Category Features

2022 NEHA Review

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Shortly after the APP’s 2022 conference in Las Vegas, APP member John Johnson traveled to Spokane, Washington to represent the association’s Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Committee (LRAC) at the annual education conference hosted by the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA).

APP members Matt Bavougian, Steve Joyner, and John Johnson each have positions on NEHA’s body art committee which created the Body Art Model Code (BAMC). NEHA represents health inspectors around the United States who visit body art studios and enforce local codes. This NEHA conference in Spokane featured four days of body art inspector training and the APP’s John Johnson was there to speak on behalf of body piercing facilities and discuss the most practical and effective methods for their inspection.

The NEHA conference is similar to our APP conference in many ways, lectures and other presentations take place each day with topics related to environmental health, opportunities to network are everywhere, and of course the exposition hall where vendors display their products and services is a main attraction.

Like piercers who attend the APP’s conference, health inspectors and other environmental health officials attend conferences such as NEHA to stay up-to-date with trends, technology, and information relevant to their profession. Today, these environmental health specialists have great interest in body art like professional piercing.

Body piercing is now considered mainstream by many and regulators are very interested in effective health codes and their enforcement. The APP’s LRAC works closely with organizations like NEHA who have a need for body piercing health and safety information. We appreciate everyone at NEHA who supports the APP’s mission of safe piercing.

At the time of this article NEHA is accepting change requests for the Body Art Model Code.

Point 89: Gentian Violet Concerns & Alternatives

Comments Off on Point 89: Gentian Violet Concerns & Alternatives read Editorial, Features, Issue 89, Medical, News, Questions & Answers, Science & Body Modifications

Piercers in Canada were recently informed by Health Canada that they were not allowed to use products containing gentian violet.1 A recall was put in place due to a link to cancer risk. At least one manufacturer voluntarily discontinued sales of their products and their license was cancelled.

Continue reading →

Point 89: POC Scholarship Update

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Keiana “Kookie” Lynn

With the support of 64 community members, we raised $4,555.53 to give 7 piercers the opportunity to attend the Association of Professional Piercers Conference. Eduardo Chavarria, Miro Hernandez, and myself are proud to support with continued education, along their piercing journeys.

  • Aaron May
  • Angie Ortiz
  • Anthony Lewis
  • Deron Carter
  • Frances Sesay
  • Jose Zuniga
  • Kay Warren

With the rise of COVID-19 and the cancellation of the upcoming Association of Professional Piercers Conference, we intend to continue supporting recipients by honoring 2020 scholarships in 2021. Conference admission tickets will remain booked, while rooms and flights will be re-booked, when possible. In the event that a recipient is no longer piercing in 2021, their resources will be forfeited to the next qualifying applicant.

For further questions or concerns, please email KonnichiwaKookie@gmail.com.

Point 89: From the Body Piercing Archive, 2019

Comments Off on Point 89: From the Body Piercing Archive, 2019 read Body Piercing Archives, Features, In Memorium, Industry History, Issue 89, News

Dustin Allor

This past summer we lost a most iconic and beloved member of the body piercing community. It is hard to imagine what the landscape of the piercing industry would look like without Fakir Musafar. He was part of the group who brought body piercing into mainstream western culture from underground society in the 1970s. Fakir inspired countless people to become piercers, taught the skill to approximately 2,000 attendees of his piercing workshop, moved many to try suspension and urged us to claim our bodies as our own, especially through body modification. He firmly believed that piercing was sacred, magical, and could be a special moment for all involved. His life was spent spreading that message and seeking the spirit through exploring and testing the limits of his body. This year’s Body Piercing Archive exhibit unfolded many of the lives, hobbies, jobs, and performances of the multifaceted Fakir Musafar.

