Why So Many Gen-X Women Are Getting Piercings

After years (okay, five decades) of not really liking the placement of my ear lobe piercings — I stopped wearing hoops long ago, because I felt they highlighted the piercings’ asymmetry — I decided to have them redone. When I mentioned as much to my daughter, who is wise in the ways of piercings and tattoos, she said, “Don’t go to a kiosk in a shopping mall. Those aren’t piercers, they’re salespeople with a pressure gun. Go to a tattoo parlor.”

So that’s how I met Mac Jones, a professional body piercer at Bethesda Tattoo in Bethesda, Maryland. I’ve been an accompanying-friend at a couple of tattoo parlors, and have found them to be positive, accepting spaces. Mac struck me as a calm, low-key person, who obviously enjoyed his work. But the anxiety of sitting in a dentist’s chair, waiting to have this stranger stab holes into my flesh, upped my nervous-chatter level. I channeled my chatter into questions, which he graciously answered.

I started with mentioning my age (61), certain that having a middle-ager in his chair was an anomaly. Turns out I was far from unique! Roughly a third of his clients are middle-aged; his oldest was a 96-year-old mom with her 72-year-old daughter who got matching nose piercings as a bonding experience.

Mac sees 15 to 25 people per day, five days a week. Back-of-the-napkin math means that he’s piercing 30+ middle-agers each week. And he’s one person in one studio, so I’m thinking that there’s a whole lotta piercing going on out there.

I asked Mac why he thinks so many folks of a certain age come to get pierced. He said that people come to him asking how to address scars, or channels that closed over time, or, like me, to fix old piercings. And the majority of his clients want what are at this point pretty standard requests: ear lobe, helix (high on the outside of the ear), or nostril.

But Mac sees piercings as more than a fashion statement. He sees them as a means of self-expression, allowing people to adorn their body to show not only who they are, but also who they want to be. I found the latter part of that sentence fascinating.

Walking in a tattoo parlor’s door is a statement in its own right. As their websites make clear, studios will not pierce anyone who has been drinking or appears to be under the influence of drugs. So, building up the courage to get pierced can take time.

“Going to get pierced is scary,” Mac says. “You know it’s going to hurt.” That’s part of why showing up, sitting in that chair, can feel like a milestone. “It’s a commitment to getting something that hurts — forcing yourself to stub toe — you’re choosing to do something that hurts. You’re counting on yourself to face the pain, and to be fine.”

But to many of his clients, the satisfaction of conquering fear is only one piece of what empowers people to endure the pain of piercings. “Many clients use piercing to reclaim parts of their bodies, following trauma,” he said. “I have a lot of clients who have told me they suffered sexual abuse. Parts of their bodies were objectified. Taken away from them. Used by other people. Piercing can be a way of staking a claim on your own body. You couldn’t take control of the moment when you got abused, but you can take control moment you get pierced.”