In Sharon Haywoods article, How Body
Modification Ended the War Against My Body, the author describes her motives for
piercing her
navel. She had suffered for years from anorexia and bulimia. Her
image of her body as too fat,
the target of her own disgust, started when she
was only ten and the particular focus was the
rolls of fat she perceived
around her belly.
Getting a navel ring seemed like
an
appropriate gesture to show herself that she had made peace with her belly. She was
now
decorating the part of her body of which she had always been most
ashamed, and which she had
taken great care to cover up. Hayward describes
such body modifications as a form of therapy, a
way of accepting ones own
body and healing from trauma.
According to Haywood,
the
therapy worked. When her husband expressed surprise that she has removed the ring, she
says
It was time to come out. Haywood is now kinder to herself and has been
transformed by the act
of self-love the ring represented. She no longer needs
the ring itself.
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