2. In what era were the first
ever piercings found?
Ancient Egypt – an ear
piercing was found on a
mummy.
In what year do you think
nose piercing started?
1500BC – found on the
Goddess Lakshmi
according to Hinduism.
3. Lip and tongue piercings
are historically found to
be together. In what
tribes were they first
found in?
African and American –
stretch lips for beauty and
pierce tongue as ritual
symbol.
4. Where in the world do
you think the first nipple
piercing was found?
Italy – sign of masculinity
for Ancient Roman
soldiers.
In what country did
genital piercing originate?
India – sexual
enhancement.
5. Increased popularity of
body piercings (Bone et
al., 2008).
The study was influenced
by Schorzman et al.
(2007) – found females
have more piercings than
males and dominant
motivation is aesthetics,
i.e. like the way it looks.
6. Factors to be considered
were: gender, age, common
motivations, common
anatomical sites for piercings,
and if further piercings were
considered.
There were four hypotheses
together to test each factor.
7. Females will have more piercings than males.
Younger people will have more piercings than older
aged people.
The dominant motivation for body piercings will be
aesthetics.
Individuals with multiple piercings are more likely to
get another piercing.
8. Inclusion criteria:
participants to have
piercings.
50 participants: 39
females, 11 males.
Ages ranged from 18-50+.
Participants recruited from
two body piercing studios.
12. Dominant motivation –
aesthetics.
Individuals with multiple
piercings considered further
piercings.
Most common place for
piercings – ears.
Most common place for
further piercings – ears.
13. Main motivation for further
piercings – aesthetics.
Gender differences.
Individual differences.
14. Findings partially support
Schorzman et al. (2007).
Males had more piercings –
suggests trend is changing.
Looking good is key
motivation – could test for
other motivations.
15. Trend is also changing for age.
In the future, the trend may look like this.
16. Further research could
see motivations for
further piercings.
Gender and individual
differences both
important due to
preferences.
Further research could
test relationship between
piercings and ethnicity.
17. Interesting findings
about prevalence and
motivation of body
piercings.
Body piercers and
doctors – why people
have piercings.
People who didn’t think
about motivations, can
question motivations.
18. I would like to thank the
owners of Blackburn
Piercing Studio and Hex
Piercing for kindly taking
part in the study, as well
as to all the participants
who took part.
20. Bone, A., Ncube, F., Nichols, T., & Noah, N. D. (2008).
Body piercing in England: a survey of piercing at sites
other than earlobe. BMJ: British Medical Journal,
336(7658), 1426-1428. DOI:
10.1136/bmj.39580.497176.25
Schorzman, C. M., Gold, M. A., Downs, J. S., &
Murray, P. J. (2007). Body Art: Attitudes and Practices
Regarding Body Piercing Among Urban
Undergraduates. J Am Osteopath Assoc., 107, 432-
438.
Editor's Notes
Good morning and welcome to my presentation. My name is Rasia Rehman and my presentation is on the prevalence and motivation of body piercings.Before I begin, I would like to ask some questions: How many people have piercings? How many people have piercings other than the earlobe? If anyone has piercings other than the earlobe, is there an element of regret? Right ok, thank you.
Before I begin talking about my project, I would like to tell you about the history of piercings and how the practice evolved and became normalised. To do this, I will ask a series of 5 questions. (CLICK)Firstly, in what era were the first ever piercings found? Ancient Greece/ Ancient Egypt or Ancient Rome? (CLICK)The answer is Ancient Egypt – ear piercings were found on the oldest mummy ever by the name of Otzi the Iceman in Austria. It shows that the practice existed in those times (CLICK) this is a picture of Otzi the Iceman.(CLICK)Secondly, in what year do you think nose piercing started? 1300BC/ 1500 BC or 1700 BC? (CLICK)The answer is 1500BC – According to Hinduism, they were found on the Goddess Lakshmi. (CLICK). This is a picture of the Goddess Lakshmi.
