Dear Dr. Jeff: "I've been thinking about getting my nose pierced. Are there any health concerns I need to be worried about?"-L.S.C.

Dear L.S.C.: People have pierced and worn charms in their ears for over 4,000 years. A hundred thousand years ago, our Neanderthal ancestors used ochre and manganese "crayons" to decorate their bodies. And I think it's fair to point out that a great many Bowdoin belly buttons sport rings!

The current popularity of body art has raised some public health concerns over the danger of contracting Hepatitis B or C or HIV from infected piercing and tattooing needles. People with tattoos, for instance, are nine times more likely to be infected with Hepatitis C, a virus that can survive outside the body for months-on an improperly cleaned countertop, chair, or piece of equipment.

Very few of the many thousands of piercing and tattooing studios nationwide are licensed and regulated by health departments.

We are indeed fortunate in Maine that all piercing and tattoo artists are licensed and their studios are inspected by the Health Engineering Division of the State Bureau of Health.

Even licensed studios and artists, however, carry potential risks and need to be chosen carefully. Make sure they are in fact licensed and that they appear clean and well-maintained. Take a look at their autoclave ("sterilizer"). It should be FDA-approved and spore-tested monthly. Ask to see their log books. Make sure the artists wear latex gloves during procedures and use single-service materials and equipment, especially sterile, disposable needles. They should be comfortable answering all of your questions and considerate of your concerns.

Body piercing should be done with needles, not with a gun. piercing guns cannot be properly sterilized and cause more tissue trauma than needles. Choose jewelry of the proper metal, design, size, and thickness. It should be made of 316L or LVM surgical stainless steel, 14- or 18-karat solid gold, titanium, or niobium. jewelry that's too thin can tear out and can cause an abscess or excessive scarring if too thick.

For a piercing to heal well, it must be cleaned and cared for properly and consistently. Professional piercers will supply detailed instructions. At the Health Center, we also have informational handouts on caring for body piercings and tattoos. During the normal healing period, piercings will be irritated and may bleed at times. Redness or swelling that extends out more than a quarter-inch, red streaks, yellow or green discharge and excessive pain or heat at the jewelry piercing site, are all signs of a more significant infection that should be promptly evaluated by a health care provider. Belly buttons and upper ears are the piercing sites that most frequently become infected.

Both piercing and tattoos ought to be considered permanent in the sense that both can cause scarring upon removal. Tattoos are removed using lasers, which vaporize pigment colors. Although effective and low risk, laser treatment is painful, expensive, and drawn out. Though unlikely, side effects of treatment include possibly permanent loss or excess of skin color, infection, and scarring.

For what it's worth, in a recent survey of tattooed military men, half saw their body art as a handicap and wished they could erase their tattoos. It is likely that 20 years from now, your tattoo or piercing will look quite different on your more mature body. Henna tattoos might be an appealing alternative. They usually last about six weeks, don't involve piercing the skin with needles, and carry no significant health risks.

studorgs.bowdoin.edu

Jerry Mitchell believes that if a person is old enough to fight in a war, he should be able to get "Mother" tattooed on his chest.

However, if a person is under the age of 18, he'll have to bring along the real thing to enter a tattoo parlor.

That's the gist of legislation introduced by Mitchell, a Republican from Sterling. The bill passed the House on April 2 by a vote of 103-13. It now moves to the Senate.

The bill changes the legal age to get a tattoo from 21 to 18. The new law would bring tattooing in line with body piercing, which is prohibited without parental consent for anyone under 18.

The second part of the bill prohibits an owner or employee of a business from permitting people under the age of 18 to enter a tattoo parlor unless they're accompanied by a parent. Violation of the law would be a Class A misdemeanor. Also, tattooing or body piercing a person under 18 would be a Class A misdemeanor.

According to Mitchell, he first considered sponsoring such a bill after hearing from the Sterling and Rock Falls police departments that they had been receiving complaints from parents about kids hanging around tattoo parlors.

