Body piercing a form of self-expression, generational unity

WARNING: The following sentence is not for the squeamish. Read with caution.

My best friend had a hole in his face. Not the kind of hole you're born with. Not the kind of hole you'd get in a fist fight or an accident. This was a carefully engineered new hole with no obvious function. And in this hole sat a small diamond, winking at me.

"What the hell is THAT?" said I, hands still dripping with the skin softening bubbles of my dish washing liquid.

"LIKE it? It looks awesome!" said I. And suddenly I was the one who was experiencing a revelation. A very dear friend had gone on a whim and spent a hefty sum of money to have someone put a hole in his face. And what's more, I really liked it!

This is definitely a bizarre societal turn of events, if you ask me. I think back to our grandparents. The wildest thing their children ever did was grow their hair. Oooo. Step back and let the revolutionaries come through. A very mild bunch, if you don't count the massive drug use and rampant sexual promiscuity. (I would however like to state for the record, that this generation also uses sex and drugs to cause their parents to shake their heads in dismay. The piercing thing is way above and beyond. Ha-ha, Baby Boomers!) No parent or grandparent could ever have imagined the new ways we would devise to upset them.

I remember when I came home with the first of a few unnatural additions to my body. This was well before I came to State College, and at the time, I was still living in my mother's house in King of Prussia. One balmy summer night, I returned from a visit to South Street in Philadelphia (for those of you who don't know it, South Street is the place where the elite meet to commit atrocities of coolness to one another). I walked through the door with a queer look in my eye and an even queerer kink in my step. These phenomena were caused by the waist of my jeans rubbing against a newly perforated navel and the ecstasy of rebellion. Anyway, I walked through the door and my mother was waiting for me in the kitchen. Our eyes locked.

"So, which one is it?" she asked.

"I have no idea to what you are referring, mother," I responded coyly.

"Piercing or tattoo?" she responded with a perfectly even tone. I had to smile. She was good. I raised my shirt and she stared forth in an interesting mixture of wonder and revulsion.

"At least it's not a tattoo," she shrugged. Then she proceeded to get a glass of water and go to bed. That night sort of defined our relationship from then on, although I think she was kind of gloating when it got infected a month later. The tattoo the following year went over a little less smoothly, but I'll save that for another column.

But enough about my personal drama and back to the point. Of course, these trends are not solely about parental alienation. They represent the physical manifestation of the unity of Generation X. If you are walking down College Avenue and you see a person wearing a ring in his or her nose, navel, eyebrow, the little piece of skin between the nostrils, under the bottom lip or any other nontraditional body area, you can get a sense of that person's personality. For me, piercings and tattoos are a unique method of self-expression; an interesting way to demonstrate who you are. And for the record, I think they are pretty sexy when used correctly. (And in moderation. If you have more than a dozen, my little pin cushions, I think you need to re-evaluate life. Maybe find the lord.)

Joel was happy that I liked his new addition, even though, on an ironic note, the piercing fell out a week later while he was cleaning it. I guess he wasn't meant to represent Generation X. And I guess that's probably just as well.