A piercing studio cryptically sacred.

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Its protector: a beetle– big, beautiful, with wings that spread out like an angel.

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Outside, engraved on the sign hanging off the second floor of a brick building, the beetle watches over all who passes under it. It’s of the Scarab species– once sacred to the ancient Egyptians. A symbol of rebirth, fortune and positive change. Those who seek the beetle are most likely searching for the very things it symbolizes.

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I arrived, somewhat skeptical, completely seeking none of those things.

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Up the flight of stairs, I entered what felt like a doctor’s office. Beige, beige and more beige. Everything incredibly clean, sterile and cold. Ambiental music, like a spa, played. A little different from the Korn I’ll usually hear other piercing shops opt for.

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Where’s the checkered floor? I wondered. The neon green walls? The scent of piss?

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Instead, the smell was clean, like Sunday morning. The walls, beige, and adorned with cultural artifacts replicative of a museum. Everything enshrined.

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The name of this sanctuary is Scarab Body Arts. Opened in 2001 in Syracuse, N.Y. by John Joyce, it’s a studio entirely encompassing of its name. Dedicated to giving premier body modification services, Scarab Body Arts is upholding an art, and culture, very much lost in today’s time: piercings.

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Reading that may be weird. Piercings are everywhere, right? Claire’s is there for every eight-year-old girl’s birthday. The shitty downtown piercing studio for the tweens looking to get edgy. That ran through tattoo-piercing combo shop in every college town. I never really gave piercings a second thought. But that’s why I was there– to give them a second thought.

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I sat down with John in a piercing room. Next to him, Kaitlin Raison, a Scarab customer turned employee, and now current co-owner. I met with them, not to gain some new bling, but maybe some new insight.

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“I’ve been piercing for 28 years,” John said. “If somebody had told me five years ago that the most common piercings are earlobes, I absolutely would not have believed them.”

 

To me, that was a crazy sentence. Ears were always the first place everyone got their piercings, I thought.

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“Back then, genetial piercings were the most common. I would have men who came in full business suits, coming off their nine-to-five, getting three or four genital piercings.”

 

There was that second thought. And then a million more.

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–

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That afternoon at Scarab was not my first time meeting John. It began in my college class “Beauty and Diversity in Fashion Media.” Our professor told us that a guest speaker would be coming in. I was half-way through my sigh before John and Kaitlin stepped in. My interest was immediately piqued.

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A TL;DR for their presentation about the history of piercings in the queer community:

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-Underground piercing parties were a huge thing.

-Piercings were heavily stigmatized in the 70s and 80s.

-Jim Ward is named the “grandaddy of the modern piercing movement.”

-Thanks to the 90’s Aerosmith Cryin’ music video, where Alicia Silverstone got her belly button pierced, piercings got mainstreamed.

-There is a national piercing convention in Las Vegas. John and Kaitlin attend every year.

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Listening and being somewhat of a cynic, I wondered, “Why does any of this matter?” I mean, piercings are just piercings. I have been through many. Each time I went to a piercing studio, it was quick and easy. I got what I needed done. What else does there need to be?

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–

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Back in that piercing room, in the home of the beetle, John gave me the whole rundown.Watching him talk, I noticed that he is probably the cleanest, most hygienic man I’ve ever seen. His skin is radiant, cuticles smooth, facial hair well-groomed. He has a septum and multiple earlobe piercings. Tattoos going up his neck and down his arms.

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“When I first got into the business, it really was just the weirdos,” John said.“The clientele used to be pretty underground. The S&M community. Back then, you couldn't get a job if you had visible piercings, couldn't get a loan in a bank.”

 

Kaitlin, sitting next to him, has two long braids in her hair. A septum and piercings on her lip, nose bridge and ears. She has a big smile that comes out frequently. A nice, calming energy.

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“We have a lot of queer and trans clients,” Kaitlin said. “We’ll often have someone come in after, for example, top surgery to get nipple piercings. Those are definitely some of the most rewarding appointments I get to do. It helps them feel happy in their own skin and be like ‘Yes, this is me.’”

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“I have this one client who is a gay male, but I started working with him before he came out publicly. Before he even admitted to himself that he was gay,” John said. “So I saw him go from that person to who he is now. I saw when he came out to his children, and now as a much older man, when he finally found the love of his life.”

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Apparently, I had been unaware of the power of the beetle. Much unlike my

understanding of Claire’s and Amazon self-piercing kits, there’s a past and culture, very underground. The only people who really know about it are the people in it.

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“When piercings were less mainstream, there was more of a sense of community between clients and everybody. Everyone was friends,” John said. “But now, capitalism has worked its way into our industry. There's no more connection, it's just a business transaction. Like, if we asked someone where they got pierced, they wouldn't know the piercer's name or anything memorable.”