Mitchell said he received much support for the law from tattoo parlor owners.

"For the most part, those around the state liked the law," Mitchell said. He went on to say that there was no opposition to it in the House.

"One tattoo parlor owner from Chicago told me he would probably lose some money from the loss of jewelry sales," Mitchell said, "but the ability to tattoo 18- to 21-year-olds will make up for it."

Not all tattoo parlor owners, though, support Mitchell's bill. Some opposition comes from his own district.



Shannon and Heidi Scalise have operated Fine Line Body Art in Sterling for five years. Shannon, who has been in the tattooing business for 13 years, estimated they do 20-30 body piercings and 20-plus tattoos a week.

Though he agrees with lowering the age for tattooing, saying it prevents people from going "underground," Shannon disagreed with placing an age limit on who can enter his business.

"A girl who's 16 can't come in here and buy jewelry for her mother's birthday," he said. "That ain't right. They're future customers."

The Scalises refuted the notion that their business was a hangout for underage kids.

"You hear stories how kids are hanging out in tattoo parlors, then coming home using bad language," Heidi said. "That's a home issue. That's not a law's problem."

Though there is no minimum age for body piercings with parental permission, Shannon said he has a personal cutoff age of 14. People younger than that, he continued, are often too immature for such a procedure.

Heidi believes negative stereotypes hurt tattoo parlors. Politicians, she said, often think of them in terms of bikers and drugs.

"The problem is, (tattoo parlors) are classified in the adult entertainment category," Heidi said, "the strip clubs, the adult book stores. That's not right. There's nothing dirty about it."

"We're not selling pornography or cigarettes," Shannon added.

Heidi sees many problems connected with checking ages. With many kids living with only one parent now or having a different name than a mother, she thinks it might be difficult to determine if the adult accompanying a teenager is the real parent.

"Come on now," Heidi said. "We're falling into the area of the unreal."

www.saukvalley.com

Body piercing is so 1990s. From Holland comes the newest thing, pierced eyeballs.

Body piercing and tattoos make way. The latest fashion trend to hit the Netherlands is eyeball jewellery.

Dutch eye surgeons have implanted tiny pieces of jewellery called "JewelEye" in the mucous membrane of the eyes of six women and one man in cosmetic surgery pioneered by an ophthalmic surgery research and development institute in Rotterdam.

The procedure involves inserting a 3.5 mm (0.13 inch) wide piece of specially developed jewellery -- the range includes a glittering half-moon or heart -- into the eye's mucous membrane under local anaesthetic at a cost of 500 to 1,000 euros ($1,232).

"In my view it is a little more subtle than (body) piercing. It is a bit of a fun thing and a very personal thing for people," said Gerrit Melles, director of the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery (www.NIIOC.nl).

The piece of jewellery is inserted in the conjunctiva -- the mucous membrane lining the inner surface of the eyelids and front of the eyeball -- in sterile conditions using an operating microscope in a procedure taking about 15 minutes.

"Without doing any harm to the eye we can implant a jewel in the conjunctiva," Melles said. "So far we have not seen any side effects or complications and we don't expect any in the future."

The Rotterdam-based institute, which develops new ocular surgical techniques in corneal, cataract and retinal surgery, developed and patented the jewellery made with special materials and the surgical procedure.

The institute, which carries out the procedure in cooperation with an eye clinic near the city of Utrecht, said it has a waiting list for people who wanted the implant.

money.cnn.com

Tori Swanson, the 12-year-old who was twice suspended from Bailey Middle School for refusing to remove a nose stud, now attends school in Baldwin County, Ala.

She cannot wear the piercing at Elberta Middle School either, but her mother, Lori Swanson, says she doesn't object to that rule because it is a districtwide policy.


Tori now lives with her father in Baldwin County during weekdays.


"I'm glad she's in school," Lori Swanson said. "But I had to relinquish my daughter."


Lori Swanson objected to her daughter's suspension from Escambia County schools in March because the policy regarding facial jewelry varies from school to school. The Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook states students may not wear clothing or jewelry that is "disruptive, offensive, suggestive or indecent."


