Body piercing in India
This article has been compiled from a series of interviews by Robin Roberts in 2008 and 2009. All of the ladies are of Indian descent, and I thank them here for allowing me to interview them, and for their very candid answers.
The first lady is 41 years old, married for about twenty years.
Both the right and left sides of her nose were pierced when she reached puberty, age about 13 or 14.
During the years between puberty and 19, she had eight rings installed in right and left ears.
Between ages 17 and 19, she had five piercings each in her upper and lower lip and her tongue. These fifteen piercings each had a post installed. She also had five pairs of rings installed in her right and left labia majora.
Her parents arranged a marriage with her husband, and she was married at age 21.
During the wedding ceremony, the groom’s family jeweler pierced her septum. He then installed a gold chain from the top ring of her left ear, through the septum piercing and connected it to the top ring of her right ear.
In the groom’s family, women are not allowed to speak to anyone outside of the close family. During the wedding ceremony, she removed the fifteen posts in her lips and tongue and inserted five longer posts that enter the lower lip, pass through the tongue piercing, and then through the upper lip, thereby preventing speech. Shortly after the wedding, the five long posts were removed and the fifteen short posts were reinstalled. Whenever the family plans to go to an event or function where men outside the family might be present, the five long lip-tongue-lip posts replace the fifteen original posts.
As part of the wedding ceremony, a gold plate with ten slots in it was installed as a chastity plate. Each of the ten rings of her labia is put through matching slots in the plate. A rod is then threaded through five rings on the left and another through five rings on the right and a lock is used to prevent the plate’s removal.
The family jeweler has been employed by the groom’s family for many years and has officiated at more than a dozen of these wedding ceremonies.
The next lady is from the state of Andhra Pradesh. She is 44 and has been married for 22 years. Her family has retained a jeweler for 40 to 45 years.
She had both sides of her nose pierced when she reached puberty. When she reached 16, five sets of rings were installed in her labia. These rings were installed over a protracted period of time by her family jeweler.
Although six ear piercings are required, she has eleven piercings in each ear. The largest of these measures 1 cm. The piercings were done over a long period of time from puberty until just before her marriage. She has a chain that goes around the back of her head, enters the middle hole, and goes to the uppermost hole one both right and left ear.
Each of her breasts has two piercings, and each is covered with a cup. The first is a nipple piercing which is a barbell. The second piercing goes through the breast close to her body. A large hollow needle pierced her breast, and a 5 to 6cm chain was threaded through the needle, and the needle was then removed. This chain has remained in place, and her flesh has grown around the chain, making it now impossible to be removed. Each chain is then used to hold the breast cup in place. Each of the cups has a hinged tip, which can be opened for access to her nipples, otherwise, they are locked shut. She said that the cups have been a family tribal tradition for a long time.
Her wedding ceremony was about two hours long. In the first hour, the bride and the groom had separate ceremonies during which they chanted Sanskrit prayers before a fire. The bride and groom joined each other for the second hour, chanting more Hindu prayers.
Immediately after the ceremony, the couple retired to the groom’s house. A few days after the wedding, the mother of the groom visited the bride and inspected her. The lock on her breast cups was changed and the key was presented to the husband. A chastity plate with ten slots in it was installed by threading each of her labial rings through the slots. A rod was threaded through five rings, right and left, and then locked in place. The key to the locked plate was presented to the husband.
Once married, she now uses the jeweler of her husbands’ family, and no longer visits the jeweler of her mother.
Soon after her marriage, she was placed on a bed, face down. Her husband and her mother held her as she was branded by his family jeweler on the buttocks with a heated glyph of his family name. The glyph is in Sanskrit and contains a small symbol of his family name.
See also [ About Piercing ]
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