Walking into the exhibit was overwhelming in the best sort of way. There was so much information—so many visuals—that it was hard to know where to look. Each time I went in, there were things I hadn’t noticed previously. It would have taken me a couple of focused hours to take in all the information. The outer walls were lined with banners. The inner walls had four alcoves with various displayed items. Several banners featured large photos of Fakir embodying his different personas. There were other banners that stood out to me: the timeline that shared childhood pictures, some of influential people in his life, covers of his Body Play magazines, and collages of the group photos from nearly every class of the Fakir Intensives.

Visitors enter the exhibit.
Photo by Marina Pecorino

Then there were the alcoves. One held books and images that inspired and guided a young Fakir to try so many unconventional practices. A few items in particular caught my  eye: Fakir’s  yoga  book from the 1950s and National Geographic from Fakir’s childhood where he got the idea to perform his first piercing on himself at age 14. Another area had masks, homemade eyelets for stretching his nipple piercings, some of Fakir’s septum jewelry, and articles he had written. There was a section that had a bed of nails, a bed of blades, a kavadi frame, a suspension frame, and other inventions of Fakir’s that I’m not sure have names. Most of these devices were featured in Fakir’s early self photography. Having been born in a rural area in 1930, out of necessity he developed a resourceful and inventive ability. A large portion of the objects in the exhibit were things he made at home by hand. Rarely disposing of his creations, the BPA was able to acquire or borrow many of them from his wife, Cléo Dubois. It was fabulous to see classic Fakir photos right next to the actual items he made and was wearing in the portrait.

View of the exhibit.
Photo by Marina Pecorino

There was a screen toward the back of the exhibit playing the Mark and Dan Jury film Dances Sacred and Profane starring Fakir, Jim Ward, and Charles Gatewood. Mirroring that was a second screen dedicated to performances he had  done,  featuring video from one of his European performances. Between those was information on RE/Search #12: Modern Primitives, the publication where so many of us discovered Fakir for the first time.

View of the exhibit.
Photo by Marina Pecorino

The last alcove in the exhibit was the most solemn. The exhibit overall celebrated Fakir’s life, but the last alcove honored his death. Fakir felt that altars were important. He would make one at the end of every piercing class, a place to look to for focus, to display images and objects that had meaning to him and to help inspire a particular mindset he was looking for. The last alcove of the exhibit, with bright yellow and red walls, was an altar to Fakir. It displayed a large photo of him, photos of those close to him who had also passed, images of deities he was drawn to, fresh fragrant flowers, candles, and a few personal items like his chest spears. When he announced that he was sick and had limited time left, Fakir asked that instead of emails or phone calls, that people hand write and mail him letters if they had anything they wanted to share with him. Hundreds of letters came in and he read all the words of love and thanks before he left us. A selection of those cards were strung from the center back wall of the alcove, extending to either side of the door, framing the altar and giving the space a sense of depth, layers, and sentiment.

Fakir’s memorial altar at the APP Conference, 2019.
Photo by Marina Pecorino

Fakir was so many people wrapped up in one. It was impossible to know everything and everyone he had been in his life. Depending on how you knew him, you would connect and learn about different aspects of his personality and interests, hearing different stories of his past. In addition to all the visuals in the exhibit, docents who were personally known to Fakir gave tours. Each had unique experiences and insight on who Fakir was, having known him in a variety of circles and points of his life. Several of the instructors from the Fakir Intensives gave tours, as well as friends of Fakir’s including Allen Falkner and Annie Sprinkle. Each offered unique flavors, new insight and things to learn about Fakir. Hearing their stories really brought Fakir’s memory to life in a vivid interactive way and I wish I could have seen all the tours.

Annie Sprinkle conducting a tour of the exhibit.
Photo by Marina Pecorino

Working closely with Fakir’s wife, Cléo, the BPA team put together an amazing and moving exhibit. Fakir was always touched and awed by the gratitude, credit, and honor people extended to him. I think he would be absolutely blown away and speechless by the beautiful display and celebration of his life that portrayed so much of who he was. To Paul King, Becky Dill, Devin Ruiz, and all your behind the scenes helpers, thank you for all your hard work in putting together such a rich and beautiful commemoration of Fakir’s life. It was wonderful to get to celebrate Fakir’s life together with the bulk of the piercing community this year at the APP Conference.