Lip and tongue piercings are historically found to be together. In what tribes were they first found in? Burmese and Australian/ African and American or Indian and Middle Eastern? (CLICK)The answer is African and American – the tribes used to stretch their lips for beauty and pierce their tongues as a ritual symbol (CLICK). These pictures are of the African and Native American tribes, and as you can see, it is still practised today.
Fourthly, where in the world do you think the first nipple piercing was found? Italy/ Africa or America? (CLICK)The answer is Italy – in Ancient Rome, it was a sign of masculinity for the soldiers of Rome. (CLICK)Final question, in what country did genital piercing originate? Britain/ India or China? (CLICK)The answer is India – in Ancient India, it was practiced for sexual enhancement.
Right, so that was the history. On to my project. Before I begin, this is actually a picture of my baby brother. I’m wondering what my mum would be thinking, if this was true. (CLICK)In recent years, there has been a rise in the prevalence and popularity of body piercings in England, as found by Bone et al. (2008) in a survey. The idea for this study came about after I myself had a nose piercing last year. The idea of motivations and body piercings interested me, as I questioned my own motivations. (CLICK)The study was influenced by Schorzman et al. (2007). Schorzman et al. wanted to see the prevalence and motivation of body piercings on undergraduates, as well as the associated risks with body piercings. They devised a questionnaire and found that females have more piercings than males, and that the dominant motivation in getting piercings is aesthetics i.e. like the way it looks.My aim was to see whether the results of Schorzman et al. could be applied to the general population, and not just undergraduates. Hence it was a partial replication, as I did not include questions on health risks.
Read off the slide.
It was a requirement for all participants to have body piercings. (CLICK)Altogether there were 50 participants out of whom 39 were females and 11 were males, (CLICK) and ages ranged from 18-50+. (CLICK)The participants were recruited from 2 body piercings studios: Blackburn Piercing Studio and Hex Piercing.
The key material was the 7-item questionnaire which I created, and the idea for the questions came from the questionnaire of Schorzman et al.The questions were both quantitative and qualitative. An example of a quantitative question is: How many piercings have you got in total on your body? Please write a number in the box below. An example of a qualitative question is: Would you consider getting another piercing? If yes, where and why? If no, why? (CLICK)In order to carry out the study, permission was needed from the studio owners and when permission had been obtained, trained research assistants agreed to collect the data on my behalf. Other materials that were needed were brief, debrief and consent forms. Clear instructions were written to explain which papers the participants kept, and which ones the research assistants kept for me.The reason why I didn’t hand out the questionnaires myself, was because I felt that there would’ve been a bias from the participants, as I felt my presence would have made an impact on the results of this study.I regularly contacted the research assistants via phone to see how the study was progressing. (CLICK)When all of the questionnaires had been completed, they were collected from the research assistants, and thus the data analysis commenced.
It was found that the minimum number of piercings a person had was 2 and (CLICK) the maximum number of piercings was a striking 43! (CLICK)For the first hypothesis, it was found that in fact males had more piercings than females by 1 piercing.
For the number of piercings in the age groups, it was found that age group with the most number of piercings was middle-aged people, i.e. those aged 31-40. Secondly were younger people, aged 18-30, and the group with the least number of piercings were older people. (CLICK)The means plot is an illustration of the results regarding age. As you can see, it shows that there is not much of a difference in the number of piercings between 18-30 and 31-40 year olds. However, individual differences play a big part because it is up to a person to decide how many piercings they want and at what age they want one. People may want piercings later or earlier in life, but this is an indication of the trend in this day and age.
