Body Piercing
Created | Updated Feb 23, 2003
I can’t say I’ve ever really understood why people do it. It just seems such an unlikely thing to do, particularly for a man. I know that for white people it can be traced back to pirates on the Spanish Main and you can’t get much tougher than them, but for a chap to have an earring was for a long time considered pretty subversive. Only girls had earrings, or so I was told and blokes that had them had their masculinity questioned and targeted by the older, more traditional generation.
The various phases of youth culture, from Flower Power to Glam to Punk, all had earrings in one form or another, but by the time the cusp of the 80’s had passed we still hadn’t got used to the idea of blokes with their ears pierced. The single gleaming stud in the lower left earlobe was worn by Capri driving lads called Darren or Gary who always had the latest threads (Sta Prest, Ben Sherman, et al), chain-smoked B&H and had so many sovereign rings and gold chains they almost rattled as they strutted. I was in awe of these blokes. They just seemed so hard , even though our Dads always used to think that they must be fairies because they had earrings. The sovs and chunky bracelets were OK, the streetsmart and stylish clothes were acceptable, nay encouraged, but the earring was just not on. The fact that crop-haired Darren had muscles the size of Essex, ACAB tattooed on his knuckles, a Bulldog on his back , 16 illegitimate children by a dozen different women (all called Tracey) and his idea of a fun night out was 25 pints and a fight made no difference. He had an earring so was obviously a woofter, son, end of story.
Come the end of the 80’s, everyone had them, even your Dad who was going through his mid life crisis and there wasn’t anywhere further to go with it. Except that we noticed a section of the community that had gone a stage further. Asian women seemed to be very big on diamond nose studs. A very pretty addition to their extraordinarily beautiful faces which was copied by every misunderstood teenage girlie and pretty soon, when the first generation of middle class bored Wham fans all got their noses pierced, a million mums and a similar number of teachers went berserk. Personally, I always wondered how they managed to pick their bogies properly, but it was clear; a nose ring turned Charlotte into Sharon pretty darn quick. Like most youth cults, it might have been imitated and displayed by many, but few actually suited it. The guys never really seemed to want it done, it was a girl thing, but of course, time blurs boundaries.
I recall that around that time, when magazines of the adult variety were piled up everywhere groups of men worked, seeing my first picture of a pierced nipple. I was working in a warehouse, full of swearing, tattooed randy thugs who spent far more time discussing sex than actually doing it. The jazzmags fell out of every cupboard and drawer and as it wasn’t the done thing to read anything sensible during a tea break, these mags became the only reading material one could digest without being considered homosexual. The picture in question was in Escort magazine, and featured a young gothic looking lady partially dressed in black leather, sans pubic hair (before the popularity of ‘Shaven Ravers’ and their ilk) and a thin discrete silver ring through each pink nipple.
It seemed so exotic, that it seemed the only reason they printed a picture of this astonishingly unattractive woman was because she had jewellery on her jubblies. There seemed though to be no chance of ever coming into contact with someone that had one, or even someone who knew someone that had one.
Nipple piercing always seemed extraordinarily kinky to me. There was something hugely punky about having the nips ‘done’. Seeing that incredibly sensitive little bud exposed to cold air is erotic enough, as it’s an almost primeval instinctive thing to want to get close to it. The knowledge that a delicate kiss, gentle breath and slow lingering sensual caresses on that erogenous button are sometimes enough to make a woman go ga-ga, is a very powerful thing. To see that it already had a ring through it, and that ring could be tweaked and teased like an extension to the nipple was enough to tempt the chastest man into spasms of lust. It just seemed so goddamn dirty. Exposing that pierced breast automatically gave the impression that this person would be the f**k of your life; a raw, bestial screw, with nothing that approached love or tenderness, just good hard sweaty and musky sex for sex’s sake, with no holds barred and where you were limited by nothing except your imagination and adrenaline.
Blokes on the other hand, couldn’t get their nips pierced without looking gay, for a long long time. Like earrings before them, chaps that had them were regarded as either weird, warped, gay or all three. I think it was one of the Police Academy films, where a leather-clad bare-chested bar-room dude is teasing the fat rookie cop. Fat rookie cop then rips off the poor man’s nipple ring and entire cinema audiences world-wide winced in unison. It put a whole generation of fellas off the idea, even though their wives and girlfriends may have liked it. It just seemed so Village People, so borderline homosexual and above all, it clearly had so much potential for unwanted pain. The thought of someone ripping it off, or catching it on shirt buttons or something, just didn’t appeal.