Dustin Allor & Fakir Musafar

Point 89: The Gay Ear

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Lynn Loheide & Margo Dellaquilla

In piercing studios around the country the question is still asked today, “Does one side have any special meaning? You know, what ear is the gay ear?” Despite changing times and modern progress many people still associate piercings—particularly a single piercing in the lobe—as a symbol of one’s sexuality. We’ve all given a little internal eye roll when we have to field this question in our studios and most of us have a carefully prescribed response. any of us may not understand the history of this concept. It’s actually quite fascinating to take a look behind how one specific piercing developed such recognition as a gay symbol.

To find out how an ear piercing could carry such symbolism we need to look back to the ‘70s and ‘80s in America. A different time when it was still perilous to be LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual or allied) and publicly out, and there were no legal or social protections for people who were. Many people lived in fear of losing their jobs, homes, families, or being outright attacked. The AIDs crisis was beginning and both hate and fear concerning anything gay were at an all-time high.

People gathered in secret bars, hung around dark trails in local parks, and used various forms of code based on location to subtly tell people they were gay. These codes were a form of protection, a small way to tell people in-the-know what their preferences were without outing themselves and potentially changing, or even ending, their lives. We, as piercers, generally know and love the hanky code (raise your hand if you own a purple one!) This same philosophy also helped to coin“The Gay Ear”. Born from these codes is a phrase few now remember as familiar, “Left is right and right is wrong” (“wrong” here meaning gay). This cultural phrase spread across communities in an era when piercing was just blossoming. Women were daring to wear second and third earlobe piercings and a particularly rebellious person may pierce their cartilage. This phrase cemented in many minds that the singular right lobe piercing on a man was synonymous with being gay. We can even look at this New York Times article from 19911 that mentions a piercing in the right ear as a “discreet symbol”    of one’s sexuality. We must remember this was a time when discretion was, for some, life or death. Like a game of  telephone,  this  phrase  spread,  and small changes happened along the way. In some areas, it was reversed, and the left ear was  a signifier. Others changed the script  entirely:  both ears could signify one was bi or trans, and a few on one ear had specific meanings in a local scene. As the phrase became  more  widespread  and used as a way of outing folks, some opted to pierce the opposite ear associated in their area to remain hidden. All of this served to muddle the waters until no one  could  agree  which  ear  was, in fact, “the gay ear”.

It wasn’t long before that phrase became lost, and many people forgot which ear meant what, as if any ear ever meant anything. The internet, and even before that the “Ask x” columns and library question cards, were filled with men agonizing over which was the ear they were “supposed” to pierce. How could they wear the adornments they desired while maintaining their heterosexuality; or, perhaps, secretly inquiring which they could pierce to flaunt their homosexuality. Over time the meaning seemed to matter less and less as piercings became more popular and many folks cared not what anyone else thought. Their adornments were for them and them alone. As early as the ‘90s people had forgotten the meaning as piercings were now more about punk rock and youthful rebellion than an underground symbol. Time passed and it became ok to be out. We didn’t need to hide behind antiquated codes or symbols; we could be out and proud!

While discrimination still exists in many shapes and forms, even now in 2020, fortunately, we don’t need to hide as much as we did then. That being said, education and reclamation of what was once used to hurt or oppress us can be a powerful way to stand in the face of discrimination. This is a great piece of history to share with other piercers, clients, and friends, to help remove the stigma and keep our history alive. After all, given our shared history, all piercings are a little bit gay!

Photos of Gauntlet founder and out gay man Jim Ward from issue 24 of Piercing Fans International Quarterly (1985). Jim acquired his first ear piercing in 1969 when the right ear was very much the traditional “gay” ear. Like many gay men of that time, he still opted to pierce the left ear. The initial piercing was a bit low; sometime in Gauntlet’s early years, he did a second one above it for which he designed these unique jewelry pieces. Sadly, they disappeared when Gauntlet closed in 1998. After he moved to San Francisco in the early 1990s, he finally had his right ear pierced.

