Welcome to our top 10 revolting expedition into the macabre world of body piercing. From holy symbols of ownership to grotesque rituals that would make even the most hardened sailor wince, we’re counting down the most unsettling practices ever recorded. Grab a cup of tea (or a steel hook) and prepare to be both horrified and fascinated.
Why These Top 10 Revolting Piercings Matter
10. Ownership And Servitude
According to both the Old and New Testaments, piercings served as a divine badge of devotion, identification, and personal ownership. They were thought to invoke the protection of specific masters or deities, meaning any harm to a pierced individual would invite heavenly retribution.
Israelite customs echoed this sentiment: biblical passages describe men, women, and children adorning facial piercings to signal status and ownership. It was even common for a master to pierce a slave’s ear “to symbolize ownership and permanent servitude,” turning flesh into a literal property tag.
Modern Mormon doctrine, however, discourages all non‑medical piercings. Today, girls may wear a modest pair of earrings, but boys are barred entirely. BYU officials have even warned that breaking this rule makes the campus “not the place for you,” underscoring how the notion of ownership through piercings persists in new forms.
9. The New Craze
The Victorian era isn’t just prim tea parties and corsets; it also harbored a surprisingly liberal attitude toward body art. Women secretly adored tattoos, and beneath their stiff bodices they flaunted daring nipple rings. Believing that pierced nipples would widen the derrière, Parisian jewelers saw a rush of clientele eager for gold “bosom rings.”
The trend leapt across the Channel, and British women began sporting twin gold rings, sometimes linked by a delicate chain. Though the craze burned bright, it fizzled out by the early 1900s, leaving only scandalous sketches of Victorian daring.
8. Legislation
In the 21st century, bizarre piercings have spurred new laws. Pennsylvania became the first state in 2011 to ban tattoos and piercings on animals after a woman was caught piercing kittens’ ears and marketing them as “gothic” pets online.
Chicago later reported wild rabbits hopping downtown with dangling earrings, prompting officials to label the act animal mutilation. The perpetrator remains at large, highlighting how animal piercings can still slip through legal cracks.
New Jersey took it a step further in 2014, imposing harsher penalties for piercing a pet’s ear than for piercing a child’s. The state classified needless animal tattooing or piercing as a fourth‑degree felony, punishable by up to 18 months behind bars.
7. Superstitions
In Madhya Pradesh, India, the full‑moon celebration of Chaitra Poornima—known locally as Hanuman Jayanti—features a communal body‑piercing ritual aimed at curing chicken‑pox. Villagers believe that threading a needle through a person’s flesh, while hymns echo, channels divine power to expel the virus.
Chicken‑pox, caused by the Varicella Zoster Virus, can be deadly without vaccination, claiming roughly 7,000 lives worldwide. The ritual’s odd premise rests on faith that the piercings will drive the infection out, despite the obvious medical risks.
One hopes the needles used are sterilized; otherwise, participants face far more danger than the disease they aim to defeat.
6. Bloodletting
The ancient Maya practiced elaborate bloodletting ceremonies, believing that piercing specific body parts would appease the gods and induce altered states of consciousness. Tongues, lower lips, cheeks, and even the foreskin were sliced with tools ranging from stingray spines to flint blades.
After the incision, strips of straw were threaded through the wounds, allowing blood to flow freely. Unlike the Aztecs, the Maya performed fewer human sacrifices, though infant decapitations have been documented as part of certain rites.
Archaeological evidence confirms these rituals were central to Maya spirituality, intertwining pain, art, and devotion in a vivid tableau of ancient religiosity.
5. Body Suspension
Among the most extreme modern modifications is body suspension—hanging oneself from hooks pierced through the skin. While some medical professionals label it a sign of mental distress, many participants claim it offers a pathway to spiritual awakening.
The practice traces back over 5,000 years to Hindu festivals like Thaipusam and Chidi Mari, and it also appears in Native American traditions such as the Mandan and Sioux Sundance ceremonies.
Today, the subculture of meat‑hook suspension faces criticism over infection risks and tissue tearing, yet enthusiasts across the United States continue to chase the high of transcendent consciousness.
4. Costly Adornments
In ancient Egypt, body ornamentation signaled wealth, faith, and rank. While the elite flaunted lavish jewelry, tattoos, and cosmetics, piercings were a modest luxury, typically limited to ear lobes during the early New Kingdom.
Yet certain piercings were strictly regulated: only the Pharaoh could have his navel pierced. Any other individual attempting the same faced execution—often by impalement—a gruesome reminder of the power hierarchy.
These draconian punishments underscore how a simple piercing could become a matter of life and death, intertwining personal adornment with lethal political control.
3. “Mahu”
Hafada, also known as scrotum piercing, emerged in Arabia before spreading across North Africa and the Middle East. French Legionnaires stationed in Lebanon and Syria later re‑exported the practice to Europe, where men adorned their scrotums with multiple rings.
Even more startling is the “guiche”—a perineum piercing performed on boys aged 12‑14 by a “Mahu,” a revered transvestite figure in South Pacific cultures. These Mahu were believed to possess magical powers, and the ritual involved a knife slit followed by raw pig‑skin string, later fitted with bangles that would jangle during movement.
The tradition, viewed as a puberty rite, illustrates how body modification can intersect with gender, spirituality, and societal status in ways that shock the modern eye.
2. A Pirate’s Burial
Pirates are iconic for their gold hoop earrings, a symbol steeped in superstition and practicality. Sailors believed that precious metals could ward off seasickness, improve vision, and protect against drowning. In battle, cannons’ deafening roar forced pirates to use wax‑filled hoops as makeshift earplugs.
Perhaps the most intriguing reason for the earring: if a pirate died on foreign soil, the gold could cover burial costs. On a ship, however, bodies were tossed overboard to avoid bad luck, rendering the treasure‑laden loop useless in the afterlife.
1. Infibulation
Our final and most unsettling entry, infibulation, involved piercing the foreskin with a metal clasp, ring, or safety pin to seal the glans. Roman physician Aulus Cornelius Celsus first recorded the practice in the 1st century BC, noting its use to preserve the voices of choir boys.
During the Victorian era, the method resurfaced as a grotesque weapon in the so‑called “war on masturbation.” Physicians, convinced that self‑stimulation caused disease, mandated infibulation in mental institutions and orphanages, forcibly sealing boys’ genitals to curb perceived immorality.
These harrowing accounts remind us that what once seemed a medical cure could become a tool of oppression, leaving a painful legacy that still haunts history.