pereira, an office manager, is 34 and
besides a small tattoo on her back and the traditional
earring holes in her earlobes, she has no other piercings or
body art. Her piercer, one of three full-time piercers Piper
employs (in addition to nine "body artists") is known by all
as Archie, who not only doesn't give his last name but adds,
"Archie isn't even my real first name." He does say he's 26.
He leads us down a hallway and into his
piercing room, which is outfitted in the manner of the
cubicle used by phlebotomists. There's a "sharps" box for
disposing of used needles and contaminated instruments; an
autoclave sterilization machine; a metal table on casters
containing assorted packets of surgical instruments; and an
examining table. With the exception of the chaotic
industrial hip-hop music of the band Mindless Self
Indulgence (lead singer's name: Urine) emerging faintly from
the boom box and the several items of Crucifixion art on the
walls, the room's aura suggests a small-town doctor.
Archie looks anything but. He has several
silver rings in his eyebrows and massive dark ones that
elongate his ear lobes; elaborate tattoos decorate the
visible portion of his body; his head is shaved and his
goatee barely hides his several lip rings. "All my piercings
are self-inflicted," he jokes as he pulls on a pair of
bright blue rubber gloves, "except the tongue." Pereira
relaxes a bit and pulls up her purple top a discreet few
inches, enough for Archie, on bended knee as she stands, to
swab her navel with an antiseptic on a Q-Tip. He then draws
a cross her tummy, using a toothpick and water-soluble
violet ink. This will be his target.
Pereira, who has not said anything to this
point, follows instructions and lies on the padded examining
table. She takes a few deep breaths and focuses on the
ceiling tiles.
Archie uses a pair of Pennington forceps
to clamp the skin of her taut tummy and pull it up half an
inch or so. He uses a 14-gauge hollow needle (think of the
big one they use to deliver intravenous medicine) to make
the incision and follows that with the half-inch curved
stainless steel barbell that will be her navel jewelry. The
hole, and the jewelry, are only on the top of the navel,
beginning just above the "innie" part and emerging just
inside it.
After screwing the lower bead onto the
barbell, which takes the most time of the three-minute
procedure (retail price $65), Pereira's bellybutton is
pierced. There was no blood, no screaming, no pain.
"Fast, like a ninja," Archie says,
snapping off the gloves.
Archie explains to Pereira her aftercare
responsibilities -- "clean it two or three times a day with
antibacterial soap, don't try to change [the ring] for four
to six months" -- and she stands up to examine her new
adornment. "My stomach feels tingly a bit," she says. "It
just felt like I pinched myself. I thought it would be more
painful, but it wasn't any more painful than like when you
have blood taken out."
In his six years as a piercer, Archie has
pierced "every shape and size, and exotic stuff,
below-the-belt stuff." So we ask him: What's the strangest
place he's pierced? When we hear the answer, we're sorry we
asked. Good taste prevents us from saying much more. But
let's just say this: Archie doesn't like doing it, so he
charges $200 for the procedure. And I'd be very surprised if
my wife ever came home from a business trip with one.
© 2003 The Washington
Post Company
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