By Al Arabiya
Several trends seen as imported from Western cultures have invaded Saudi Arabia and encouraged women to seek change through them. While clothes and accessories seem like the most traditional influences, piercing is the latest and most outrageous fashion among Saudi women.
Piercing the lips, tongue and navel are the most popular with Saudi women, reported the Saudi edition of al-Hayat newspaper.
According to the paper, Saudi girls differ on the piercing trend. Some do not think this trend makes the girl more beautiful and in fact argue that it makes her look ugly. Some go as far as considering a girl who pierces any part of her face unfeminine. Several men agree with this point of view and say that they never get attracted to girls with piercings.
Others argue that piercing adds to their beauty and makes them look different.
Piercing is a problem for parents, too, for while some categorically refuse to allow their girls to pierce their faces because it is an unfamiliar sight that is strange to society, others give in to the pressure which intensifies when the girls want to imitate their friends.
For psychological and family councilor Zahra al-Maabi, piercing does not add to a girl’s beauty, instead it affects it negatively.
“God endowed girls with the gift of femininity and when they pierce their lips or eyebrows they are destroying that,” she said.
Maabi added that girls resort to piercing out of a desire to imitate other cultures and also as a means of expressing their frustration at other things.
“Piercing becomes an outlet for those girls who want to grab the attention to make up for the lack of purpose they suffer from.”
According to psychologist Elwi Attarji, blind imitation is a main motive behind girls’ love for piercing, but there are other factors, too.
“Some girls want to defy their parents and assert their independence by going against social norms,” he said.
It is important, he added, to examine the social reasons that lead to the prevalence of such phenomenon.
“Eliminating the phenomenon is not the solution since only dealing with the roots of the problem and looking into the reasons behind it makes a way out possible.”
(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2 ... 11856.html
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