People like that aren ' t encountering a bunch of degenerates with piercings . They ' re encountering people with piercings and assuming them to be degenerates . I ' m pretty involved in the tattoo and piercing scene most of my friends are artists , I go to the conventions , etc and find that body mods indicate basically nothing about a person other than what they find aesthetically pleasing . Same ratio of assholes to nice folks as any other group . I ' ve met total squares who were absolute pieces of human trash , and ive met dudes with face tattoos and crazy piercings that would give a stranger the shirt off their backs . And vice versa . Personally I ' m alright with it . I love my half inch lobes and i think of them as a sort of filter for assholes . I don ' t have to talk to any of those shitheels because they ' ll never approach me to begin with . Back before I was very visibly modded it was a bit annoying to be friends with someone and find out a week later that they feel that way . It ' s kind of like when you ' re having a nice conversation with a stranger at the bar and then suddenly they slip some racist shit in and you ' re like Ohhh , nevermind , you ' re actually a piece of shit . The downside is douche bros at the bar who have some sort of vendetta against heavily tattooed people and want to pick fights and shit , but that is a rare encounter happens way more often if you have throathandface work or exceptionally stretched lobes though .