CMR junior Amanda Rothweiler wanted to stand out and be different, and that’s exactly what her piercings have allowed her to do.

“I walked past this old lady and she was all ‘good god!’,” she said.

Rothweiler moved to Great Falls from Oregon, where body piercing is very common, she said. Currently, Rothweiler has several facial piercings — one in her eyebrow, two in her ear, one in her septum (the small piece of skin between the nostrils), and the two in her upper lip, which she said hurt the most.

Piercing is nothing new to Rothweiler. Her first piercing was in the fifth grade, when she had a gauge placed in her right ear.

“Everyone in my class was getting their ears pierced; I just got one ear done,” Rothweiler said.

She wanted to be different from all the other kids at the time, but eventually she plans on gauging her left ear as well. For now she is stretching the current one that she has.

Some helpful advice that she gives to anyone who is considering gauging their ears is to avoid doing it too fast. She said she recently tried to stretch the hole too fast and placed a gauge that was two sizes too big before her ear was ready.

“I had to go back down two sizes and now it’s all bloody,” she said.

Rothweiler admits that she gets some strange looks and comments from people – mostly adults – but her family has been supportive. Her mom and dad don’t show as much concern about her piercings as other parents might.

“My dad is… a biker so he doesn’t really care,” she said. “Mom was only a little iffy about letting me get my lip done.”

Rothweiler’s mother was concerned about the well being of her daughter’s teeth. Lip piercings are known to cause tooth decay, tooth loss, and gum erosion.

“I don’t know how I convinced her to let me get those (the lip rings),” Rothweiler said.

Even though her piercings haven’t impressed some adults, Rothweiler said children seem to find them quite interesting.

“Kids will stop and point, telling their moms to look at all the colors,” she said. She has even turned into a walking display for parents who want to give their kids a demonstration of what not to do.

“Once, a mom told her kid that she (the kid) wouldn’t want to get a mohawk because then she would have to shave half of her head and she used me as an example,” Rothweiler said. 

Rothweiler isn’t the only pierced Rustler.

Sophomore Haylee Benoit has five piercings – her eyebrow, her upper lip, her bellybutton, her nose, and an industrial piercing that is on her right ear. She said the industrial was the most painful.

 “(The piercer) had to put (two needles) through two sides of my cartilage,” Benoit said. An industrial is any two pierced holes connected with a single straight piece of jewelry.

Even though Benoit has some exotic piercings, she said she has never been tempted to get her septum done.

“My mom and dad were cool about me getting my other piercings done, “ said Benoit, who got her first piercing just one year ago.

“Now there is no stopping me,” she said.

Unlike Benoit and Rothweiler, 16-year-old sophomore Tavia Watson said that anything near her eyebrows is trashy. Currently, Watson has her bellybutton done along with a stud in both of her ear lobes.

“I want to get my tongue pierced because it’s good for kissing and a (Marilyn) Monroe,” she said. 

A Monroe piercing is a lip stud in the left side of your upper lip.

Watson’s mom and dad weren’t as laid back as Rothweiler and  Benoit’s parents had been.

“My mom had a fit, and my dad dropped me off to get (my belly button) done.”

The only thing that these three girls have in common is the truth behind piercings. “I really don’t care about what people think about them, I think they’re cool,” Watson said.