Piercing and hygiene

2001/07/05 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia
• Bibliografia
• Giza zientziak

Desmond Morris is a zoologist born in 1928 in the English village of Purton. He has studied in depth the behavior of animals and, among them, that of man. In 1967 he published the famous book 'The Naked Ape'. In it, he carried out an exhaustive zoological study of the human being and created a controversy that has not yet been extinguished, since he analyzed the behavior of man from an exclusively zoological point of view. The spectacular image that a friend has conveyed to us has given us the excuse of mentioning some of the questions that Morris has told us: the relationship between piercing and hygiene. Because Morris says in his book that piercing was born linked to cleanliness.

Nude monkey

Cleaning the body is essential for animals. Birds spend many hours cleaning feathers and mammals do not stay behind either. Monkeys, for example, systematically clean their own or partner's hair. Social cleansing is carried out by both birds and monkeys, but above all the higher primates. Special signs have been invented to invite cleaning. When a primate wants to clean another places a special face, scratches the lips and often pulls out the tongue once every two rodents. To show that the other is ready for cleaning, he usually takes a relaxed posture and will sometimes teach him some part of the body, like inviting him to clean it.

Among primates, social cleansing is more than a clean body maintenance activity. It is a tool to increase the collaboration and linkage of team members, prioritizing the social function on hygiene. For example, by cleaning, the weak member of the group calms the strong member and reserves.

In humans there is no social cleansing, as we barely have hair in the body. We have it more in the head, but if it is not in the hairdresser, we do not clean the hair to each other. And it is that the hair has a great sexual meaning between humans and we have discarded it as a symbol of friendship. However, we have several signs to create and expand bonds between peers, such as smile or language. On the contrary, tattoos, haircut and beard, manicure or piercing were born as cleaning actions, but now have a sexual, aggressive or social purpose.