Until the 90’s that is. The pierced punk rebels of the late 70’s had grown up and become accountants with kids of their own. How was Junior supposed to be rebellious against a tattooed Mum who still wore a nosering and a Dad who wore his earring to the office? All the hippy neuveau had nipple jobs as soon as they started university because they believed it made them look sexually liberated, but even nipple piercings were becoming passé. Mid life crisis man was now having his nips pierced as well as his ears, and telling as many people as who’d listen in the golf club, that it really had given him a new lease of life, etc, etc… so it developed into a situation where having pierced nipples was almost a compulsory rite of passage. Much like getting a bad tattoo was in the 70’s. You went out, you did it, thought it was cool for about a year and then started to secretly regret it
So what was left? It was eyebrows, lips, septums, nostrils, tongues and of course bellybuttons. Many a sceptic navel had to be hidden from Mum and doctors surgeries throughout the country were full of outraged parents, embarrassed teenagers and p***ed-off GP’s. Changes came in the style of the piercings themselves. What used to be a simple ring or stud developed into elaborate bolts and rivets, rings with ‘balls’ where they join the flesh, diamonds and coloured stones, chains and even progressions from the old hippy tat the ‘mood ring’, where the coloured enamel on the silver protrusion would change colour according to the mood of the wearer.
But the piercings all had one thing in common. You could see them. Ears, eyebrows, bellybuttons, lips, nips, tongues, whatever, they were all on display to an extent. So what happened to make people want to pierce the bits that usually aren’t on display, and to make them so elaborate? There was a line to be drawn. Genitalia with piercings seemed to be the last word in exotica. Few pierced-nippled decoratively bejewelled bodies would cross it. The guys you heard about that had their d**ks pierced just had something wrong with them. Were they molested as kids? We didn’t know, but it seemed a bit too way out for most people. The women who showed us in magazines and porn videos that they had rings through their genitals seemed like the most degraded victims of sado masochism. Did someone think “My bits will look so much better full of metal” then set out to prove it?
The arrival of exotic porn from the continent via Red Hot Dutch and the like gave us our first viewing of ‘people next door’ and the depths they’d sink to. One that I was asked to watch showed a West Country lady and her ‘masterful husband Barry’ in an orgy with similarly minded people. He had a ladder of studs along the entire length of his otherwise unimpressively stumpy penile shaft, while she had no less than 11 rings in her crotch; three in each outer labia, two in each inner labia and a large gold ring through her clitoris. ‘Masterful Barry’ suspended chains from each ring and to the bottom of these chains, attached a specially adapted pint glass holder. She started to urinate and the increasing weight of the rapidly filling pint pot pulling on her rings was enough to send her into screaming orgasm. Their eventual intercourse was brutal and insensitive, and I watched with concern that their genital jewellery would injure them but it never did.
The internet of course, opened up a whole new can of worms. To see how far people could take it, ‘body modification’ became like a contest to see who could be the most bizarre. People were limited only by their imaginations and their individual tolerances to pain. Multiple piercings (literally dozens) in the labia and clitoral hoods, studs and rings through any part of the male genitals and of course the good old ‘Prince Albert’; the ring through the glans. “What makes anyone want to do this?” we asked ourselves. It seemed like the least erotic thing one could do to oneself or another, but it didn’t make it any less fascinating. Like watching a road accident, it’s excruciating and harrowing to see, yet strangely and guiltily compulsive as your eyes are drawn to it like iron filings to a magnet.
And it’s the Prince Albert where I’m heading to with all this. If legend is to be believed, Queen Victoria’s hubby had a metal ring through his penis. I have yet to discover whether this is a historical myth but given that the glans piercing has been given his name as a generic term, let’s hypothesise that it’s true and he truly did have one. It would have allegedly been there to secure the royal rod in place and minimise the embarrassment of unwanted erections, because as we all know, that’s such a problem. The rather dubious quack medical practices of the 19th century make this hardly surprising as there were a number of devices that were designed to prevent erection or masturbation. Among them, a contraption that rang a bell to alert the parents of teenage boys at the first sign of nocturnal arousal. A securing ring seems like a pretty discrete thing in comparison.
So let’s take it as read that Albert had a ring fitted. Lack of anaesthesia or sterile operating theatres would have meant that this would hardly have been a decision to take lightly. If most people want to prevent an erection or over excitement, they just think about football or the wife, so he must have had a pretty rampant libido if he felt it had to be chained to be restrained. It would have hurt and hurt a lot. The chances of infection were high and he could hardly have been able to remove it as and when he felt like it, so it must have been a permanent addition to his crown jewels. But that’s the Germans for you.