It is up to school principals to determine that standard. Bailey Middle Principal Judy Pippen has said facial piercings distract from learning.


A friend of Tori's who also has a nose stud and attends Brownsville Middle School was permitted to wear hers, which also angered Swanson.


Lori Swanson said she enrolled her daughter at Elberta Middle after school officials denied her request for a transfer to Brownsville Middle.


Leslie Travis, the district's choice office coordinator, said the transfer was denied because it didn't fit into the three acceptable reasons to change schools.


Students may transfer if there is a hardship because of child care, if they are a white student and want to transfer to a minority school or a minority student and want to transfer to a majority white school, or if they are in high school and want to take a course offered elsewhere.


Students who want to transfer under the last two reasons must do so before the beginning of the school year.


Chet Robinson, the owner of the Kaoz store where Tori got her piercing, has offered to pay any legal fees Lori Swanson would encounter if she sues the district.


"We do hundreds of piercings a week. It's here to stay, and the school needs to be aware of it," said Robinson, who estimates his three stores do at least 50 nose piercings a week. "Who is to say an ear piercing is OK but a nostril piercing is not?"


Randall Marshall, the legal director for American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said he is evaluating if there is a legal claim and whether the organization will become involved.


Escambia County School Board Chairwoman Cary Stidham wants to look at the policy for next year.


"It should be the same districtwide, either you have them or you don't," said Stidham, who is undecided on whether or not facial jewelry should be allowed. "I want to talk to principals and see how it affects them."

www.pensacolanewsjournal.comGirl ends nose stud dispute, transfers

Unfortunately, like many of you throughout the modified community, there are a few factors in this life of mine that have prevented me from modifying myself to the extent that I would like, one of the principal ones being the environment I work in. I was told in a roundabout way last year that if I followed through with the bridge piercing I was planning to have done, I would be denied an upcoming raise and promotion. Ergo, no bridge.
I recently had my first play piercing session with Russ, my piercer. I found it to be a great experience, and would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about it. Intense and dizzying, I saw a beauty in my own body and mind that I had thought impossible. Even though the pain of this was minimal, I consider it a rite of passage for myself in a spiritual sense. As with many mods, there were mixed reactions from various friends that I showed my pictures to. Some were repulsed, some curious, some were even impressed, but one smarmy comment stood out above the rest.

"And you're going to be someone's Mother one day?!"

Is that really relevant? Really? How would a play piercing session affect the life of a child that I have not even contemplated conceiving? My narrow-minded statistic of a friend then brought up the fact that I have been thinking about designing a sleeve for myself. I, stunned in the head, I suppose, failed to see her point. With great delight she declared

"You can't be someone's Mother if you're covered with tattoos!"

How is it that the vast majority cannot separate people who have chosen to modify their bodies and just happen to be parents from the ranks of criminally negligent child abusers? I have yet to watch a news program in which an insane and disturbed individual that has killed their entire family sports a single visible body modification. I have not met an unfit parent that wears a tattoo sleeve or has a facial piercing. A person's sense of good judgment and reason does not decrease in proportion to their modifications, contrary to popular belief. Their sense of self and their own spirituality, however, tend to increase.

I have, however, met many unfit parents who have had their children forcibly removed from their care that look "normal". I have seen many serial killers on television that have an absolutely upstanding appearance. It could be that there is a connection between lusting after the "pristine" human condition and negative tendencies. Eating disorders come to mind.

Let me take this one step further, if I may, and state that I believe unmodified people are repressed people. Someone's capacity to lose control of their actions and emotions correlates directly with their view of themselves. If they are not comfortable with who they are in their own skin, they are not comfortable with who anyone else is.

