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The body as feminist ground Feminism, across all its waves and internal debates, has consistently returned to one core question: who controls a woman's body? Everything else, political rights, economic access, cultural representation, reproductive freedom, follows from and reinforces the answer to that question. Body modifications, including piercings, sit inside this question because they involve deliberate choice about what to do with one's own body, often in ways that are visible to others. This guide traces how piercings have functioned within different waves of feminist thought and practice, examines specific piercings that carry particular feminist weight, and considers what it...

The century that wasn't as prudish as reputation suggests Victorian Britain has an enduring cultural reputation for extreme sexual repression, physical modesty, and horror at any suggestion of the body. Piano legs were supposedly covered to avoid indecency; mention of pregnancy was avoided in polite company; the word 'trousers' was too suggestive for genteel conversation. This reputation is partly accurate for the public middle-class and lower-middle-class culture of the period. It is substantially misleading when applied to Victorian aristocratic and upper-class culture, which operated by different rules and included practices that would surprise anyone whose Victorian image comes from Charles...

Why so many cultures mark growing up with a piercing Nearly every human culture, throughout recorded history, has developed some kind of ritual to mark the transition from childhood to adulthood. The specific practices differ enormously (initiation ceremonies, first hunts, religious confirmations, coming-out balls, driving tests) but the underlying function is remarkably consistent: to publicly acknowledge that a young person has crossed a threshold and now occupies a different social position. What was previously appropriate for a child (dependence, exemption from adult responsibility, protection from adult knowledge) is no longer, and what was previously withheld from a child (autonomy, participation,...

The body as feminist ground Feminism, across all its waves and internal debates, has consistently returned to one core question: who controls a woman's body? Everything else, political rights, economic access, cultural representation, reproductive freedom, follows from and reinforces the answer to that question. Body modifications, including piercings, sit inside this question because they involve deliberate choice about what to do with one's own body, often in ways that are visible to others. This guide traces how piercings have functioned within different waves of feminist thought and practice, examines specific piercings that carry particular feminist weight, and considers what it...