Personal Narrative: The Body Modifications Of My Body

To begin, the only two body modifications that I have done is pierce my ears and I dyed my hair numerous times. The body modification I will focus specifically on is piercing my ears. I got my ears pierced when I was about two months old. My family has always done this with the girls in our family; they pierce their ears about one or two days after they are born. The reason my family does this is because they believe it will cause extreme pain if they were pierced at a later age because the tissue would not be as soft. Additionally, they believe that having the earrings in at an early age will cause the holes too never close up, since the earrings were inserted at an age where the baby cannot take them off. The reason I had to wait until I was about two months old was because I had to spend about the first month of my life in the hospital due to complications
In addition, my ear piercing communicates to the world that I am a girl, and that I possess
One similarity is that both start at an early age. The scarification ritual beings at the age where the child is done breastfeeding (usually 2, 2.5 years), while the ear piercing in my family begins at one or two days old. Another similarity is the fact that outsiders who are unfamiliar with other cultures, would view both my body modification as well as the scarification ritual as barbaric. They would be horrified to see someone willing inflict pain on a small child. Another similarity is one of the reasons that both are done. The mom of the two year old who undergoes the scarification ritual states that she willing lets her son undergo that pain because it is tradition. Her ancestors would be pleased and they did it as well. Everyone did it in her family. That is similar to my family’s reason to pierce ears so young. It is tradition and everyone in the family has done it as