Soul Purpose

2001

Heavy Metal - Sticking bits of metal through your skin has been an icon of indie chic for the past decade. Soul Purpose asked four metallers to tell their body piercing tales. It's back, but is it bad?

Job: Student & musician . Major piercing: Tongue

Tell us about your piercings:
The first time I got my tongue pierced I was 14. I was in town with some friends and just did it for a joke. It was great, it was practically painless. I got a second piercing in my tongue when I was 15. I was a presenter on a cable TV show and we were doing it for a story. The woman was really nervous, and her hand was shaking, so she pierced it crooked and it pierced through the web under my tongue. I was in agony. It still hadn't healed after a couple of months, so I took it out.
I don't really think of it as a fashion statement cos I've had it so long. When I take it out I feel kinda funny without it.

Some people say body piercing is a sexual thing.what do you think?
I think it depends on the person. Obviously for me it wasn't, I was only 14 and was doing it on a whim. But I do know some friends of mine from school, who got their nipples pierced a couple of months ago, and that was a sexual thing for them. I was with them at the time, but - apart from the fact that it would be gross - I think that as a Christian it would be inappropriate. I believe sexual purity is a direction you're heading in, and getting a piercing like that seems like a step in the wrong direction.

So, what about God. How does being a Christian affect your attitude to piercing?
I did a bit of study on what God's Word says about piercing. I actually found this verse in Exodus 21 which says that a Hebrew slave is allowed to go free after seven years. But if the servant says 'I love my master and do not want to go free', then the master and servant go together, and the master pierces the servant's ear with an awl, and that binds them together for life. I just thought that was a really nice picture of our relationship with God.

Do you think piercing can be wrong?
It depends on your reasons for getting it done. The New Testament talks about Christian freedom - everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. Piercings could be like that - it's about not becoming enslaved to anything apart from God.