Someone who has explored their own personality and invested the thought, time and care to visibly accent it in front of the world is someone that society should feel more apt to trust than someone who has simply taken their body for granted and allowed it to remain static over decades. My point-if they have allowed that to happen to their body, they have allowed it to happen to their mind. Who would make the better parent if we were to weigh these two types of candidates against each other? A person who is so at home with their individuality that they have taken the time and interest to do things to their body that make them feel more at home in it or someone who has not realised how much they are worth and has such a high level of insecurity that they are willing to make snap judgments on others based solely upon appearance?

Now, put the thought of body modification out of your mind and read that last question again. Even a psychologist would agree with me on that one. Neurotic parents raise sickly, insecure, unhappy children that spend most of their lives maladjusted to their surroundings. Mental illness, depression and abuse of any kind are far rarer among self-actualized people. Modification is a form of self-awareness and actualization.

The stigma of the "jailhouse tattoo" is long gone, along with the poodle skirt and the belief that kissing causes pregnancy, but some cling to it with a grip so fierce that it's strength is almost commendable.

The idea that I might "warp" my children by allowing them to see a tattoo on my arm or a piercing in my face is as absurd as thinking that I would do the same to them if I dyed my hair or lost weight. Facelifts and breast implants are widely accepted for women who have had children, even thought of as beneficial to a woman's self-esteem. In my opinion, ink is going to do a lot more for my own self-esteem than some fake boobies, but according to a majority vote it is a nasty thing for a girl who wants to be a mommy.

Somehow, I don't see the connection between six hours under the gun and child protective services.

www.bmezine.com

Responding to complaints about teenagers loitering inside tattoo parlors, lawmakers are considering legislation banning anyone under 18 from going into a shop without a parent.

"Nobody felt it was a place for the kids to hang out," said Republican Rep. Jerry Mitchell.

The bill, which also lowers the legal age from 21 to 18 for getting a tattoo, passed the House Friday. It now heads to the Senate.

The legislation, however, exempts minors who rig their own tattooing guns and ink. "If there are two kids at home and they goof around, we'll let moms and dads take care of that," Mitchell said.

Mitchell said the bill would bring the law in line with body piercing, which is prohibited without parental consent for anyone under 18.

Shop owners criticized lawmakers for overreacting, and worried about the economic effects.

"It's not like we're in here trying to convince them to do things that are illegal or immoral," complained Dustin Hector, a Decatur shop owner. Younger teens patronize his shop for body jewelry and T-shirts, he said.

"It may cut down on the foot traffic," Hector said.

Springfield shop owner Jason Lee said he doesn't let children loiter because there are just some things they shouldn't see -- like photos of some body piercings. Body art, he pointed out, is a serious business.

"A tattoo is a lifelong commitment," he said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/04/05/national2114EDT0787.DTL

Anyone performing body piercing in Kentucky must be registered with the local health department and obtain certification for a body-piercing studio. The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services and local health departments began regulating body piercings on April 1.


"The new law requires minors wishing to obtain a tattoo or a body piercing to provide a written, notarized consent of a custodial parent or a legal guardian," said Anita Travis, a manager with the Cabinet's Division of Public Health Protection and Safety. She said facilities that do only ear-lobe piercings using an ear piercing gun are still required to obtain a limited ear piercing studio certification and limited ear piercing registration for each employee who will be performing the piercings.

Body-piercing studios must be inspected twice a year, and limited ear piercing studios will be inspected annually. The facilities are also required to post all regulations in public view. "These new regulations will help foster industry uniformity and add a level of protection for our citizens," said Guy F. Delius, acting director of Public Health Protection and Safety. For answers to specific questions about body piercing or tattooing, contact your local health department.

http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/health/article/0,1626,ECP_756_2782555,00.html

College freshmen Meghan Wheeler and Lauralee Tucker were on a spring-break mission: to leave Daytona Beach with new belly-button piercings.

The State University of New York-Oswego students tried to find a piercing studio near their hotel, with no luck: The city booted such businesses from the beachside a few years ago as part of an effort to clean up its party-town image.

But Daytona Beach's only legal piercing salon, The Corner Body Piercing Studio, had a way around the regulation -- a van service that could pick up the students and bring them across the Halifax River.

