 April 14, 1999
Can altering their bodies help Christian GenXers Pierce the Darkness?
___By Laurie Lattimore
___and Greg Warner
___(ABP)--Life is hard. Those who survive should have something to show for the experience.
___How about a nose ring?
___Body piercing--like its cultural cousin, the tattoo--is more than a fashion statement or symbol of rebellion for many
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GENX RITE OF PASSAGE
Body piercing and tattoos give GenXers a way to mark a radical change in their lives in a society that offers no rite of passage to maturity, sociologists say. How should Christians respond?
| young adults. To them it's an indelible testimony that life's meaningful experiences--good, bad and even the religious experiences--should leave their mark.
___"To pierce one's body is to leave a permanent mark of intense physical experience, whether pleasurable or painful," says Tom Beaudoin, author of Virtual Faith, a book analyzing the "irreverent spiritual quest of Generation X."
___GenXers measure life more by meaningful experiences than by achievements or acquisitions. The popularity of piercing and tattooing among these young adults "reflects the centrality of personal and intimate experience in Xers' lives," says Beaudoin, himself a pierced GenX Christian with a theology degree from Harvard.
___Not all GenXers look for the deeper meaning behind their nose rings or belly-button hoops. And many choose not to adopt those markings at all.
___But for many young adults, getting a piercing or tattoo amounts to a "rite of passage" into adulthood that American society does not provide any other way, say Beaudoin and others.
___American society is one of the only cultures not to provide an obvious transition from youth to adulthood, says Michael Murphy, an anthropologist at the University of Alabama. Outside Western society, piercings are one way of marking children as becoming adults after accomplishing certain tasks.
___"In America, kids don't know if they are fish or fowl," Murphy says.
___Piercing, tattooing and other behaviors outside the cultural mainstream allow young adults to create their own culture. "Where they are outsiders in the normal world, they become insiders in their own little world," Murphy says. "Our society is great at proliferating those little
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PIERCING, tattooing and other behaviors outside the cultural mainstream allow young adults to create their own culture, according to anthropologist Michael Murphy of the University of Alabama.
| worlds."
___Susan Holtham, a sociology scholar who has studied body piercing, notes that piercing in primitive cultures is used as a symbol of joining the elite group. In the West, piercing symbolizes separating from the norm.
___Holtham's research found a number of motivations among piercees.
___For some, piercing is a way to symbolize a radical change either in their attitudes, their bodies or their lives. A number of respondents pierced their bodies as a way to denote regaining control of their lives.
___Aesthetics, non-conformity and sexual enhancement were of course among the other answers. Although few respondents said they pierced as a way to "belong," Holtham, herself a piercee, observed that people often arrive at piercing parlors in groups.
___For many GenXers, piercing is a spiritual experience, too. While other generations tend to separate the spiritual and physical dimensions of life, body and soul are inextricably linked for Xers, Beaudoin says.
___Piercing, which is a common way of "marking" a spiritual experience in many religions, becomes a "sacramental" expression for many Christian Xers, Beaudoin says,
___The tattoo on Mike Gray's right wrist has deep spiritual meaning, the 25-year-old says.
___It's a cross adorned with the Chinese script for "servant."
___"I was sitting in the airport in Phoenix reading First Corinthians, how we are servants and slaves to the Lord," he recalls.
___The Scripture moved him so deeply, he says, he got the tattoo to commemorate the experience. The script is in red to represent the blood of Jesus. He chose the location, the wrist, "because of where the nail was driven."
___Beaudoin says GenXers turn to body piercing partly because "religious institutions are unable to provide for deeply marking, profoundly experiential encounters."
___"Institutions that ignore the way Xers need to be marked, religiously branded and body oriented, cannot fully minister to them."
See related story Piercees say 'body art' opens some doors, shuts others
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