Jim Ward | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | June 28, 1941 (age 83) |
| Occupation | Body piercer |
James Mark Ward (born June 28, 1941) is an American body piercer. In a 2004 documentary, entitled The Social History of Piercing, MTV called him "the granddaddy of the modern body piercing movement." [1]
Ward was born in 1941 in Western Oklahoma and moved to Colorado when he was eleven. [2] In 1967, in New York he joined the New York Motorbike Club, a gay S&M group, and experimented with nipple piercing. During this time he also studied jewelry making. Ward then moved to Colorado, where he joined the gay Rocky Mountaineer Motorcycle Club and further experimented with piercing, genital in particular. In 1973, Ward moved to West Hollywood (a gay village of Los Angeles) where he met Doug Malloy. Together they developed the basic techniques and equipment that have become piercing industry standard.
Ward pioneered many jewelry designs including the fixed bead ring and internally threaded barbells. He was introduced to barbell style jewelry by Horst Streckenbach ("Tattoo Samy"), a tattooist and piercer from Frankfurt, Germany, and his student Manfred "Tattoo" Kohrs from Hanover, Germany.
Ward stated, "The first barbells I recall came from Germany. Doug had made contact with Tattoo Samy, a tattooist and piercer from Frankfurt. Over the years Samy came to the States a number of times and frequently showed up in LA to visit Doug. On one of his first visits he showed us the barbell studs that he used in some piercings. They were internally threaded, a feature that made so much sense that I immediately set out to recreate them for my own customers." [3]
With funding from Malloy (derived from his work with the Muzak corporation), Ward began using his home as a private piercing studio in 1975. Dubbing his studio the Gauntlet, he drew an initial clientele from a mailing list provided by Doug and by running classified ads in local gay and fetish publications. After three years of continued refinement with techniques and equipment, Ward opened the Gauntlet as a commercial storefront operation in West Hollywood on 17 November 1978. The establishment of this business — considered the first of its type in the United States [4] — was the beginning of the body piercing industry. [4] [5] [6]
In 1977, with the assistance of Malloy and Fakir Musafar, Ward started the piercing magazine Piercing Fans International Quarterly ( PFIQ ). [7]
In 2020, he was inducted into the Leather Hall of Fame. [8]
He is an inductee of the Society of Janus Hall of Fame. [9]
The Prince Albert (PA) is a penis piercing which extends from the urethra to the underside of the glans. It is one of the most common male genital piercings. The related reverse Prince Albert piercing enters through the urethra and exits through a hole pierced in the top of the glans.
A navel piercing is a type of piercing that penetrates the skin of the navel. It is most commonly located on the upper fold of skin but can also be affected underneath or around the edges of the navel. Healing usually takes around 6–12 months but varies person-to-person due to differences in physiology.
An earring is a piece of jewelry attached to the ear via a piercing in the earlobe or another external part of the ear, or, less often, by some other means. Earrings have been worn in diverse civilizations and historic periods, often carrying a cultural significance.
An eyebrow piercing is a vertical surface piercing, wherein a twelve to eighteen gauge cannula needle is inserted through the bottom of the eyebrow and exits through the top of the eyebrow to permit insertion of jewelry. Those performing the piercing may use a pennington clamp to better guide the needle through the skin. A curved barbell is the most common jewelry inserted post-piercing.
A tongue piercing is a body piercing usually done directly through the center of the tongue. Since its decline in popularity around 2011, it has seen a recent upsurge making it now the second most popular piercing amongst young women aged 18–25 in 2019. It has become quite unpopular amongst men, although in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was more popular for men than women to get and associated with punk culture. Midline tongue piercings, or one hole through the center of the tongue is the most common way to have the tongue pierced.
A frenum piercing is a type of body piercing located on the underside of the shaft of the penis. A series of parallel frenum piercings is known as a frenum ladder. A frenum ladder may be extended to include lorum piercings, hafada piercings and guiche piercings.
A nipple piercing is a type of body piercing, centered usually at the base of the nipple. It can be pierced at any angle but is usually done horizontally or, less often, vertically. It is also possible to place multiple piercings on top of one another.
