48 Fun Facts About Body Piercing

Which ear piercing passes through the small flap of cartilage in front of the ear canal?

Tragus is the anatomical name for that flap, taken from the Greek for 'goat' because the tuft of hair that can grow there looks like a goat's beard.

Queen Puabi's gold earrings were unearthed in the Royal Cemetery of which Mesopotamian city?

Ur: Leonard Woolley's team opened Puabi's tomb there in the 1920s and found it intact, with attendants lying in the chamber beside her.

In Exodus, Aaron makes the golden calf by melting down what?

Ear ornaments: Aaron told the Israelites to take the gold rings from the ears of their wives, sons and daughters, then cast the idol while Moses was away on Mount Sinai.

What is the nose ring worn by many Indian brides called in Hindi?

Nath is the bridal nose ring, often chained to the hair; it feels ancient, yet historians find no nose ornament in Indian writing before about the 8th century.

Ayurvedic medicine links the left nostril, where many Indian women wear a stud, to which organs?

The reproductive organs: because of that Ayurvedic link, a stud in the left nostril is believed to ease childbirth.

In Genesis 24, whose servant gives Rebecca a nose ring?

Abraham's servant had been sent to find a wife for Isaac, and gave Rebecca the gold ring after she drew water for his camels at the well.

Nez Perce, the name French traders gave the Nimíipuu, wrongly credits them with which custom?

Pierced noses: 'nez percé' is French for pierced nose, but the traders had mistaken wearers of nose pendants for the Nimíipuu, who did not pierce their noses.

Which Panamanian people are known for wearing gold septum rings?

The Guna rose in revolt in 1925 after years of pressure that included a 1921 police drive to strip Guna women of their gold nose rings.

What is a labret?

A pierced lip adornment, the labret takes its name from the Latin labrum, 'lip'; many piercers say 'lo-BRAY', wrongly assuming the word is French.

Women of which people in Ethiopia's Omo valley are known for wearing large clay lip plates?

Mursi girls have the lower lip cut at 15 or 16, then decide for themselves how far to stretch it with ever larger plugs before fitting a clay plate.

Maya nobles pierced their tongues with thorns and did what with the blood?

Burned it on bark for the gods: the rising smoke was believed to carry the offering to them, and a Yaxchilan lintel shows Lady Xoc drawing a spiked rope through her tongue.

The Chandos portrait, showing a man with a gold hoop earring, is thought to depict which playwright?

William Shakespeare is the likely sitter, though it has never been proved; a National Portrait Gallery study took the earring and loose shirt-ties, a poets' fashion of the day, as signs in his favour.

At which Tamil Hindu festival do devotees pierce their cheeks and tongues with skewers?

Thaipusam marks the god Murugan's victory over a demon with his spear, the vel, and the skewers that devotees wear are named after it.

Which earring fastening dominated Western fashion in the first half of the 20th century?

The clip-on took over because pierced ears were then thought primitive; piercing only came back around 1960, when teenage girls held ear-piercing parties.

A Monroe piercing, set above the upper lip, is meant to copy which feature of Marilyn Monroe's face?

Her beauty mark is the model, although the real one sat on her cheek rather than her lip; the same stud worn on the right-hand side is called a Madonna.

Which myth about Roman centurions did Doug Malloy's piercing pamphlet spread?

They hung their capes from nipple rings, claimed 'Doug Malloy', the pen name of businessman Richard Simonton, and later histories of piercing reprinted his inventions as fact.

Some people get a daith piercing, through the ear's inner fold, hoping it will ease which condition?

Migraines: the idea borrows from acupuncture, but the American Migraine Foundation says the only evidence is anecdotal and any relief is probably a placebo effect.

The Gauntlet, widely considered America's first body piercing studio, opened its first storefront where in 1978?

West Hollywood: Jim Ward had run the Gauntlet from his home there since 1975, and the Santa Monica Boulevard shop grew into a chain with branches in three more US cities and Paris.

Which machine does the Association of Professional Piercers call necessary for sterilising a studio's jewellery and tools?

An autoclave uses steam under pressure to kill germs and their spores, which is why the association rejects dry heat and liquid soaks and asks studios to show regular spore-test results.

Which 1970s youth movement embraced piercing with safety pins?

Punk made the safety pin its emblem, though Johnny Rotten insisted the pins began as a practical fix for clothes that were falling apart.

Why is the first barbell in a new tongue piercing extra long?

To leave room for swelling, which is normal for the first few days; once it subsides, the long bar should be swapped for a shorter one to protect teeth and gums.

Which 1993 Aerosmith video, showing a navel piercing, set off a craze among young women?

Cryin' won MTV's Video of the Year, and piercer Elayne Angel credits the demand it set off with turning body piercing into a full-fledged industry.

Which actress plays the teenager who gets her navel pierced in a 1993 Aerosmith video?

Alicia Silverstone was 16 and was cast after the director saw her in The Crush; two years later she was the star of Clueless.

Which 2004 television moment reportedly sent a rush of new customers to piercing studios?

