Body piercing is one of the oldest methods of adornment in history.

Humans seem to have been interested in their appearance and changing it since the beginning of time, and while fashions may have changed over the millennium, the only constant is that there has always been fashion.

Fashion doesn’t just apply to clothing, however, it can also apply to body art, tattoos, and even body piercing.

Many methods of adorning the body originate from tribal loyalties or religious practices or to denote status in a particular community or society.

Men of a particular historical Asian sect wore intimate piercings, today known as hood piercings, as a visible sign of a vow of chastity.

Nose and ear piercing dates back over 5,000 years and not just to adorn women with jewelry to indicate their wealth and status or enhance their beauty.

Piercing the nose and inserting fearsome-looking bones or metal rings in some tribes denotes the warrior.

Nose piercing has been practiced by the Bedouin tribes of the Middle East and the Berber and Beja peoples of Africa, as well as by Australian Aborigines.

Historically, in South Asian culture, nose piercing performed just before a bride’s marriage is believed to have symbolized the rite of passage from an unmarried girl to a wife.

Lip and tongue piercings also have an ancient history, primarily in African and South American tribal culture, and ornaments inserted into piercings generally denote status as well. Even nipple and belly button piercings have a long history, among both men and women. In women it was for adornment, but for men, the nipple piercing was among British and American sailors to mark those who had traveled beyond a particular latitude and longitude.

While this cultural aspect of adornment may have largely faded in the developed world, there are still traces of it in the adoption of a specific practice such as the custom of piercing various parts of the face and body.

This is because, with the exception of ear or nose piercing, the practice is generally chosen by a select group of people, and in that sense could be described as being used to signal belonging to a modern form of tribe. Modern jewelry fashion includes pieces designed to be inserted after septum piercings, helix piercings, and tragus piercings.

In a sense, therefore, there is nothing new in the practice of piercing different parts of the body and inserting various shapes of rings or studs into the piercing.

These days, however, while the number of piercings and their placement can be a matter of individual choice, much more care and attention is put into ensuring the sterility of the piercing equipment used and in the choice of jewelry materials. , usually a pure, non-allergenic metal such as gold, titanium, or silver.