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Growing set up as being a Baby Boomer, I recall the generation of ours truly being accused of living wild with our socially unacceptable fashion statements. Little men with young females and shoulder-length hair using hot trousers stunned the nation's sensibilities.

It was advised among our parents' generation which we'd never amount to something with our rebellious ways. However we've - we're upstanding community members, parents that are responsible, and even respected professionals including dentists as well as oral hygienists.

And, while we thought we would done it all, it has come to pass that the currently generation - GenX - has established a trend that drops the jaw of even the boldest Baby Boomer.

Picking up where early Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans left off, GenX has embraced body and oral art like piercing and tooth decay diabetes tattooing as a means to distinguish them from the establishment.

Precisely why is this mode of identity expression - particularly the pierced tongue - producing these kinds of concern amongst parents and also the adults who constitute the American Dental Association? Are we Baby Boomers merely a number of self-expression hypocrites?

Fine, I for one confess to being squeamish about dental or oral pain. It will make the knees of mine weak simply to catch a glimpse of a barbell impaled tongue in a teenager's mouth.

In all honesty, however, that's not the only issue at stake. These days, we understand much more about body piercing than the ancients did. Dentists and other healthcare professionals understand that dental piercing is, to borrow an expression, business which is risky.

In reality, the ADA, a group of dentists which set up professional standards for dentists in the United States, is officially against any type of oral piercing.