Body Art and Piercings Jewelry

Piercings have become a mainstream body art adornment in contemporary culture (as have tattoos). Piercing jewelry usually comes in the form of barbells or rings, Not only can one witness a music video featuring pop star moving her hips sensuously revealing a belly ring set with a diamond, but you are likely to see with a waitress with a tongue stud, a construction worker with earrings, university librarians with lip rings, and even traffic cops sporting nose rings, eyebrow barbells, or other piercings.

Historically, piercings have long been a form of in many cultures around the world. A person in the modern world may get a body piercing as a form of self expression, or perhaps to commemorate and important event. Historically, body piercings have long taken place in a number of societies all over the globe.

Piercings Around the World

Australian Aborigine tribes have traditionally acquired body piercings, as have peoples of the Amazon jungle. Piercing of the body to yield jewelry and other adornments has also occurred in cultures of India, Native American nations, the tribes of Chad, and a number of other cultures.Traditionally, adornment with body piercings marked royal status of among the Maya as a part of certain rituals. The ancient Kama Sutra text of India mentions body piercing.

Piercings in Mainstream Contemporary Society

Nowadays, piercings are highly fashionable in contemporary society, and several famous celebrities sport piercings, generating the trend. Naval piercings and eyebrow piercings are very trendy. Nose studs and lip rings are popular too.

The Popular Piercing Spots

Eyebrow rings or pierced ears for multiple earrings are quite tame in comparison to tongue barbells, nipple piercings, or labia piercings and other kinds genital piercings.

The Risks of Piercings

Apart from the potential of picking up hepatitis or other diseases if piercings are done in less-than-sanitary conditions, another of the modern piercings-related phenomenon is the occurrence of piercing-related infections, damage to tooth enamel by the barbell in tongue piercings, and other idiosyncratic piercing-related health concerns

Another consideration is the development of metal allergies, in particular to nickel, a common component of metal jewelry alloys. Women are particularly prone to nickel allergies, a condition that affects around 12 % of the population. The allergy usually manifests itself in mild ways such as skin rashes, but is quite severe in rare cases.

This is especially significant when it comes to piercings. After all, piercings have greater contact with the flesh than regular jewellery. To tackle this health danger of nickel allergies, Europe is phasing out the use of nickel in jewelry, and other countries such as the USA at least require that jewelry containing nickel is labeled as such. Nickel free white gold jewelry for piercings are one innovation to meet this concern.

Piercings in Modern Times

If practiced responsibly with regards to one’s health, piercings may garner a lot of attention and may even be shocking, yet are really just a harmless another form of self-expression -- body art. The resurgence and escalating popularity of this practice may baffling, and many people speculate on what it signifies.

Piercings are seen as self mutilation by some, while others view it as body art and self expression, displaying piercings jewellery and ornaments. Whatever the case may be, piercings have been practiced by a multitude of cultures around the world since time immemorial, and acquiring a piercing in modern times is the continuation of a long-time human tradition.

Lifestyle

In sociology a lifestyle is the way a person lives. This includes patterns of social relations, consumption, entertainment, and dress. A lifestyle typically also reflects an individual's attitudes, values or worldview.

Having a specific "lifestyle" means engaging in a characteristic bundle of behaviors that makes sense to both others and the self in different times and places. Therefore, a lifestyle can be used to forge a sense of self identity and to create cultural symbols for the way a person is. The behaviors and practices within lifestyles are a mixture of habits, conventional ways of doing things, and reasoned actions.

In business, "lifestyles" provide a means of targeting consumers as advertisers and marketers endeavor to match consumer aspirations with products. Lifestyles refer to patterns in which people live, spend time and money. These patterns reflect by demographical factors (the habits, attitudes, tastes, moral standards, economic level and so on) that together constitute the mode of living of an individual or group); that include things such as the individual’s activities in addition to their interests. As a construct that helps consumers interact with their worlds, lifestyles are a subject to change every time. Consumer behaviour research uses lifestyle data to determine which consumers by products.

In environment, "lifestyles" are often associated with particular footprint. Green lifestyles are those lifestyles that consume less of the planets resources then other types of lifestyles.

The term "lifestyle" first appeared in 1939. Alvin Toffler predicted an explosion of lifestyles ("subcults") as diversity increases in post-industrial societies. Pre-modern societies did not require a term approaching sub-culture or "lifestyle", as different ways of living were expressed as entirely different cultures, religions, ethnicities or by an oppressed minority racial group. As such the minority culture was always seen as alien or other. "Lifestyles", by comparison, are accepted or partially accepted differences within the majority culture or group. This tolerance of differentiation within a majority culture seems to be associated with modernity and capitalism.

Within anarchism, lifestylism is a belief that by changing one's own personal lifestyle, and by retreating from class struggle, an anarchist society can be formed.

The term "the lifestyle" can also mean what is more commonly called swinging. This term was first used in the early 1970s by ClubWideWorld, a swing club in Anaheim, California, for advertisements in the Los Angeles Free Press. "The Lifestyle" was a more inclusive and acceptable term for swinging. People in "the lifestyle" most commonly are a couple; often a married couple. They meet other like-minded couples or occasionally singles through various websites, private/ public clubs, and on tours to lifestyles friendly resorts, to engage in sexual acts/ activities. Not all lifestyle activities are sexual, as they may also meet to educate, support, or help others who are in "the lifestyle".
The term lifestyle in politics is a reflection of the modern liberal idea that society ought to accept a variety of different ways of life, and hold people to no values other than those necessary to preserve the rights of others. This implies a rejection of the idea that our actions are to be judged against some standard of religious belief or faithfulness to tradition.