Study Indicates Body Modification Trend Related to Parental Affection

AoE Citizen Spotlight on Dr. Jan Gould, University of Phoenix.  

Report by Thaddeus Stanley, Senior Publications Officer

A new study by the University of Phoenix claims to have discovered an inverse relationship between a father’s love and his daughter’s propensity to engage in body modification.  The study, which compared 5000 young women who had modified their appearance with multiple piercings, tattoos, cuttings, and/or breast reductions, with a like number who had no more than a simple pair of earrings, found that as paternal affection levels dropped, the likelihood of body modification increased.  Jan Gould, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Phoenix called the findings “a breakthrough for modern pop psychology,” and said, “this should put an end to crappy fathers bitchin’ about their daughters coming home looking like ... like ... well, whatever they come home looking like.”

The most significant sub-factor of paternal affection, indicates the study, is the way the daughter perceives her father perceives her.  Gould unboxed that complicated phrase by saying, “If the daughter believes her dad thinks she’s pretty, she will think she’s pretty and not feel the need to modify her looks.  However, a daughter who feels ugly, because dad doesn’t tell her she’s beautiful, will try to compensate by running long needles through various parts of their flesh, or getting covered in tattoos, or cutting themselves, what-have-you.”  According to an earlier study, the effects of body modification rarely help the situation for unfortunate looking women, as the altercations only draw more attention to the problem area, namely the outward appearance.  “What was bad to begin with, becomes worse, much worse.”

For Gould, the smoking gun was a particular “tramp stamp” donned by Melissa G.; the lower back tattoo reads “Daddy’s Girl?.”  Gould stated, “I think that tattoo says it all, note the question mark, this is a girl who doesn’t know if she’s daddy’s girl, so she gets a couple tattoos, pierces her lip and nose, and puts a big ugly suggestive plug in her ear.  Oh and yeah, that butterfly tattoo on her neck ... now she’s ugly and jobless, way to go Melissa!”  Starting in October, the University of Phoenix intends to study the link between male body modification and a scorned Oedipus Complex.