Point 89: APP Recommended Response & Recovery Post-Covid

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On behalf of the Board of Directors, updated April 25, 2020

The Association of Professional Piercers (APP) is an international health  and  safety  organization.  It is a nonprofit voluntary alliance dedicated to the dissemination of information about body piercing. Governed by a voluntary elected Board of Directors, the APP is a united group of piercing professionals that freely shares information to help fellow members, piercers, healthcare professionals, legislators, health inspectors, and the general public get the best and most up-to-date information about body piercing.

For most countries around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the closure of body art facilities (including body piercing, tattooing, and other elective body art procedures). As countries seek to reopen their economies and ease measures like forced business closings and social distancing, the APP has sought to give accurate, appropriate, and achievable guidelines for all body artists to follow to decrease the spread of COVID-19 and  lower  the  impact  in their workplace. Recommended Response & Recovery Interim Protocols1.

We continue to recommend that body art professionals follow local, state or provincial, and national guidelines regarding the closure of non-essential business operations and, within these guidelines, make decisions that are best for them and their individual situations. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a terrible impact on all body art businesses and the people who work in them. It has sickened and killed hundreds of thousands worldwide. Through it all, body artists have stuck together, freely shared information, and readied themselves to return to work and serve their clientele. The Association of Professional Piercers would like to thank the body piercing and body art community for their resiliency, professionalism, and commitment to health and safety.

During this pandemic, information continues to evolve very quickly. The authors of this document will make every effort to make regular updates as new and better information becomes available. If  you  have  suggestions for improvements to this document please email the secretary of the APP at secretary@safepiercing.org.

In Health,

Your Board of Directors

1“Recommended Response & Recovery Interim Protocols,” Public Service Announcements: COVID-19, Association of Professional Piercers, accessed April 27, 2020, https://www.safepiercing.org/docs/APP_Recommended_Post-COVID19_Closure_Reopening_interim_protocols.pdf.

Point 88: Female Genital Mutilation & Piercing in the UK

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by Lola Slider, UKAPP Medical Liaison

Headline from The Times from April 12, 2019
Photo by Paul King

In the United Kingdom right now there is a cloud over the legal classification of female genital piercings.

Their current legal status is effectively non-existent; they are neither legal nor illegal. This creates a vast cavity of misinformation available for gross misinterpretation.

I first contacted my local police department in September of 2016, after my failure to get clarification on this subject from my licensing authority, and got a response almost immediately. A short and clear, “yes, in a licensed shop on a consenting 18+ year old adult, this is legal.” Three short years later, in April of 2019, after three weeks of sending multiple reminders to two departments, I received a reply from the same police department. They told me, “I am not in a position to advise if any offence has been committed. In the event a complaint was made it would be a matter for the courts to decide.”

In that three year period no laws have changed in Scotland, which suggests to me it is the attitude that has changed. The Serious Crime Act 20151 is applicable only in England and Wales. Scottish female genital mutilation (FGM) law falls under The Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 20052. Both acts, however, contain the key word “mutilation” at the center of all this legal ambiguity. With a word so charged with connotation, it can be difficult to find legal clarification on exactly what it covers. With the intention of clarifying and standardizing the definition, the World Health Organization has classified FGM into four major types3. Unfortunately, the term “piercing” is used in Type 4, possibly in reference to the stitching involved in infibulation or forms of Sunna, where the clitoris  and labia are pierced and encouraged to bleed freely.

The Great Wall of Vagina (2008). Detail.
Photo by Jamie McCartney

The National Health Service (NHS) is “collecting data about women and girls with FGM who are being cared for by the NHS in England. This collection includes data items that will be routinely discussed by the patient and health professional as part of the standard delivery of care and that are included in the patient’s healthcare record.”4 Due to the classification by the WHO, “genital piercings are included” in this data collection, because “the data item FGM Type 4 Qualifier allows users to specify that the FGM was a piercing.” The FGM Enhanced Dataset—Frequently Asked Questions5 text goes on to state that “labiaplasty and genital tattoos are not included.”