Then of course, there’s the Queen herself. This was a woman who refused to believe that lesbians existed, and as far as I know, she probably only ever saw one adult male member in her life, and that belonged to Albert. Even leading a sheltered royal life, she must have had an opinion on his genital jewellery. She can’t have thought that such decoration grows on the member naturally, and must have had some misgivings about whether it would be harmful to have a ring of metal entering her royal box. So it leaves me with questions that I have no answers for. Were the numerous royal offspring conceived via Albert’s modified semi-metallic tackle? Was Victoria of the opinion that such modification must be ‘normal’? But most of all, did she like it? Victoria, despite being the epitome of British reserve, allegedly partook of the odd reefer to calm her menstrual cramps, so perhaps she also was slightly bohemian in other ways too.
But it didn’t start with our Royal Family. The natives of certain tribes have been modifying (some would say mutilating) their genitals for countless generations. The natives of Borneo’s jungles for example, went one better than the circumcisions practised elsewhere that were obviously kids stuff to them. Some would cut open their penises vertically along the top of the shaft and insert stones, which when healed over, would produce a pleasant gravelly sensation. Not dissimilar to the penile sub-dermal insertions that are catching on in a big way on the piercing scene. These natives also invented the ‘Pallaang’. Never heard of it? Well, it’s a rod of bone or wood that is driven through the penile shaft at right angles, so that it looks like a letter ‘t’. The idea was inspired by the most potent symbol of virility in Borneo, the Borneo Rhinoceros, whose erect member has a natural ‘pallaang’, the purpose of which has yet to be discovered. However, if it’s good enough for the Rhino, it’s good enough for a young tribesman who wants to impress the chicks.
This practice has inspired a modification among the western piercing culture known as an ‘Ampallang’, which is a metal bar driven through the glans horizontally. Not quite got the panache of the Borneo tribesmen, but fair play to whoever wants to get this done. It’s one of the more popular piercings among the punk c*ck fraternity and to be honest, the mechanics of it worry me. Presumably, the type of lady who finds this arousing in her man is possibly the type of lady that is similarly intimately decorated herself. The in-out motion of intercourse may mean that one set of protrusions may snag against the other and the potential pain is something I’d rather not think about.
But real pain is exciting apparently, and they don’t come more painful than the Meatotomy. Now that really sorts out the men from the boys. Imagine splitting in gradual stages, one’s penis beginning at the urethra and working downwards. The idea is to stretch the meatus until it can accommodate the insertion of objects such as fingers and ultimately, another man’s penis. Yes, you read that correctly. Physically impossible? Do an internet search and surprise yourself. Just don’t eat first.
The glans is a most sensitive part of the male anatomy. Quite why a chap can look at it and think it’ll look better with a big hunk of metal through it is beyond me. It may well feel nice, but I argue that it feels pretty nice in its natural unmodified state. It’s not an attractive appendage at the best of times so I can hardly believe that riveting the thing improves the aesthetic appearence. So, is it performance? Is it like a more inspirational version of the ribbed condom? I guess so.
Recently, I whiled away a dull evening by visiting genteel Tunbridge Wells and the delicate melodies of a Raging Speedhorn gig. Tunbridge Wells, is of course the home of someone called ‘Disgusted’ who writes to the BBC complaining about too much sex and violence on TV. ‘Disgusted’ has never heard of the off button and doesn’t read TV guides, so as you can imagine, Tunbridge Wells is a fairly upmarket area. Full of antique shops, Estate Agents called Nigel with new Porsches, stockbrokers, pony riding students called Penelope and a lot of kids who are trying desperately to upset Mummy and Daddy by listening to music with swearing in it. A lot of parents were there, standing at the back, worried that Tarquin would hurt himself by moshing and young Tarquin was trying desperately to convince the few girlies present that no way was that his parents up there at the back, oh no. They're some other saddo’s, honest.
In the lavatory, I stood at the urinal to relieve myself and unfortunately broke the cardinal rule of men’s room etiquette. I won’t elaborate on men’s room etiquette as this is an entirely different subject and deserves a few pages on it’s own, but I committed the biggie. I looked at the fellow in the adjacent ‘trap’. I could hardly help it as he was standing with legs akimbo, about 2 feet apart. Not a natural position to slash in, unless one has scrotal elephantiasis or something, but luckily he broke the uneasy silence first.
“I’m trying not to get my feet wet” he explained, turning his head to face me. “My d**k’s pierced and it’s like p**sing through a watering can!”
