Tattoos, unlike piercings, are permanent and people who do not intend on having a tattoo on their body for the rest of their existence should think harder before they go through with the process. There are options for covering up these tattoos, such as high grade makeup. "Ever since tattoos became trendy and popular, and more people are getting them without understanding the long term repercussions, we've been receiving calls from people asking how to cover tattoos", says Patricia Saito-Lewe, vice president of sales and marketing for Ben Nye Makeup (Tesoriero, 2003). Other methods of covering up unwanted tattoos include expensive laser surgery, or getting another tattoo over the top of the old one to make it look like something new. Many of the people who have tattoos also have a piercing somewhere on their bodies. Piercing is a very popular form of body modification in many places around the world.
Piercing ranks as one of the oldest forms of body modification. Indian tribes were said to have used needles and eagle claws to poke holes into their bodies. These painful piercings were done as a right of passage for many of these tribes (Mason, 2003), and also some South American and African tribes as well. .
People with body piercings are also looked at differently by various societies. A long time ago, in America, women and pirates were the only people thought to have piercings, mainly in their ears. In today's times, it's likely to see people of all races, genders, social classes, and ages having their body pierced. .
One of the major things that has changed is where Americans are getting pierced. The location of a person's piercing may have the largest effect on society because of stereotyping. In the 80's, men with earrings in their right ear were thought to be gay, but now it's not uncommon for any men, straight or gay, to have both ears pierced. If a woman bears a tongue ring, many Americans assume she has some type of sexual fetish or they are easy.