What the piercing community needs are clear amendments made to the existing legislation that state cosmetic genital piercings on consenting adults, performed in licensed premises, are excluded from the classification of Type 4 FGM. This will eliminate the current legal ambiguity we face and protect us from investigations that, even if ultimately do not result in prosecution, could be career ending. This will allow women in the UK parity with men seeking genital piercings and it will prevent the NHS from recording women with genital piercings as FGM suffers. Under current Department of Health policy, patient permission is not needed to do so.

United against FGM, from Not Again Campaign
Photo: Uncredited

From January to March6 of this year alone, an astonishing 1,990 cases of FGM were recorded in England. We can only hope policymakers take the time, as I did, to find that only 1,015 of those cases were new and of that, 750 where recorded  as  “unknown”  as  opposed to being classified as Type 1 through 4. Of these, 85 were Type 4 and 65 were “not recorded”; how these   65 somehow became part of the statistics is anyone’s guess. By simply reading the first quarterly7 NHS Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Enhanced Dataset of this year, the number has potentially been reduced  from 1,990 to 115.

  1. “Serious Crime Act 2015,” UK Public General Acts, legislation.gov.uk delivered by The National Archives, up to date as of August 13, 2019,
    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/9/contents.
  2. “Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005,” Acts of the Scottish Parliament, legislation.gov.uk delivered by The National Archives, accessed August 13, 2019,
    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2005/8/contents.
  3. “Female Genital Mutilation,” Fact sheets, World Health Organization, dated January 31, 2018,
    https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation.
  4. “Health professionals and NHS organisations,” Female Genital Mutilation Datasets, NHS Digital, last edited October 3, 2018,
    https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/clinical-audits-and-registries/female-genital-mutilation-datasets/health-professionals-and-nhs-organisations#publications.
  5. NHS Digital, “FGM Enhanced Dataset—Frequently Asked Questions,” updated May 2019,
    https://digital.nhs.uk/binaries/content/assets/website-assets/clinical-audits/fgm/frequently-asked-questions.pdf.
  6. “Female Genital Mutilation January-March 2019,” Female Genital Mutilation, NHS Digital, published May 24, 2019,
    https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/female-genital-mutilation/january-to-march-2019.
  7. “FGM 2019 Q1 – Report,” Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Enhanced Dataset, NHS Digital, published May 24, 2019,
    https://files.digital.nhs.uk/18/643E66/FGM%202019%20Q1%20-%20Report.pdf.
  8. “Strengthening protection from Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): consultation,” Publications, Scottish Government, published October 4, 2018,
    https://www.gov.scot/publications/strengthening-protection-female-genital-mutilation-fgm/

Point 88: The BPA Contributes to the Musēe de L’Homme

Comments Off on Point 88: The BPA Contributes to the Musēe de L’Homme read Body Piercing Archives, Features, Issue 88

The Body Piercing Archive contributed material and guidance for the Piercing exhibit at the Musēe de L’Homme in Paris, France. The exhibit will run March 13, 2019 to March 9, 2020.

Project leader: Alexix Amen

Scientific Commissioner: Franz Manni

Piercing: L’ Exposition

Parallèlement à l’exposition Dans ma peau, Piercing propose un point de vue anthropologique sur le piercing. Mêlant représentations artistiques, objets préhistoriques, photographies et bijoux, l’exposition présente des pratiques du piercing depuis 45 000 ans. Différentes traditions seront abordées : des Kayapos du Brésil aux Dayaks du Bornéo, des «Primitifs Modernes» aux États-Unis aux usages contemporains.