"We walked all up and down the strip," Wheeler said, describing their search on State Road A1A. "But they told us we had to get off the strip to find a piercing place."

Thanks to the free ride, the 18-year-old students had new curved barbells with glittering crystals embedded in their navels. Their friend, Cory Sheldon, 20, chose new rings pierced into his nipples for a spring-break souvenir.

"It's something I've wanted to do for a while, but spring break is the perfect atmosphere for it," Wheeler said, gushing about her new body decoration. "All the girls at our hotel are already pierced or just got pierced on spring break."

For Charon Ohnona, co-owner of The Corner, these college students might have been lost customers. That's why he and co-owner Paul Merk offer the van, as a way to get around the ban and get more customers into their studio.

"Business is relatively slow during most of the year. We have our local clientele," Ohnona said. "It's nothing compared to what it was."

Daytona Beach was once crowded with 15 separate body-piercing shops on A1A, all of them right by the beach, near the nightclubs and souvenir shops and an easy walk for any tourist who wanted to get pierced. But in an effort to remake the city from honky-tonk to highbrow and attract more well-heeled tourists, body piercing was banned from the beachside in 1999.

It was a huge financial hit for those shops, including Cruisin' & Co., which sold beachwear and shoes and also pierced navels, tongues and noses.

"It was probably 40 percent of my business," said Cruisin' owner Simon Myara, who tried to fight the ban for years. "I'm not selling drugs or doing anything illegal. They shut me down because they don't like it."

Many piercing shops closed or changed their merchandise. New shops sprung up elsewhere, such as in Daytona Beach Shores, a neighboring city better known for its towering line of retiree-filled condos that now boasts three body-piercing shops. Some, such as Cruisin', stopped body piercing but still sell the jewelry.

Among the first to do body piercing in Daytona Beach, Ohnona and Merk wanted to stay in the business. Years ago, they had a thriving studio in the heart of spring break at the corner of A1A and Seabreeze Boulevard.

When the city changed its body-piercing regulations, it limited the businesses to the automotive commercial zone, where repair shops and car sales are allowed. So The Corner found a new home, across the street from a carwash and just a short drive across a bridge from Seabreeze Boulevard.

Their studio still sees a steady stream of Bike Week and spring-break visitors. Merk said at least one customer walked there from A1A, though many college students will drive.

However, Ohnona relies on a van and advertising to bring in the beach tourists.

City officials haven't done anything about the van. Daytona Beach Mayor Yvonne Scarlett-Golden said she knew nothing about the piercing van or whether it skirts city rules.

In the past five years, Myara has heard of a traveling piercer, and he's also seen people in his store with fresh piercing wounds. "I hear them tell me they just got pierced down the street, so now we're reduced to back-room piercing," Myara said. "You can make it illegal, but it's still going to happen."

Paul Fell, who inspects piercing shops for the Volusia County Health Department, still gets complaints about unauthorized piercing, but few are prosecuted because of lack of evidence or witnesses. He recently helped one police investigation, including one case in which Myara's brother was charged with doing a body piercing at Cruisin'. That case is pending, but Myara said his shop does ear piercing, which is allowed.

Myara thinks that it would take only the right court ruling to bring body piercing back to the beachside. In the meantime, he said people still want to get pierced and businesses are going to find a way to cater to that.

"Instead of working with us, it's just a game the city plays," Myara said. "Body piercing is in, and it's going to be in for a long time."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orl-locpiercing25032504mar25,1,2766291.story?coll=orl-news-headlines

Putting the 'wardrobe malfunction' behind her, pop star Janet Jackson does a media blitz through New York City to promote her latest CD
Two months after the event that came to be known as Nipplegate (we think the Super Bowl was involved), Janet Jackson came to New York and stepped back into the white, hot spotlight to promote her new album, "Damita Jo," which hit stores last Tuesday.