Body piercing jewelry is jewelry manufactured specifically for use in body piercing. The jewelry involved in the art of body piercing comes in a wide variety of shapes and sizes in order to best fit the pierced site. Jewelry may be worn for fashion, cultural tradition, religious beliefs, personal symbolism, and many other reasons.
Barbell style piercing jewelry is composed of a straight bar with a bead on each end, one or both beads unscrewable for removal and/or changing of the beads. Often one of the beads is fixed, either via epoxy or welding, so that only one bead is used to install or remove the jewelry. Barbell threads are usually right-handed.
The Gauntlet, also known as Gauntlet Enterprises, was a body piercing business founded by Jim Ward that is considered the first business of its type in the United States and was the beginning of the body piercing industry.
PFIQ was a magazine published by Jim Ward from 1977 to 1997. It was the first publication about body piercing. Ward pioneered the field of body piercing and operated The Gauntlet, which was the first commercial establishment to offer the service in the United States.
A guiche piercing is a body piercing through the perineum. Guiche piercings are much more common in men than in women. Although a guiche normally runs perpendicular to the direction of the penis, lateral placements are possible. A series of guiche piercings in parallel to the direction of the penis is called a guiche ladder, and might commonly be seen as an extension of a frenum ladder.
A clitoris piercing is a genital piercing placed directly through the head (glans) of the clitoris itself. It is a relatively uncommon piercing by choice because of the potential for nerve damage, and because many may find it too stimulating to allow the constant wearing of a small ring or barbell. Most piercing studios will refuse to do a clitoral piercing. It is often confused with the more common clitoral hood piercing, which pierces only the hood covering the clitoral glans, allowing the jewelry to make only occasional contact with the most sensitive area.
Elayne Angel is an American professional body piercer.
Richard Simonton, also known under the pseudonym Doug Malloy, was a Hollywood businessman and entrepreneur, known for his involvement in the Hollywood community, his rescue of the steamboat Delta Queen, his work in preserving the work of musicians in the Welte-Mignon piano rolls and for founding the American Theatre Organ Society. Among piercing enthusiasts he is also known as an early pioneer of the contemporary resurgence in body piercing.
Alan Oversby was one of the primary figures in the development of contemporary body piercing in Europe. He was better known by his professional name Mr. Sebastian.
Modern Primitives, written by V. Vale and Andrea Juno, is a RE/Search publications book about body modification, published in 1989. The book consists of a collection of twenty two interviews and two essays with individuals and key figures involved the field of body modification in the late 1980s. It was one of the first documents to attempt to comprehensively cover the re-emergence and increasing popularity of tattooing, piercing, scarification, corsetry, sideshow, ritual and other practices in contemporary western society.
Body piercing, which is a form of body modification, is the practice of puncturing or cutting a part of the human body, creating an opening in which jewellery may be worn, or where an implant could be inserted. The word piercing can refer to the act or practice of body piercing, or to an opening in the body created by this act or practice. It can also, by metonymy, refer to the resulting decoration, or to the decorative jewelry used. Piercing implants alter the body and/or skin profile and appearance. Although the history of body piercing is obscured by popular misinformation and by a lack of scholarly reference, ample evidence exists to document that it has been practiced in various forms by both sexes since ancient times throughout the world. Body piercing can be performed on people of all ages, although most minors are only permitted to have earlobe piercings.
Horst Streckenbach "Tattoo Samy" was a well-known German tattoo artist and historian of the medium, who had been tattooing since 1946. Streckenbach is considered important in the development of tattooing in Germany. With Manfred Kohrs from Hanover in Germany from 1974 to 1978 he developed a rotary tattoo machine and in 1975 the barbell.
The apadravya, like the ampallang, is a genital piercing that passes through the glans. While the ampallang passes horizontally through the glans, the apadravya passes vertically through the glans from top to bottom, almost always placed centrally and passing through the urethra. It can be paired with an ampallang to form the magic cross. Off-center apadravyas are also possible, wherein the piercing is deliberately offset, yet usually still passes through the urethra. The piercing is often done on a slightly forward angle to the hips.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