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This history and culture– risque, yet rich and entirely compelling– now commodified.Diluted. Grief lies within the loss of rituality. Strong communities that once formed around piercings, now sparse. It all began to stick with me.

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–

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Kasi Blanchard has been a customer at Scarab since 2021. For four years, she’s gotten countless piercings with John. A double tongue, nipples, triple helix, genitals. And more she couldn’t remember. The piercings she gets are in intimate places– it’s why she makes sure that the piercer she goes to makes her feel comfortable.

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“There's a place that I used to go to back in my hometown and it was a much different experience. I remember being literally afraid of the piercer,” Kasi said. “Like, when I’m trying to go in and get a pretty intimate piercing, I want it to be a nice, positive experience. So Scarab stands out in the way that it feels safe and cozy. Like I know they're going to take care of me along the way.”

 

Kasi is a bisexual woman. She’s had a long gender journey and has become proud of being a queer woman. To Kasi, tattoos, piercings and clothing are a big part of her queer expression. She loves “wearing black. Loves having black jewelry and chunky shoes that pop a little bit.” But Kasi expressed how often she feels signaled out for her identity.

 

Being queer is still highly stigmatized. Threats are increasingly being made to the safety of queer and trans communities. In 2023, the Human Rights Campaign declared a national state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States. 530 anti-LGBTQ bills and policies were tracked in the 2024 U.S. legislative session, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

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For Kasi, she loves the community that comes with being queer, because outside of it is a country that threatens to take away her rights. But inside– in a piercing shop, at an underground piercing party, through community– piercings are something that can be hers.

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“It’s important to have places that offer safe spaces for us. So it's nice when piercing shops and other things like that are very up front about giving that to you when you first walk in,” Kasi said.

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–

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Of course, I had to see what the hype was about. I booked an appointment for an earlobe piercing with Kaitlin for my third visit to Scarab.

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The big sign with the beautiful beetle was there. Hanging in the sky, its aura ancient and complex, dominating over the sushi restaurant awning and the sign of the Mediterranean grill across the street. Its wings spread like a heavenly guardian. Now that I knew a bit more about how special this place was, I stared at the beetle. It’s quite alluring.

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Kaitlin and her smile welcomed me. I was led to the waiting room, where the walls were filled with frame after frame of different cultural artifacts. A “Bipane” bone septum piece, Indonesian “Gasing” earweights, Buddhist figurines. A nice acknowledgement of the history of piercings from all cultures.

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I didn’t know if I wanted a cartilage or rook.

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“Do you wear glasses? A cartilage would mess with that,” Kaitlin said.

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I do wear glasses. So I went with the rook.

 

She showed me to the glass case filled with different jewelry, which is pretty typical for a piercing shop. A little less typical, though, is the paramount wall of framed certifications. “APP” it said, row after row, at least twenty of them. I asked what those were.

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“It stands for the ‘Association of Professional Piercers.’” The oldest and longest running organization for professional piercing.

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Instructions for aftercare were a little different than the ones I was used to. Do not twist the piercing, Kaitlin said. Crazy, I thought, since I remember Claire’s telling me to twist my piercing while cleaning. Liars.

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It was time. Kaitlin took me into the room. This one was new, there were scarab beetle decals all over the window. May the sacred creature grant me protection from this soon-to-be pain, I thought.

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She asked me how my day was. I recounted all the hours of that morning, which sparked a conversation about my cat.

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I fixed my posture to sit upright, straightening my back to help Kaitlin get the best angle, my memory from the years of piercing jobs kicking in. But then she told me to lay down. I’ve never seen that method before.

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In a calming voice, she guided me. In my ear, as I laid, she whispered– they weren’t sweet-nothings, they were sweet-everythings. Just the words I needed to hear to ease my nerves for the anticipated pain.

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“Breathe in, breathe out.”

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I breathed in, breathed out.

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“One more time. Breathe in, breathe out.”

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Again, I breathed in, breathed out. I braced myself for the pain. A millisecond of pressure. But where was the pain? I didn’t feel it.

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A quick, less than 5-minute experience. What took the other 35 minutes of my trip was the conversation, the consultation. Combined with the decor and Kaitlin’s soothing presence, I couldn’t help but to feel zen.

 

I walked out, once again passing under the beetle. My ear slightly throbbing, I took one last stare, its presence still a bit enigmatic to me. I wasn’t rebirthed, didn’t gain a fortune or go through dramatic positive change. I didn’t necessarily show up for many of the things that others do. But now, I see the beetle clearer and bigger than before. I think I even saw its wings flap.