Body piercing is the art of putting holes in the body so that jewelry can be placed in the holes. Body piercers do not make that much money. They are not paid by the hour; most piercers make about half of the money the piercing costs. Usually, during the week it is slow, and not many people want to get pierced. Business picks up on the weekends. After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the business has been significantly slow because people do not want to spend money because they think the economy is going to crash, making it hard for body piercers to make very much money right now.
             On October 22, 2001, I went and saw body piercing live and up close. When I first got there it was slow with no customers and pretty much remained the same way for the remainder of the day. I met the piercer and he taught me about basic sterilization techniques. First, you must take the materials you use and soak them in a hospital disinfectant, after the materials have been soaking for a while u then scrub them thoroughly making sure there are no germs of any kind in them. After they have been scrubbed and rinsed you must put them in a sterile pouch and seal them until use. If any materials came in contact with blood u must do the same process except do it for longer because u do not want to transmit any diseases that the person whose blood was on the material might have had. Needles used in piercing must be disposed of in a hazardous waste box. Every material used in piercing must be completely sterile to prevent the spread of disease and germs.
             As the evening progressed a girl came in and wanted to get the holes in her ear stretched out from a 16 gauge to an 8 gauge. The smaller the gauge the larger the hole. When trying to fit the 8 gauge taper into the 16 gauge hole the pain was too much for the girl so she backed out.
             The piercer I shadowed had 25 piercings including ¾ inch holes in his ears, other ear piercings, the septum w...