There’s not a lot one can say to that is there? Except “Oh, right. Prince Albert?” in order to feign casual interest.
“Yeah, “ he replied as he turned away from the urinal, towards me and proudly displayed a rather feeble looking member that had a thick silver ring, around the circumference of a 50p piece through his glans. Without being invited to do so, he stretched it to show that it went in under the frenum (the banjo, lads) and out through the urethra.
Now, I’m not one for looking at another chap’s old chap on a regular basis. It’s hardly a hobby of mine and despite the fascination I have for the extremes of this kind of thing, I feel a comfortable distance when admiring, if that’s the right word, from afar. Having a complete stranger show me his pierced organ up close and personal, like, is a spectator sport I wouldn’t recommend that anyone gets into the habit of.
“Did it hurt?” I enquired sheepishly, not knowing really what to say.
“Of course it f**king did!” He snapped. “It was like p**sing razors for about 4 days!”
So I had to ask the obvious question. “Why do it then?”
“The bitches love it!” he exclaimed, smiling.
Ah, yes, the ladies, I think he means.
“Do they? I’d have thought they’d worry about it cutting them or coming off inside. What about coming anyway, doesn’t it affect that?”
“”Coming’s brilliant!” he revealed, “Better than before. It just gives so much sensation to both partners. The bitches just love it…”
Personally, I’d rather compromise the obvious sensation improvements for the ability to take a leak properly. Seeing as I’m likely to pee more often than shag, I’ll take convenience and comfort every time.
But it didn’t end there, much as I wanted it to. Two traps along, an otherwise inoffensive looking fellow had overheard and overseen our conversation. He promptly joined in with a display of his own Prince Albert. Like long lost brothers, these two compared members in the same way that kids in the street compare the latest toys. Like penile Top Trumps.
“My ring’s 6mm, yours is only 5mm…but your ball’s bigger…mine’s engraved…mine went through more flesh…etc…etc”
It’s turned out that this latest addition to the conversation had a ‘guiche’ piercing that I decided I didn’t want to view. Two complete strangers showing me their willies was bad enough, but knowing that I was a whisker away from inspecting a lump of metal through someone’s perineum was more than I could handle. . I decided to leave this newly formed fellowship of the ring to their own devices and left to join the rest of the crowd feeling surreally self conscious and fairly bewildered.
Explaining my experience to Vicky, a young lady I met for the first time that evening, she admitted that a pierced fella was something she always wanted to experience as her friends praised it’s virtues, but as her fiancé was unwilling to get it done, she’ll never experience it. Poor deprived little lamb. However, the idea turned her on enormously. I decided it would be inappropriate to enquire whether she was similarly bejewelled.
One lady I know used to have a clitoral piercing which astonished me at the time. I naively thought that it went actually through the clitoris itself rather than the hood and she was happy to put me straight on it. Apparently it made her super sensitive and she used to get herself off by riding her bicycle. She eventually removed it because she was having too many orgasms. She averaged two on her 20 minute journey to work every morning and it was making her a danger on the road as she was unwilling at times to stop pedalling. When one is about to have a sexual climax, traffic lights, hand signals and busy junctions are not foremost in the mind and I can’t say I’d ever thought of it that way before, but c’est la vie.
The aforementioned ‘guiche’ piercing disturbed me greatly. A quick internet search revealed that this is a “popular piercing on which to hang weights”. Weights! It stretches to form what gives the impression of a second scrotum. Popular? Sounds like the next big thing to me. Pictures are enough to cause nightmares though. One guy went one better and had a two-link chain formed of a ring through his glans interlocking with a further ring through his anus. It went into the hole and out of the side, literally straddling the curve of his sphincter muscle. His penis was folded back, due to the fact that the linkage was only two rings long, but I dare not imagine what would happen if he became aroused. Either his anus or his glans would rip. Yeah, lovely, gotta have one of those, form an orderly queue behind me…
I started wondering if I’d led a sheltered life. I felt like a rock and roll rebel getting my ear pierced at the grand old age of 24 but it occurred to me that the great thing about body piercing is that it appeals to all walks of life, they just share a common kink. United by piercings and pain. Anyone can have a metallic surprise under their clothes. Your bank manager, your boss, your granny, your neighbour, the person sitting next to you on the bus. you won’t know until they tell you or show you (unless you happen to frequent Tunbridge Wells). As it’s something that can be kept under wraps, there’s a whole army of punk c*cks and metal-petals out there. A discrete perversion and in these paranoid times, perhaps the best kind.