The media frenzy began Monday on "The Late Show With David Letterman." Jackson showed up in a stunning red gown revealing a hint of cleavage (but no nipple ring) and a bare midriff framed by, well, a picture frame. "That outfit is practically malfunctioning," Letterman chimed, alluding to the "wardrobe malfunction" excuse used to explain what happened back in February. Jackson just flashed a smile and then proceeded to stonewall on every question about what really happened, leaving Letterman to make wisecracks through the entire interview.

The next day, on BET's "106 & Park," Jackson found friendlier confines as an audience of devoted fans shrieked and waved signs as she arrived on stage. Casually dressed in jeans and a belly shirt that exposed another piercing - this one in her belly button (the jewelry bore the letters "JD's," a reference to Jackson's boyfriend, Jermaine Dupri). Jackson, clearly more comfortable than on Letterman, was treated to a tribute by a dance troupe performancing routines from her music videos.

On Wednesday, the cold and rain failed to dampen the mood of Jackson fans, who came to see her perform at Battery Park for "Good Morning America." Jackson performed "All Nite (Don't Stop)" and "I Want You" as she and her dancers dipped and turned on a wet, slippery stage. Diane Sawyer may have had the worst time - when she insisted on asking questions about the Super Bowl fiasco, the crowd began chanting "Album! Album! Album!" - a clear indication of what they wanted the two to discuss.

Later that day, the HMV music store in Harlem was besieged by fans hoping to be among the 750 who would receive Jackson's autograph on a CD.

Will the publicity blitz pay off? Hits Daily Double, a music-industry Web site, is projecting that Jackson's album sales could be in the 400,000 range, a respectable number these days.

New York hasn't seen the last of Jackson. She returns next weekend to host "Saturday Night Live."

newsday.com

BOULE L4 Boule: State issues 'steep fine' for illegal piercings L1 W alk into any junior high or high school in town and admire the jewelry attached to young body parts. Studs in ears, lips, noses, chins, eyebrows, tongues. Walk into the boys or girls locker rooms, and you'll even see a few nipple piercings.

Here's the mystery: Who's sticking needles through the body parts of underage kids in Oregon? The Oregon regulations are clear: People with body piercing licenses can't pierce the bodies of anyone under 18 without signed parental consent. And they're forbidden to pierce the nipples or genitals of underage kids, even with parental consent.

Are kids raiding sewing baskets and piercing themselves? Or are Oregon body piercing shops making a profit, "misjudging" the ages of their clients?

Robin Koranda's daughter was a small girl when she started begging to get her ears pierced. Robin and her husband, who live in West Linn, said yes when the girl was 10. "We agreed to a second piercing in her ears when she was 16," Robin says. "Both times she came to me, we talked about it, and I went with her."

Last year Robin's daughter, whom we agreed not to name, approached her parents about getting her navel pierced. "This was a big controversy," Robin says. Finally Robin agreed and accompanied her daughter. "It's not that we're anti-piercing," Robin says. "We're just pro-parental involvement."

But the girl chose not to consult her parents when she got her next piercing. And those after that.

In fact, Robin and her husband didn't realize their daughter had more holes in her body until last December. "We were talking," Robin says, "and I looked at her ear . . . and realized she had five other piercings.

"I said, 'What other surprises do we have here?' That's when she told me she'd had her nipple pierced. She (said) the girl who worked there and another friend also had had their nipples pierced. I flipped."

Robin's daughter had her piercings done at Milano body piercing in Milwaukie. Owner Anh Khoa L. Tran, who goes by "Scott," acknowledges he did the piercings, but says he did not know the girl was underage. He blames the error on the young woman -- a friend of Robin's daughter -- who was then his receptionist. "She checks the ID and sends them back," he says. "She admitted she allowed her to go back."

But surely he knew his receptionist was only 16 years old, when he did her piercings? "She had her parents sign the form," he says. "And I only pierced her ears."