Trouer la peau et y placer un objet visible est une pratique qui remonte à la préhistoire et dont on trouve des traces sur tous les continents, une pratique qui a perduré jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Ces modifications du corps prennent des  significations  diverses  : appartenance à un groupe, rites de passage, signes de prestige ou marques d’infamie, signes de soumission, de beauté et de force.

Si en Europe seule la boucle d’oreille semble avoir traversé les époques pour devenir une tradition bien ancrée, aujourd’hui les Occidentaux ont adopté de nouvelles modes et utilisent l’ensemble du corps comme moyen d’expression.

Parti de la Californie libertaire des années 1970, le renouveau de cette pratique ancestrale est inspiré par des précurseurs qui cherchaient à libérer le corps. Se définissant eux-mêmes comme « Primitifs Modernes », ils réinventent et réinterprètent les pratiques dans un nouveau contexte où le piercing se réalise désormais dans des conditions stériles et maîtrisées. C’est ainsi que le premier studio de piercing voit le jour en 1975.

D’abord réservée aux subcultures naissantes (gay, punk, SM), cette pratique va progressivement s’étendre à toute la société et s’imposer à l’échelle mondiale grâce à un phénomène d’imitation, soutenu par l’essor d’Internet, et s’imposer désormais sous un nom mondialisé : le piercing.

1 http://www.museedelhomme.fr/fr/programme/expositions-galerie-lhomme/piercing-3791

From prehistory to the present day, discover the variety of piercing traditions and practices around the world.

Piercing: The Exhibition

Piercing offers an anthropological perspective on piercing. Combining artistic representations, prehis- toric objects, photographs, and jewelry, the exhibition presents piercing practices for 45,000 years. Different traditions are discussed: from the Kayapos of Brazil to the Dayaks of Borneo, from the “Modern Primitives” in the United States to contemporary uses.

Finding the skin and placing a visible object on it is a practice that dates back to prehistoric times and has been found on every continent, a practice that has continued to this day. These changes in the body take on various meanings: belonging to a group, rites of pas- sage, signs of prestige or marks of infamy, signs of submission, beauty, and strength.

If in Europe only the earring seems to have crossed the ages to become a well-established tradition, today the Westerners have adopted new fashions and use the whole body as a means of expression.

Starting in liberal California in the 1970s, the renew- al of this ancestral practice was inspired by precursors who sought to liberate the body. Defining themselves as “Modern Primitives,” they reinvent and reinterpret practices in a new context where piercing is now per- formed in sterile and controlled conditions. This is how the first piercing studio was created in 1975.

Initially reserved for emerging subcultures (gay, punk, SM), this practice has gradually spread to the whole of society and impose itself on a global scale thanks to a phenomenon of imitation, supported by the rise of the Internet, and now impose itself under a globalized name: piercing.

Piercing: The Exhibition

Piercing offers an anthropological perspective on piercing. Combining artistic representations, prehistoric objects, photographs, and jewelry, the exhibition presents piercing practices for 45,000 years. Different traditions are discussed: from the Kayapos of Brazil to the Dayaks of Borneo, from the “Modern Primitives” in the United States to contemporary uses.

Finding the skin and placing a visible object on it is a practice that dates back to prehistoric times and has been found on every continent, a practice that has continued to this day. These changes in the body take on various meanings: belonging to a group, rites of passage, signs of prestige or marks of infamy, signs of submission, beauty, and strength.

If in Europe only the earring seems to have crossed the ages to become a well-established tradition, today the Westerners have adopted new fashions and use the whole body as a means of expression.

Starting in liberal California in the 1970s, the renewal of this ancestral practice was inspired by precursors who sought to liberate the body. Defining themselves as “Modern Primitives,” they reinvent and reinterpret practices in a new context where piercing is now performed in sterile and controlled conditions. This is how the first piercing studio was created in 1975.

Initially reserved for emerging subcultures (gay, punk, SM), this practice has gradually spread to the whole of society and impose itself on a global scale thanks to a phenomenon of imitation, supported by the rise of the Internet, and now impose itself under a globalized name: piercing.