The dominant motivation was in fact aesthetics, as 48 participants gave this as their main motivation. Other common motivations were to feel different, be daring, and for fashionable reasons. (CLICK)Individuals with multiple piercings, did consider further piercings, as 41 participants gave this answer. Females were considering further piercings more than males. (CLICK)It was found that the most common place for current piercings were the ears, followed by the chest area (including nipples) for both genders, but there were gender differences. Females had the tendency to get the nose, belly button and the rest of the body pierced, and for males it was the lips, eyebrows, and genitals. (CLICK)Furthermore, the most common place for further piercings were again the ears. (CLICK)
Once more, the common motivation was aesthetics. (CLICK FOR BOTH POINTS)Again individual differences played a part because it is down to preference and taste, and as aforementioned, it is an indication.
The findings of this study partially support Schorzman et al. (2007), in that the dominant motivation was aesthetics, indicating that looking good is a key factor when considering piercings. (CLICK)However, as Schorzman et al. found females to have more piercings, this study found otherwise, which suggests the trend is changing for males to have more piercings than females. Further research could investigate whether there is indeed a gender difference with regards to piercings, and see whether there could be such piercings as ‘female piercings’ or ‘male piercings’. (CLICK)As it was found that looking good and expressing individuality are key motivations in getting piercings, further research could investigate other motivations, particularly peer pressure, in the form of an interview on the participants who filled in my questionnaires, as in a one-to-one situation, a participant may feel comfortable in disclosing if peer pressure was a factor.
Moreover, it was found that middle-aged people had more piercings than older people (CLICK) as this means plot shows. It suggests that as young people are at the age of experimenting and being adventurous with their body, when a person is middle-aged, they have already experimented and become satisfied with what they have done by trial and error.Another reason why this result was found, might be because they were young when the trend began, which is why they might have the most number of piercings.Further research could see if there is a relationship solely between age and piercings by carrying out a longitudinal study on the middle-aged participants when they are older, see if the trend diminishes and if older people have more or younger people have more. (CLICK)In years to come, the pendulum may swing the other way and the trend may change, thus the result in the future could look like this (CLICK).
The results of this study showed that individuals with multiple piercings did consider further piercings, however, further research could focus on the motivations for further piercings and factors such as addiction; and also the relationship between the number of current piercings predicting further piercings. (CLICK)Gender and individual differences are both important with regards to piercings, due to personal preferences and different personality types. Further research could test the relationship between piercings and personality and see whether they are more common in introverts or extraverts, as well as other personality types, for example the Big 5. (CLICK)As ethnicity was not a testing factor, further research could test the relationship between ethnicity and body piercings, particularly my culture which is Pakistani, culture of the Asian sub-continent, as well as other cultures and ethnicities.The reason why I’m interested in why people get pierced in my culture, is because there are tribes in Pakistan in which piercings are practiced, particularly getting the septum pierced, which is what we would informally call a ‘bull-ring’. (CLICK) This picture is of tribal women in Pakistan with various nose piercings.If I were to carry out this study again, I would test my hypotheses on more participants, to see if the same results would be found, or if there would be any different findings.Another thing I would do would test it on the wider population, especially in places other than body piercing studios, as people in body piercing studios have already come for piercing, so they are likely to get more.I would also like to see the various attitudes individuals have towards piercings and people with piercings, and see whether there are gender and age differences in how people view piercings.Religion and piercings are also interesting, as in some religions, piercings are a part of the religion, for example Hinduism.
This study has given interesting findings about the prevalence and motivation of body piercings. (CLICK)In the practical world, this study can give body piercers an insight as to why individuals get pierced in specific anatomical sites, give doctors an idea why people get piercings with regards to infections, as when looking for literature for my study, I came across a medical article written by doctors, in which the underlying question was “why do individuals get body piercings, if they know that there are potential infections as a consequence?” (CLICK)Furthermore, people who have piercings, but didn’t think about motivations can question their own motivations after examining the results of the study.At the end of the day, what looks good to one person may be unsightly for another, therefore, body decoration or modification, including piercings tattoos, and cosmetic surgery, is very subjective, as these practices are on the increase and becoming normalised.
Thank you very much for your time and patience, I will now open the floor to any questions.