That's not what Robin's daughter and another friend say. They say Scott pierced nipples and other body parts on all three girls. According to one of the girls, the receptionist "said to us, 'He knows you're underage. Just don't tell your parents.' "

One of the girls' mothers, Sue Crawford, is angry at her daughter for not getting permission and angry at Scott for doing the piercing. "I was horrified as a parent she would be exposed and someone would touch her," Sue says.

But Sue is most upset at what her daughter told her occurred during the nipple piercing. "He put his hand on my other breast," she said her daughter told her, "and said, 'This one's going to be jealous.'. . . It was weird."

Scott denies it. "I don't remember that," he says. "If I did say it, I probably would have said it to (Robin's daughter), not (Sue's daughter)." Which is an odd thing to say, considering Scott claims he doesn't know who Sue's daughter is. "I don't make comments like that," he continues. "I'm very professional, and my employees know that."

In fact, Scott says he has no recollection and no paperwork that indicates he did body piercing of any kind on Sue's daughter. That's not true, says Sue. "I once brought her there myself to have her ears pierced," she says. "And she wasn't alone when she got her nipple pierced. . . . Friends were with her."

Despite Scott's denial, Sue's daughter says Scott "definitely" knows who she is; she and Robin's daughter spent a lot of time hanging around the shop last year, visiting the receptionist. "He'd buy us pizza," Robin's daughter says.

Scott also denies piercing the nipples of his receptionist and the body parts of other teens whose parents have come into his shop, complaining of underage piercings. "I don't have paperwork to prove they got piercing here," he says. "It could be my competitors." Then he suggests another possibility: "My receptionist, she admitted she stole the needle from me." Perhaps she did the piercings, he says.

Scott says he thinks these allegations are being made because Robin wanted him to give her $2,000 in December. "I explained I would not let her blackmail me, and she would not get one cent from me," Scott wrote to the Better Business Bureau in late February.

Robin denies asking for money. Sue agrees: "None of us has asked for money."

After Scott admitted Robin's daughter's piercings in December, Robin called other parents. "I found three boys under 18 that had their nipples pierced there. . . . They went to his shop because they had been turned down at other shops."

But when she went to police to report the 13 underage piercings she says she uncovered, they referred her to the state Health Licensing Office, which did an investigation in January.

That office will not discuss the case, but Scott says he has been given "a steep fine" for Robin's daughter's piercings. "I am going to ask for a hearing," he says.

Some people might consider this a minor problem. Robin disagrees. "If it was my neighbor, if it was their schoolteacher, if it was anybody else, they'd be hauled off to jail for fondling, molesting, abusing a child. But because he has a license to pierce," police aren't interested.

Robin and Sue think the piercing of nipples and genitals of minors in Oregon should be made a crime, not just a licensing violation. "Otherwise, what keeps them from doing it to 12-, 13-, 14-year-olds?" Robin asks. "Where do you draw the line?"

Both Robin's and Sue's daughters now regret the piercings. "I just wanted to rebel against my parents," says Sue's daughter. "Over the last year I've grown up a lot. . . . I understand it was wrong, and he shouldn't be doing it."

Robin's daughter agrees. "I think someone who's trying to run a clean, respectable business wouldn't do a thing like that and put themselves in jeopardy with the law, and put kids in jeopardy too," she says.

Genital piercings for women were banned by the Georgia House as lawmakers considered a bill outlining punishments for female genital mutilation.

The bill would make such mutilation punishable by two to 20 years in prison. It makes no exception for people who give consent to have the procedure performed on their daughters out of religious or cultural custom.

An amendment adopted without objection added "piercing" to the list of things that may not be done to female genitals. Even adult women would not be allowed to get the procedure. The bill eventually passed 160-0, with no debate.

Amendment sponsor Rep. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, was slack-jawed when told after the vote that some adults seek the piercings.

"What? I've never seen such a thing," Heath said. "I, uh, I wouldn't approve of anyone doing it. I don't think that's an appropriate thing to be doing."

The ban applies only to women, not men. The bill has already been approved by the Senate but now must return to that chamber because of the piercing