Nipple piercing has a rich history in antiquity. It has been practiced throughout the world for centuries. Nipple piercing has been practiced by the Karankawa Native Americans in the 1800s, the Kabyle from Algeria, British and American sailors, as well as upper-class women of the 14th Century. Its popularity was renewed in the 1960s when sexuality and self-expression started blossoming. Its recent popularity has even been trickling into mainstream society.
Let's begin with the Karankawa. Nipple piercing has been recorded as being practiced by the now-extinct Karankawa Native American males, located at the Gulf Coast of Texas from Galveston Bay to Corpus Christi Bay. In non-western culture, female nipple piercing is still practiced today by the Kabyle, originally from northeastern Algeria.
Male nipple piercings are not as popular in history as female nipple piercing. Though it has been understood that American and British sailors, while sailing the high seas, would pierce their nipples after crossing a certain longitude or latitude — perhaps giving the sailors something to look forward to during the long days and nights on the sea.
Female nipple piercings, in western culture, may have been dated as far back as the 14th century. Women of wealth would wear low-cut dresses to show off their adorned nipples. It is believed that Queen Isabeau of Bavaria was the first to pierce her nipple for the purpose of decoration. In the late 1890s the "bosom ring" came into fashion briefly and sold in expensive Parisian jewelry shops.
The 1920s found Ethel Granger, a very modified woman for her time, born in 1892, who also had pierced nipples among other modifications. Fakir Musafar (Roland Loomis) and Jim Ward also pierced their nipples in the 1950s and 1960s — practices that were the foundation of some of what one may see in the BDSM, fetish, and body modification cultures of today.
Women have used nipple piercings as a way to reclaim their bodies — self-expression, taking back their bodies, and taking sexual stimulation and making it their own again.
Piercing the nipples has been around for a very long time and will continue to be. Whether it is for the purpose of adornment, heightened sexual stimulation, power play, or reclamation, piercing the nipples is powerful magick.