Janet Jackson's Super Bowl show ended with a 'wardrobe malfunction' that bared a sun-shaped nipple shield, and some piercers reported a jump in business afterwards.

When a piercing is stretched too fast, what is the ring of skin forced out of the hole called?

A blowout happens when the lining of the hole is pushed out through the back, which is why piercers advise going up no more than one size at a time.

The Prince Albert piercing is named after the husband of which British queen?

Queen Victoria's consort is not known to have worn one: the tale that he used the ring to tidy the line of tight trousers was invented in a 1970s piercing pamphlet.

In a 2005 English survey, who most often had piercings beyond the earlobe?

Women under 25 led by far: nearly half of those aged 16 to 24 had one, against one adult in ten overall, and almost a third of that age group's piercings caused complications.

Who was first certified by Guinness as the most pierced woman, in 2000?

Elaine Davidson, a Brazilian-born former nurse based in Edinburgh, had 462 piercings at that first count and kept adding until a newspaper tallied 6,005 in 2009.

Which jewellery is most commonly worn in a navel piercing?

A curved barbell, also sold as a navel curve, follows the shape of the piercing; rings are popular too but are not recommended, because the area moves and swells so much.

A corset piercing is two rows of rings laced with ribbon, usually worn where on the body?

The back is the usual place, and because surface piercings there are hard to heal for good, most corset piercings are temporary, done for a photo shoot or an event.

Which metal is the safest common choice of piercing jewellery for people prone to metal allergies?

Titanium is the piercers' association's pick for sensitive skin because, unlike even surgical steel, it contains none of the metal behind most jewellery allergies.

Why is gold above 18 karat unsuitable for body jewellery?

It is too soft, so it scratches and nicks easily; gold plating is ruled out for fresh piercings as well, because the thin coating can wear or chip off.

In the American gauge system for body jewellery, what does a lower number mean?

A thicker piece: the scale was devised for wire, where the number grew with each pass through a narrower die, so 20 gauge is under a millimetre and 00 is over nine.

What is the Association of Professional Piercers' position on piercing guns?

Members must agree not to use them at all, because most guns can't be properly sterilised between clients and their blunt studs act more like a crush injury than a piercing.

Which tool is standard among professional body piercers in the United States?

A bevelled hollow medical needle parts the skin and the jewellery follows it through; in some countries it counts as a medical device, so piercers there use a cannula instead.

What does a dermal punch do?

It removes a circular plug of tissue instead of pushing it aside, which suits larger cartilage piercings; in some places only medical staff may legally use one.

What is an 'industrial' piercing?

Two ear holes joined by one bar: piercer Erik Dakota's design first appeared in a 1992 issue of Body Play magazine, and in the UK and Ireland it is known as a scaffold.

Which part of the body is most commonly stretched to take larger jewellery?

The ear leads because soft lobes stretch with little discomfort, while cartilage is harder to stretch and prone to scarring; septum, tongue and lip piercings follow.

What is the tunnel of scar tissue that forms as a piercing heals called?

A fistula forms as the wound's edges contract around the jewellery; because piercings heal from the outside in, one can look healed long before the inside is strong.

What do piercers call it when the body pushes jewellery all the way out through the skin?

Rejection is where migration ends, with the jewellery creeping to the surface; shallow surface piercings are the likeliest to go, because so little skin holds them in.

Which part of the ear does a helix piercing pass through?

The upper outer rim is the helix, from the Greek for a spiral or coil, the same root that gives us the helicopter and the double helix.

Which metal is singled out as the most common cause of allergic reaction to piercing jewellery?

Nickel is the usual culprit, and the allergy is far commoner in women, which is thought to be because pierced ears put the metal against broken skin.

Operation Spanner, a 1980s police inquiry in England, led the courts to rule that what was no defence to assault?

Consent was no defence to actual bodily harm, the House of Lords confirmed in 1993; the 16 men charged included Alan Oversby, a London pioneer of body piercing, prosecuted for piercing a client.

Which Old Testament book's ban on cutting and marking the flesh is often cited against piercing and tattoos?

Leviticus 19:28 forbids cuttings in the flesh for the dead and tattoo marks, which some believers read as a rule that the body belongs to God and should not be altered.

Which American piercer and jewellery designer opened a boutique in The Dubai Mall in 2018?

Maria Tash began with an East Village studio in 1993 and made her name with the 'curated ear', a set of piercings planned as a single design.

Sun Dance participants are tethered to the centre pole by skewers through the skin of which part of the body?

The chest takes the skewers, which rawhide thongs tie to the pole or to heavy buffalo skulls; Canada outlawed such rites in 1895 and did not lift its ban until 1951.

Why do professional piercers favour internally threaded jewellery for a new piercing?

The post stays smooth because the screw thread sits on the removable end, so no rough thread is dragged through the fresh wound when the jewellery goes in.

Kayapo chief Raoni, known for his wooden lip plate, toured the world in 1989 with which British rock star?

Sting met Raoni in the Xingu in 1987 and took him to 17 countries to raise money for Kayapo land; among the Kayapo, the largest plates mark great orators and war chiefs.