At A Glance Author jinc Contact jinc@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Steve Studio Tattoo styles Location Johannesburg Piercing is an incredibly personal experience. The jolt of pain from the instant the needle-tip brushes against your skin - the nanosecond before it goes in... Your body is tingling and heart pounding with adrenaline. There is only you and your body in that bubble of sensation.
As the piercer begins to push steadily through your body, the sensation intensifies and clarifies. It becomes a sweet, bitter, hard, soft energy. Your mind is pulled back into your body and you know that you are truly alive. You can feel everything every nerve in your body is telling you. For that moment, your mind cannot be anywhere else. It is commanded to be present in the pain.
Piercing is an awakening. To the uniqueness and resilience of our bodies, and the adjustments and alterations we capable of making, literally, in our small worlds. It is power.
It is also a cleansing. A beginning. A ritual.
This may seem like a lot of talk, but I have made it, in my mind, more than a simple hole. This was to be my 10th piercing. My piercing history briefly: 6 surface bars on my back (a 12 month corset), a 1.6mm septum (7 months) and two 4mm lobes (2 months).
My background as a medical student meant that any exposed piercing (especially in HIV ridden South Africa) was taking a serious health risk. This, as well as the fact that marks are awarded by the doctors and professors on "professional" appearance while in the hospital doing ward work.
Deciding to do this piercing was not a show of rebellion. I knew I couldn't fight the system... But I could disregard it, and foolishly hope I could sustain my simple right to do with my body what I wished.
The piercing also symbolized the frustration I feel towards a system that clones and classifies us (doctors), regardless of our individuality.
Who would you entrust with your life: a surgeon who appeared conservatively groomed and dressed, or one with metal in her face, and tattoos and scars down her arm? "Doctor" is an icon. A steadfast beacon signifying safety and wellbeing. Scandals involving doctors become fast-selling headlines in our papers. But living up to other people's superficial ideals and pressures simply goes against my grain.
I was also born in a conservative family and community. Becoming pierced has changed the way i think about people. I've had learn to chop down the assumptions and principles I've been pumped full of from every source and nurture my own thoughts and ideas by myself. For this, I am grateful for the experience of piercing.
The experience:
Anyway, I set out to be an individual (yes, just like everyone else) and decided on a vertical labret off center on my lower lip. (Not outrageous, I know.) At the time I was struggling with depression and hoped it would perk me up, so I walked out of work early one Saturday and went to a shop – "Tattoo Styles" - down the corridor and chatted to the piercer there, Steve.
Steve then set to marking my lip. I looked in the mirror and knew that he'd misunderstood me. I re-explained myself, and he started to mark me again. As he was doing this he also explained that vertical labrets worked for a while, but eventually all rejected. Lip piercings were not easy to do because the facial muscles pulled the skin apart from different angles and the skin would be in constant motion around the piercing.
We chatted and worked around my ideas. Most of which he explained would reject quickly owing to the curve my lip made or the inherent flawed placement I'd suggested. Eventually I was left staring at him speechless and saddened. I had run out of ideas and wasn't prepared to blindly go for something that would quickly fade into the memory of a scar in about 18 months or so,in his experience. After psyching myself up for the experience, it looked like I was going to walk away with nothing... Bummer.
Suddenly Steve's blank expression changed. He got up and started penning on his idea. He marked it out and told me to take a look in the mirror. It certainly looked different placed on the borderline between my skin and lip, along the midline of my face. I decided to give it a bash.
Out came the curved barbell, needles and stuff. He then asked me to lie down on his piercing bed. He clamped my lower lip and adjusted my lip in the clamp. He reached over and grabbed the needle and then inserted the needle... I just about shat myself.
I closed my eyes as i lived every inch of the needle flowing through me. The jewellery slipped in immediately after, and then I sat up.
He asked how much it had hurt. I said it was worse than a septum piercing (for those who don't know, a septum is widely regarded as the Queen of painful piercings). It felt like the layers of muscle and tissue in my face were being ripped apart – layer by layer. I couldn't see straight after he was done - or maybe i 'd sat up too quick...
Anyway, I hobbled over to the mirror and looked. My first thought: "What have I done?!!" It looked so weird. Made my fat lower lip look even fatter. I didn't know what to say... 'Thanks, now take that goddamn thing out?'.
Funny enough, the more I looked at it the more it became my normal. A different, odd looking piercing but perfect and unique in itself. Steve was chuffed with himself – I could tell despite his reserved manner. I know I'd read somewhere that piercers and tattoo artists love a free hand at work - break from the norm. A challenge of their skill instead of the usual earlobe and navel... and I guess this did it for Steve that day. :-)
He took a snap for his portfolio, and even went to the trouble of finding me loose change for the parking ticket machine. Then he asked me call him up anytime I wanted to do anything else unusual.
I smiled... and winced.
The epilogue:
I managed to keep it hidden from my examiners and professors in my previous block of study – by using a stupid plaster over it.
An Aside: I swear that the first thing I will do when I qualify is to create plasters for brown skinned people – those pink, "flesh colored" things look, frankly, dumb on dark skin. So watch for that in about 2 year's time.
My face looked distorted... but anything for my piercing, right?
The experience certainly helped my depression and I got through my internal medicine exam. On Monday this week, I entered a new block - obstetrics. The doctors in my unit were curious about this massive plaster on my lip and asked to see what was beneath. I ripped the irritating, sticky thing off and braced myself for their criticism and spite... They just shrugged and said they were cool with it, I didn't really need to cover it up.
So, with great joy I am pleased to announce that there are few doctors out there who aren't prejudiced and stupid about issues of self expression, body modification and freedom. Yay! I know that there are numerous, self-righteous articles by so called "respected" and "experienced" doctors that insult people with mods with disdain. I'm glad to be surrounded by professionals who have more sense than some of those antiquated, unimportant people.
As far as my health goes, as long as I have a protective mask or shield on in theatre, my piercing is safe, I am safe, and the world is a good place to live in again...