Nipple Piercings, Convention, 1980s. (Patreon)

Nipple piercings, performed by Jack Yount at an unnamed tattoo convention, 1980s. 

Next week, a little bit more than two miles from my house, there's going to be a tattoo convention in Philadelphia. Ignoring, for the moment, that it's a mass gathering during a global pandemic and the ethical ramifications of hosting any convention much less a tattoo convention are questionable at best, this convention is usually one of the biggest in the country, if not the world. 

I can't say how the pandemic is going to affect the normal attractions, because god knows in 2022 a tattoo convention has to have more than, say, tattooing to attract a crowd, but normally there would sideshow acts or hook suspension; several years back the host offered my own Scar Wars project it's own section at the convention, and the last year I attended there was piercing being performed openly on the convention floor. 

When Jack performed the pictured nipple piercings, however, tattoo shows weren't quite as welcoming of piercing, with most of the bigger cons not only disallowing piercers to work the events, but with attendees with visible body piercings shunned or more bluntly asked to leave. 

One of the more nodally significant conventions, when it comes to piercing as entertainment and as an unwelcome attraction was the International Tattoo Artist’s Association (ITAA) convention held in Reno, Nevada in 1977. 

Fakir Musafar cited the Reno show as his official coming out, at least for his Fakir persona*, doing performances that included pulling a wagon with ropes attached to his pectoral piercings, and having cinderblocks broken over his back (while on a bed of nails) by a visibly pierced Sid Diller (wearing a giant CBR in his septum). 

It was the same convention that Doug Malloy and Jim Ward manned a Gauntlet booth, piercing several volunteers on the convention floor, and earning the ire of some of the tattoo artists present, ending with the ITAA voting to ban piercings from their event. 

"Since Ed Hardy had brought the subject of piercings up at the I.T.A.A. Reno Convention in 1977 (he felt, as did the overwhelming majority of Artists there that piercing did not belong at a Tattoo convention and should not be linked to tattooing. I.T.A.A.Members voted there and then not to have piercing at future conventions) it was decided on (by the suggestion of Bob Shaw) not to allow facial tattoos or piercings at the National Tattoo Conventions. This was to be a Convention to promote Tattooing and only Tattooing."  - (citation) 

I think a lot about this - that piercing was welcome as a spectacle but not something analogous to tattooing, which was just beginning to earn mainstream respect. Tattooers of the era were making inroads with presenting tattooing as a legitimate folk art, and anything that compromised that was swiftly rejected. Years later, we'd see the 'establishment' piercing veterans following a similar path, vilifying extreme body modification for fear of it's connection to piercing bringing legal/social pushback to the mainstreaming of piercing. 

None of that has anything to do with Jack or these piercings, but I'm occasionally guilty about waxing poetic...