Curious as to where the trend for nipple piercings came from? It actually dates back farther than you may think. We may think we're on the cutting edge now, but we're not the ones who started it all.

Let's go back to the time of the Roman Centurions. This is when nipple piercings are rumored to have begun. That is, however, just an urban legend. The only evidence of Romans having nipple piercings is from a photograph of a baroque statue in Versailles. The statue in the photo is wearing a breastplate with rings for attaching a cape. That's probably where it all got started. Although they were just breastplate piercings, Romans actually did pierce the foreskin. So, there are some skeptics who think it's fair to assume that a certain number of Roman fetishists also applied these piercings to actual nipples, not just breastplate ones.

Moving on to the Karankawa Native Americans, they are an extinct nomadic people that previously inhabited the Gulf Coast of Texas who would pierce both nipples and their lower lip with small pieces of cane. (Ouch! Can I just take non piercing nipple jewelry instead, please?) Apparently, it’s a wonder they could even heal those piercings without terrible infections. They’d smear their bodies with a mixture of alligator or shark grease and dirt. I’m just going to assume the grease has some sort of antiseptic qualities. Although that tribe is long gone, nipple piercing is still practiced in the Mountains of Algeria, by women of the nomadic Kabyle tribe.

If we jump over to the 14th century, you’ll discover nipple piercing becoming very popular among women. Many women, during that time, wore necklines that were so low, you could nearly see half their breasts. Some upper class garments, introduced by Queen Isabella of Bavaria, were actually open to the navel. Of course, such little coverage led to freely displaying nipples and dressing them up with rouge. Eventually, the rogue to make them “little apples of paradise” wasn’t quite enough decoration, and diamond-studded ring or small caps were used to give them more flare. Those, of course, were non piercing body jewelry, but piercing them eventually followed. When pierced, they were adorned with gold nipple chains that were decorated with diamonds.

Then, in the late 1890s, Parisian women started to catch onto the trend. Many expensive jewelry shops started selling what was called the "Bosom Ring". They were a ring for each nipple and were often linked with a delicate chain. Although the medical community was outraged by the cosmetic procedure due to it representing a rejection of the traditional conceptions of the purpose of a woman's body, "Vogue" fully embraced the new jewelry craze, because many women fond it liberating and pleasurable.

After the 1890s, however, interest in nipple piercing dwindled and almost faded out of existence except for one woman who revived it. That woman was Ethel Granger, a piercing legend. By World War II, she had both her nipples pierced, over ten ear piercings in each ear, and numerous other body piercings that would leave most of us in awe.

From then on, a good number of European and American men and women were having their nipples pierced. Female piercings were generally performed within the fashion-conscious and affluent classes, whereas male piercings were practiced by men of the working class fringe. After finding out that sailors and carnies were getting nipple piercings, too, the fashionable folk quickly dropped the practice.

(Just an extra note, this saying goes along with sailors who were said to be pierced as an initiation for crossing certain latitudes: "sailors with pierced nipples adding links for each time the sailor crossed the equator.")

During the hippie days of self-exploration, nipple piercing made a comeback. You can find the roots of modern Body Modification and SM communities during this time. Many men were starting to take interest in nipple piercing, too.

And then there’s the 20th century, which brought a flurry of books on sex, including the The Golden Age of Erotica. This book explained the craze of the 1890s and reignited interest in piercing. Compared to those who came before us, there’s a multitude of ways to adorn nipples, and we try each and every one of them. No class is limited to it either. Even famous people have nipple piercings.

Would I do it? No way. I’m a wimp, and I’m going to take advantage of modern society’s abundance of non piercing body jewelry from NippleCharms.com. It’s just as beautiful, and much less painful.

By the way, this article was commissioned by NippleCharms.com. There’s lots of beautiful jewelry for the pierced and non-pierced, so be sure to check them out!