Body piercing products and services has emphasized their connection to longstanding cultural practices, even as the image of body piercing is often one of indifference or even radicalism regarding cultural norms. Musafar connected modern body-piercing culture to longstanding practices in non-Western cultures. Retrospective and imaginary though these links may be, they have succeeded in making body piercing a central practice of modern primitivism.
Malloy took a different route, marketing contemporary body piercing by giving it the patina of a Western history. His pamphlet, Body & Genital Piercing in Brief, concocted fanciful histories of genital piercings in particular. These ersatz, and often homoerotic tales---which include the notion that Prince Albert invented the piercing that shares his name in order to tame the appearance of his large penis in tight trousers, and that Roman centurions attached their capes to nipple piercings---are widely circulated as urban legends, and Malloy's pamphlet is sometimes cited as evidence of their historical veracity.
The notion of an aristocratic European past of body piercing enjoys widespread appeal. Hans Peter Duerr argues in Dreamtime that nipple piercing became popular in fourteenth century Europe. There is evidence, both anecdotal and photographic, that nipple piercing was practiced in Europe during the late nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, but it was not a common practice.
Malloy took a different route, marketing contemporary body piercing by giving it the patina of a Western history. His pamphlet, Body & Genital Piercing in Brief, concocted fanciful histories of genital piercings in particular. These ersatz, and often homoerotic tales---which include the notion that Prince Albert invented the piercing that shares his name in order to tame the appearance of his large penis in tight trousers, and that Roman centurions attached their capes to nipple piercings---are widely circulated as urban legends, and Malloy's pamphlet is sometimes cited as evidence of their historical veracity.
The notion of an aristocratic European past of body piercing enjoys widespread appeal. Hans Peter Duerr argues in Dreamtime that nipple piercing became popular in fourteenth century Europe. There is evidence, both anecdotal and photographic, that nipple piercing was practiced in Europe during the late nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, but it was not a common practice.
