In the article “Body piercing, tattooing, self-esteem, and body investment in adolescent girls”, by: Lynne Carroll and Roxanne Anderson, the talked about girls with tattoos and piercings and how a lot of them get them to change themselves or even help their self esteem. In the article they talk about another author called “Sweetman” he explains the reason some girls get tattoos on and piercings on their body, he said that tattoos and piercing’s emanate from inner self sense of self and try to change themselves in order to be likes, he also said says that they permit ones to record ones history on their body. The article also talks about explanations for body modifications, it says one gives people ownership and control over their body and life and culture and the other reason is it helps identify and affiliate with a group. In the overall study that was conducted for this article they took 79 adolescent girls from the ages 15-18 with parent consent, they took the girls that were part of the at risk programs at their high schools. They tool 35 European American, 30 African American, 4 Multiracial, 2 Asian American, 1 Native American, and 1 self-classified as “other” and 6 did not report their ethnicity. They focused on the topics of self-esteem, Body image, Depression, and anger. 34 of the participants reported that they had tattoos and piercing on parts of their bodies other than their ear lobes. They reported for piercings that 29 people had them 9 had their tongues, 9 had their navels, 6 pierced their nose, 3 pierced above their eyebrows and 2 said on other parts of their bodies. For tattoos 16 people reported having them 5 people said on their legs, 4 said stomach, 3 said arms, 2 said breasts, 1 said shoulder and 1 said hand. The participants were also asked the reasons why they got their tattoos and piercings 13 said they wanted it, 6 said it was the style, 4 said it was cute, 1 said it was fun. The overall findings in the test they did between tattoos and piercings were there was a negative association found between the number of piercings and tattoos and the feeling sub-scale, basically means the greater the number of body modifications the more negative feelings toward the body.

After reading this article I know it was talking about female adolescence but thinking from a guys perspective I feel like tattoos do make people or guys feel a little better about them selves and give them that little bit of swagger look. I know for me personally I got tattoos to help identify myself and to help sort of tell a story of my life through art work and tattoos, not all people think about things like this and about how tattoos can help you self esteem or just help you feel good about yourself. I really wonder if some people with tattoos look back at their experience and life and not so much regret getting them but actually feel worse about them selves. I would love to hear people’s opinions and thoughts on if they think tattoos and piercings could affect people’s self-esteem.

http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/sociology/docview/195946753/FAFA2A97DF3B4ED4PQ/8?accountid=14729