My kids went to a non-denominational Christian school for several years. My daughter has a nose piercing now, but she didn’t (it wasn’t allowed, and she didn’t want it then) while attending the school.
I have an earring, and have had it for the last eighteen years or so. Sometimes when I went to school functions, people noticed it, but nobody said anything or treated me any differently. And nobody treated my kids any differently because their father wore an earring. At least that I know of - both my kids are/were socially adept and quite popular. (Consider the eight paragraphs of shameless bragging about my son and daughter as posted - cites available on request.)
As mentioned, there are piercings and piercings. A little stud on one nostril, like my daughter has, is one thing. Looking like you stuck the entire contents of your uncle’s tackle box into your face or you were just initiated into the Ubangi tribe is quite another.
My sister-in-law has a pink Mohawk and is about 80% covered in tattoos, and is a lovely person. I have other relatives without a single tattoo or piercings who are jerks. Go figure.
I’d be willing to bet if you took ALL the ‘bad’ people in the world (or in our culture) the majority of them would be tattoo and nose piercing free just based on the fact that nose piercing and tattoos are still in the minority.
Similarly, I’d bet that if you gathered everyone up that had tattoos or nose piercings, the ones that fit the descriptions mentioned in this thread would be in the overwhelming minority.
Is it just the other parents who may be judgemental that concerns your husband or does he have other issues with you getting a stud? And what repercussions might befall your family because of a choice you made about modifying your own body?
I think nose studs especially the tiny little jeweled ones, can add a little sophistication.
I’m on the east coast with a proper, corporate job in the insurance industry and there are people in my office with all sorts of body art. One woman with a nose stud, several women with wrist tattoos, one guy with full sleeves up each arm, etc. Now all of this is stuff that is small or can be covered up completely and there isn’t anyone here with a septum piercing or anything, but I don’t think a small stud in the nose would even garner a second look.
A lot of people in my extremely large International Development office have them too - and I have substantial (and visible) tattoos on my chest and back. I live on Capitol Hill, which is pretty conservative over all - I have a very challenging professional career in which I work daily with a large range of companies and individuals from all over the world - and my piercings and tattoos have never been a barrier to anything, even when the cultural context is not “east coast US”.
I used to have a nose ring as well, but took it out when it became as common as pierced ears (and when a bad allergy season hit, yuck).
I asked my teenage son how he feels about them and he was “meh” (almost verbatim) - doesn’t even register on his radar.
Reading this thread has made me decide to get my nose pierced. It should be a real time-saver, given that people’s reactions to it seem to be a pretty good indicator of intelligence, and an excellent barometer of who I’d prefer to hang with.
ETA that I live on the east coast, and I don’t know where the hell Yara lives (is Mayberry on the east coast?), but my last job was at a very conservative investment management company, and no one would have looked askance at a tiny nose ring.
East Coast, here, too, and yes, lots of people have small piercings or body art.
Mayhap it’s YOU who need to change your perception. Rebellious? Who are we rebelling against? That says more to me about you, that anything out of yout little box means we are rebellious.
I don’t ask you to like my piercing, or my tattoo. I only ask that you open your mind a little. Neither of them are rebellious. Both of them are culturally significant to me. I live in a country that is predominantly white and Christian and sometimes I feel as though I am being drowned in it, changed every day. I don’t mind this and accept it, but I still bear a nose ring and an Om tattoo to remind me of where I came from.
I will be forever foreign no matter what I do, so what does it matter that I looke a little foreign? It has nothing to do with you.
Honest opinion: It would tend to give me a slightly negative opinion of you from the offset. However if you are a friendly reasonable person it would quickly make up for your fashion mistake.
North Carolina, but I have to think the people of Mayberry would have been accepting of a nose ring. Maybe they would have found it a bit odd at first, but within a half an hour they would have learned who the person is and that there’s more to them then what you see on their face.
I can respect Clothahump’s post: he doesn’t like it and he says so.
But what is your post supposed to indicate? You say you don’t care personally but then say you think it’s “very hideous and unbecoming of a civilized human being”.
Are you saying you’re capable of having that negative an opinion on something you don’t care about? (And if so, what’s your opinion on things you think are important?) Or are you trying to separate yourself from what you’re saying?
In my view, nose piercings are ugly. If I were single, I wouldn’t ask you out if you had a nose piercing.
But as the mom of a kid my kid goes to school with, it wouldn’t cause me any particular worries, no – either about you or about your child. And my son attends Catholic school.
I’m not sure I agree that a condition shared by the majority of humankind can be fairly characterized as a problem, no matter what it is. A problem implies a deviation from the norm.
Ah, the SDMB! Where the hippest, smartest people on the internet hang out and allow themselves to be played like a fiddle by a fourteen year old with emotional problems.
For eight hours, the turd of a post that engendering all this handwringing was given the reception it deserved: it was roundly ignored by everyone. Good thing you went ahead and gave him the satisfaction he clearly craved after all. He was probably getting worried that we had wised up to his act!
I have enough respect for Qin as a fellow poster that I don’t dismiss him for being a teenager. If he says something I disagree with, I’ll call him on it and give him the opportunity to defend what he said.
