Pain

Pain is obviously a subject which cannot but help to feature in a discussion on body piercing. The concept of pain is a highly subjective one and as such any comments about it have to be considered bearing this in mind. While I am aware that there are those who find piercing utterly painless, and indeed those who find it so painful that they have, at the most extreme, lost consciousness, I can only accurately comment on my own experiences.

I initially used anaesthetic for some piercings such as the nipples and navel but recently have found myself, more through circumstance than choice, going without. In my experience the piercing of the flesh causes an intense sensation which, while most easily associated with pain, is not painful. Such a feeling cannot be described using available vocabulary, sufficient to say it is a sensation which, in part, drives me to acquire more piercings in order to experience it, and thus understand it , better. This experience, which other people I have talked to also seem to have experienced, seems important to those people who find piercing a mystic or spiritual experience. The 'pain' is often instrumental in the entering of altered states, this use of intense sensation, can be seen repeated in the rites of numerous people but possibly none are as spectacular as the spears of Siva ceremonies in India. (See Juno and Vale 1989).

It is in part, this aspect of pain which makes piercing so ideally suited as a rite of passage. Indeed it has been stated that pain is an essential part of any rite of passage throughout cross-cultural ethnographic literature (Myers 1992). In its ritual context the importance of pain is, for some, to show the ability to endure hardship. In most people I have talked to, however, those who actively sought the sensations associated with piercing did so for two reasons. Firstly they wished to accept, understand and learn from the sensations, this is a difficult concept to explain but Catlin's description of men participating in the O-Kee-Pa ritual goes some way towards explaining the attitude of calm acceptance, rather than displaying bravado, which is sought.

During this painful operation (piercing of the flesh with a serrated knife), most of these young men, as they took their positions to be operated upon, observing me taking notes, beckoned me to look them in the face, and sat, without the apparent change of muscle, smiling at me whilst the knife was passing through their flesh, the ripping sound of which, and the trickling of blood over their clay covered bodies and limbs, filled my eyes with irresistible tears. (Catlin 1967 p 63)

The emphasis here is that the experience was to be accepted not played upon for the benefit of others.

The second reason for courting potentially painful or extreme sensations is in order to try to reach altered states of consciousness. Whilst contemporary body piercing is too brief an experience to achieve this, many people feel they have been given an awareness of the possibilities and continue to use body piercing to educate them towards acceptance of other practices which might develop such altered states. It should also be noted that the experience of having a piercing naturally involves the release of endorphins and as such the addictive qualities of piercing should not be underrated.