It seems like, these days, barely anyone has a single ear piercing anymore. We've moved on from lobes and auricles to forward helixes, conches, rooks, traguses... if there's part of an ear there, ...

"Piercing definitely finds its way into this category," says Megan Catherall, an expert body piercer at Pricking Thumbs Piercings who has over eight years of experience in the industry.

I never considered myself an earring person in my teens, maybe because what I wanted most of all then was to vanish. Sensitive, shy, mocked in my working-class school, I straightened the wild rumpus ...