At times when traveling via public transit, cringing becomes a necessity. The problem is not the vulgar language or the high-volume cell phone conversations. These are so ubiquitous as to have virtually no effect. Even the shrieks of children and the stench of perspiration rarely perturb me now. No, my issue rests with those people who step onto the train seemingly unaware that they have a gaping hole in their ear. It disturbs me.
I can understand the desire to pierce, though it is an affliction I’ve never suffered from personally. I find earring appealing—I enjoy the idea of having some changeable, potentially symbolic jewelry that doesn’t necessarily announce itself, simply sits subtly in one’s earlobe tastefully hidden behind hair. I would never allow a sharp piece of metal to puncture my skin so that these delicate decorations would have a place to rest, but I can understand why an individual who places more import on physical beauty than I do might put themselves through such an ordeal. An earring, after all, is somewhat desirable. An ear hole has no such redeeming merits.
On my first viewing of such a voluntary distortion, my initial thought was to wonder what form of surgery the unfortunate victim had been subject to, that they were now bereft of a portion of their anatomy. Realizing, however, that the individual, a young, physically fit male, had no apparent medical condition, I understood that the inch-wide plastic hoop surrounded by stretched skin was in fact an adornment of his own choosing. The object held a certain fascination for me, though at the same time I was somewhat repulsed by the sight of the unnaturally distended flesh of the young man’s lobe. A pencil, I meditated, could be passed through said opening without ever coming into contact with plastic or flesh. The ring would make an ideal handle were the youth ever subject to movement by coercion. Worse yet, the young man might travel through a heavily wooded area and find himself abruptly held up, some osier or twig having hooked his ear, suspending his progress. As my mind pursued ever more extreme paths, I forced myself to avert my gaze rather than open a pathway for similarly distressing scenarios to manifest themselves in my head. Those hideously stretched lobes, however, continued to draw my eyes until the inflicted individual disembarked the train.
Inflicted, I say, because this man, like many others, was nothing more than a victim of cultural fad. Fortunately for the health and respectability of all our young men and women, the perceived attractiveness associated with this form of mutilation is going down, and fewer of our youth are deceived by popular culture into subjecting themselves to this form of physical punishment. I am confident that in the future our descendants will look back on this time as one riddled with misconceptions of beauty, false ideals that led the young of our nation down many disturbing and twisted paths.
Gauges are definitely a fad, but they are a fad of body modification, which is outside of normal society and is why most people who do it, do it. They want to set themselves apart from everyone else. I suppose one could say it is a fad of a subculture. Gauges have been around for a long, long while. They may have tribal significance in certain cultures, but in ours they belong to that odd "body modification" group. I will say it's kind of unfair to call it mutilation, because mutilation is such a subjective term. One could argue that even a minor ear lobe piercing is body mutilation, because one is voluntarily hurting themselves. I think that any voluntary body modification is only ever referred to as mutilation by people who do not care for it. I also think that your conclusion " . . . false ideals that led the young of our nation down many disturbing and twisted paths" is a bit unfair, and probably overstated. Yes, there are some people with ridiculously HUGE gauges such as those you could fit a fist through. However, I think it is incredibly harsh to decry all body modification as "disturbing and twisted" when people who modify are doing it because they believe it is who they are; their body modification is part of their identity, and if they are doing everything of their own volition, it is disrespectful to say they are mutilating themselves.
ReplyDeleteI think that people who get gauges as part of a "fad" are more likely to go with the smallest gauge, which is small enough that, if removed after only a few years, the whole will close a bit and look like a slightly-larger-than-average piercing hole. I've known people who got gauges because they thought they were cool(and even talked a few out of getting them in the first place). They got them because it was popular, but they stayed with the smallest size, and most removed the gauges by the end of high school.
I guess I just wish you had acknowledged that not all body modification (be that any way a person chooses to alter their physical appearance) is bad.
I completely agree with you. Gauges are mostly for significance of the personality of an individual. Some people do it also because they want to represent there favorite music genre.
DeleteLike myself I love any type of core music in rock.
Oh My Gosh! I almost wrote about this SAME thing!! I feel exactly as you do. Why? Why on earth would someone do that to their innocent little lobes?!
ReplyDeleteI think your choice of language is superb. It has a scientific quality about it - "the unnaturally distended flesh" in particular. It also reads as if you're examining this phenomenon while observing and reacting to it all at the same time. It exudes a sense of wonder about the subject and in turn, makes me think about this topic long after I'm done reading.
I really like this; and agree totally with Kelly about the scientific language used. It really forces me to look at the subject in a new and interesting light.
ReplyDeleteI also really like where you talk about the potential hazards of ear holes, such as getting stuck on a branch. That was a positively hilarious visual.